Pinterest, the San Francisco-based company that invites users to make digital pinboards reflecting their lives, said it plans to cut staff and office space in the year ahead as it focuses more spending on artificial intelligence.
The company will cut up to 15% of its workforce this year and reduce its real estate to support “transformation initiatives” that reallocate resources to adopting artificial intelligence-focused “roles and teams," the firm said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It wasn’t clear how many employees might be affected and when, and it didn't provide specifics on planned office closings beyond mentioning that the AI shift would result in real estate consolidation.
The company had 4,666 full-time employees at the end of 2024, according to its most recent annual report.
The planned reductions come as Pinterest has invested in new offices in some cities. The company recently moved into a 21,000-square-foot office on the top floor of the Synapse Building in Culver City, marking its first significant expansion in the city.
Photos posted by Pinterest executives on LinkedIn show that the new office at 8888 Washington Blvd. in the Hayden Tract area of Culver City features mid-century modern-style furniture including caterpillar sofas and director's chairs — in keeping with the Hollywood theme — and a pink neon sign that reads "Pinterest Los Angeles."
Last year, the company also doubled its footprint in Manhattan, inking a new long-term lease spanning about 83,000 square feet at an art deco building near Madison Square Park. Pinterest’s headquarters are in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, and it also has offices in Toronto, Seattle, Palo Alto, California, and Chicago as well as several international locations.
Pinterest didn’t respond to a request for comment from CoStar News on the recent job cuts.
It didn't provide further details about where it might plan to reduce or shutter office space. The 16-year-old firm has undertaken a strategy of investing in visual search technology and AI in an effort to win over more young Gen Z users under the leadership of CEO Bill Ready, who took the helm in 2022.
'White-collar bloodbath'
Ready has stressed that the company is investing heavily in visual search technology and, of course, artificial intelligence. Pinterest had more than 500,000 square feet of office space around the world as of the end of 2024, according to its annual report.
Earlier that year, the company subleased most of its 150,000-square-foot offices in San Francisco at 505 Brannan St. to Amsterdam-based fintech firm Adyen. It still occupies just under 120,000 square feet at 651 Brannan St.
Pinterest is not alone in shifting its resources. Seattle-based giant Amazon could slice thousands more white-collar jobs as part of a broader plan to trim some 30,000 corporate workers.
Software firm Autodesk recently announced a global restructuring including cutting 7% of its workforce, shrinking by around 1,000 jobs. In a letter from Chief Executive Andrew Anagnost to employees that accompanied an SEC filing he wrote: “These changes are not driven by the external environment or an effort to replace people with AI.”
He added: “We remain steadfast in our belief that technology is only as powerful as the people who use it and humans will always be the most important part of the equation.”
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this month, JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said he’d welcome government bans on companies replacing masses of workers with robots, while Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei reiterated his famous 2025 warning of a “white-collar job bloodbath” as a result of AI, saying he believed AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and push unemployment as high as 20%.
Amodei predicted there would be an AI model capable of replacing software engineers within six to 12 months.