Google aims at Pinterest to guard ad revenue

If you want to redecorate your living room or find outfit ideas, you probably do not ask an AI chatbot to write you an essay. You go to Pinterest.

Now Google wants that attention back. According to The Information, Google is planning to unveil a new Pinterest-like feature at its annual I/O 2025 developer conference next week.

The tool is designed to serve visual inspiration for queries around fashion and interior design. Users will be able to see image-heavy results based on what they search for, and then save those images into themed folders. While comparisons to Pinterest are immediate, reports note it could also look a lot like Cosmos, a more stripped-down curation app that lets people save web content into clusters and share them with friends.

Why Google is building a digital mood board

This is not just about helping people pick curtains. It is about cold, hard ad dollars.

During a recent court hearing regarding its search monopoly, a Google executive admitted that the company has already been losing homework and math queries to ChatGPT. While homework help does not drive much ad revenue, commercial searches do, and Google knows those queries are inevitably at risk of migrating to AI as well.

Text-based chatbots still struggle to replicate the serendipity of scrolling through an aesthetic feed. By giving users an image-first way to discover products and browse visual ideas, Google hopes to retain commercial search queries that keep its core ads business running.

The Pinterest competitor is not the only thing coming to I/O 2025. Reports indicate Google may also showcase a software development lifecycle agent that flags bugs and security vulnerabilities for engineers, a voice-powered Gemini integration for Android XR glasses and headsets, and Gemini Live inside the desktop Chrome browser.

Why it matters

For everyday users and design enthusiasts, this could make Google Search genuinely useful for visual discovery again. Traditional Google Image Search is cluttered and clunky, so having native folders to collect outfits and home decor ideas could save you a trip to a third-party app.

For the tech landscape, this marks an important tactical shift in the AI search wars. Instead of trying to answer everything with a synthetic text summary, Google is retreating to where generative text bots are weakest: visual curation and shopping intent. That puts platforms like Pinterest, Cosmos, and Instagram squarely in Google's crosshairs.

We think leaning into visual discovery is a smart way to defend high-intent commercial searches that fund Google's empire. Conversational chatbots are great for debugging code, but terrible mood boards.

However, the execution risk is massive. Google has a notorious track record when it comes to social curation tools. If this ends up feeling like a clunky ad-stuffed widget rather than a genuinely tasteful inspiration engine, users will simply stick to dedicated platforms that already do it better.