Pinterest, particularly within the last few years, has made diversity such a much bigger focus, with technological advance that aims to provide evermore inclusive options, while its internal shift is specifically to prioritize breadth of perspective.
Which, given this rising relevance of the application as an eCommerce platform is quite an important element toward displaying diverse products and creators, on one hand, and maximizing its inclusions among those actually seeking relevant products.

To get a bit deeper on this, we just recently spoke with Jeremy King, the SVP of Technology at Pinterest. Jeremy has provided an overview on what the platform has in store for maximizing inclusivity, why it is such an important focus for the platform and further what's to be in its future on that aspect.
As Jeremy shares,

We believe it is our responsibility as a visually driven company to consider what it actually means to properly see oneself in the product, however one identifies.

Learn more from Jeremy on what Pinterest is doing differently for this pivotal aspect.

Q: In what ways do you have seen key usage impacts in consequence of Pinterest's inclusiveness efforts?
JK: One of the largest successes in our diversification work over the last few years has been in diversifying the data and training the models on diverse content. That work has allowed us to be able to serve more diverse recommendations, which have increased engagement and searches. We have also introduced skin tone ranges with our Try On product, bringing an augmented reality layer to our platform.
With AR Try On with skin tone ranges, we found Pinners are 5x more likely to show purchase intent on Pins with AR than standard Pins. And AR is a better product because it allows for diverse searching and filtering. We're continuing to bring inclusivity to these key products.

Building for diversity and representation isn't the right thing to do; it is the best thing for our global business.

Pinterest has always been a place of positivity, inspiration, and relevance. To help people feel inspired, we need to intentionally engineer the technology in ways that advance that positivity (our latest example is our decision to ban weight loss ads-the first in the industry).

Q: How many users is using the skin tone search on Pinterest?
JK: Skin tone ranges is a feature that we have been rolling out all around the world. And that's currently live in 14 markets. When launching across regions, we actually do focus on showing people the local and relevant content that might be in results when it appears for Pinners when searching and refining beauty results that might be best for them. One of the most significant beauty platforms globally with more than 80 million people searching for beauty ideas every month, Pinterest has witnessed a rise of 5 times more Pinners using the skin tone range feature to look for beauty ideas on the platform in the last one year.
Q: Of the elements of Pinterest's systems that you've identified as impacted by existing bias?
JK: We have been working on inclusive products since we launched the first version of our skin tone ranges in 2018 and have continued to invest in integrating inclusive tech into many areas, including augmented reality.
We built our skin tone ranges because we realized we had biases in our search results that weren't properly personalizing for each person. We learned from Pinners that they have a hard time finding relevant search results for the specific skin tone range and add text to queries in hopes of finding the most relevant ideas. Being a visual platform, our solution was making it easy to filter searches with a palette that represents a range of skin tones. As we continued to invest in improving the technology and models and diversifying the data, we began to mitigate the bias in results.

Q: What else is Pinterest working on to remove bias from the shopping experience?
JK: When we approach innovation, we look at the ways people are already using Pinterest and work to make it the most inclusive, inspirational and actionable experience we can. This includes making it easy to find ideas that work best for you, see recommendations of how it could work or fit, and make it easy to purchase. As one of the most popular categories on Pinterest, we first tackled beauty with skin tone ranges and later AR Try on, and we'll continue to expand upon these categories.

We remain focused on creators and shopping as key product areas. We continue to strive to make it easier for people to find products and ideas from creators who are underrepresented. In addition, we're using the commercial intent that people come to Pinterest with to introduce shopping features in ways that feel natural on the platform. And then there's everything else, done inclusively and authentically. For example, with AR Try on, you're not going to find any skin smoothing or altering features in our AR, which makes it much more actual reality than augmented.
Q: What would you say to brands wanting to be more inclusive?
JK: For platforms and those handling data, it's important to diversify that data. You may be in a situation where your dataset is biased due to your customer base, and you may need to source new data you might not have. That can get expensive, and there may be a moment where you are balancing cost vs. benefit, but diversifying the data and mitigating bias in the AI now will pay off in the long run. This applies to any one working in the AI domain.

All companies should be making efforts concerning the increase of diversity that needs to be seen and fostered among AI researches and engineers so as to ensure that future technology also works for everyone. It will be a grave injustice to create a technological future that only works within the confines of a subset population of people. Tech is a long way from solving bias through AI, but we may strive every day to ensure there is more compassion brought to tech.

Diversify the content and ensure representation across creators who represent your brand. Work with-and pay-research and focus groups consisting of communities of color so that the products, design and services you're delivering is representative. And, it should be easy to find and support businesses owned by people from underrepresented groups.

We always say, you can't be inspired if you don't feel represented. Brands must ensure that their community - and the community they want in the future - can see themselves in their offerings.

Jeremy King is the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Pinterest, and was formerly the Chief Tecnology Officer at Walmart for eight years. You can follow Jeremy on Twitter.