Pinterest rolled out new visual search function to platforms

Pinterest has strengthened its search ability with ‘Visual Search’. It’s been very difficult for users to find a specific product till today. That is not the case now. Pinterest is continuously improving its search ability. Previously through ‘related pins’ and ‘guided search’ and now using ‘Visual Search’. Both related pins and guided search use the pinners created signals while ‘visual search’ uses the image reorganization signals. Visual search is really a fun tool to find a specific product on the platform

As shown in the GIF below, visual search tool lets you zoom in on a specific object in the pin’s image and provide you with the similar pins available on the platform. You don’t need to know any specification about the product you are looking for. Just visually search the product and Pinterest will tell you all the details about that product and will also let you buy that product directly from there. Buying random decoration props or flashing lights has become so simple and exciting now. Isn’t it?

Pinterest uses new machine learning technology and distributed search and index system to provide most appropriate search results. Andrew Zhai, a software engineer in Visual Search team has explained the process in official blog post, “To find visually similar results for a Pin, we consider the similarity scores of a given feature to billions of other features. In order to do this task efficiently, we built a distributed index and search system (using open-source tools) that allows us to scale to billions of images and find thousands of visually similar results in a fraction of a second.”

You can find dozens of interesting items in pin’s image. Be it a stylish chair or an elegant wine glass or even ancient wall piece, all you can find using the visual search. Pinterest has opened up endless opportunities for searchers by introducing the visual search tool. The company has given a new tool to users to learn about the new items and help them finding interesting ideas. Pinterest provides you the visually similar results in real time. This new search function is now available for all users globally. Be it the mobile app or web platform, all users from web, iOS and android can utilize this feature now.

Pinterest is putting lots of efforts in e-commerce development. The company has recently started separate ‘Pinterest Shop’ for the ease of online shoppers and also made ‘Buyable Pins’ available for Android users. Now with visual search, Pinterest has defiantly strengthened the product discovery for all users. The company will keep on updating the visual search feature. We have to wait and see how it will affect the e-commerce aspect. But it looks very effective as of now. Have you this new text less visual search feature? It is damn cool. I personally liked it. What is your take? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.