Pinterest has said for a long time that it is not a social network, and that it is a discovery service, designed to connect people to products and ideas, as opposed to users to one another. On the one hand, that means that Pinterest does not compete directly with Facebook and, thus, it will not have the same valuation on the market and prospects. On the other hand, this is also enabling Pinterest's engineering team to focus more on experiences related to direct shopping and search instead of usual engagement and interaction options.

And this new innovation is, perhaps, a significant development on this front.

In 2017, Pinterest introduced the option of 'Shop the Look' Pins, which identifies specific items in a Pin image and links users to purchase pages for each relevant product. To date, that process has been paired with specific partner brands, using a combination of machine learning and human moderation to add in the relevant tags. But now, Pinterest is taking 'Shop the Look' to the next level - through advanced development, Pinterest will now fully automate the 'Shop the Look' process, starting with Home Decor Pins on iOS, which, Pinterest says, will increase its 'Shop The Look' Pin coverage 22.5x, and add significantly more direct buying options to its network.
It is designed to learn more about the products within each Pin frame using Pinterest's advanced image identification, which is constantly improved every day through its Pin Lens and other search options. The more people use Pinterest's image identification tools, the better its system gets and correctly picking out relevant products in each image - to the point now that Pinterest believes its system is accurate enough to identify said objects without human supervision.
Of course, that also changes 'Shop the Look' in that it is no longer directly aligned with partner brands. Businesses will still be able to link their products to relevant objects, but Pinterest will also be able to do much of the work without intervention. 

And worth noting:

Shop the Look will tag organic Pins that haven't been connected to a business account. For brands who don't want to be tagged, they can claim their domains.

As mentioned earlier, it is a huge surge in Pinterest's eCommerce prospects. Pinterest has more than 175 billion Pins, which can put into some perspective what the increase in 'Shop the Look' coverage could mean. Pinterest also has partnerships with several other eCommerce platforms, such as Shopify, which enhances its prospect of direct buying.

Obviously, Pinterest's 250 million monthly active users is well short of Facebook - and, more directly comparable, Facebook-owned Instagram - but again, the platform's unique discovery and product focus has helped it develop its own use case, carving out a more specifically defined niche within the digital marketplace.

And that also leads to even more opportunity for brands. If you haven't thought through the opportunities for Pinterest, it might be worth taking a step back to revisit what the platform provides, and how it continues to grow based on its behavior patterns.  

For an added source of insight as to what people are doing with Pinterest, the company also publishes its 'What's Hap-pin-in' trend report.