Could OpenAI be looking to acquire Pinterest as part of its expanded data push?
That’s one of the rumors that’s gaining traction, after it was highlighted in a predictions post that was published by The Information last week.
According to The Information, OpenAI may be considering making a move on Pinterest in order to lock up more human-generated data insights, particularly around product searches. That could then help build out ChatGPT as a shopping tool, and provide it with more ad revenue opportunities.
Which makes sense. OpenAI is currently at something of a disadvantage against Meta, xAI and Google in this regard, because it doesn’t have a social or search network to draw real-time user insight from, relying instead on third-party data sources to power ChatGPT and its other offerings.
And with businesses now recognizing the value of their data for AI training purposes, that could make it even harder for OpenAI to keep bringing in relevant insights, while its competitors will continue to feed in billions of data points daily to keep their systems fresh.
OpenAI has signed various data deals to counter this, including agreements with news publishers News Corp and Conde Naste, and most recently, a content licensing partnership with Disney, which will enable Sora and ChatGPT users to generate AI depictions of Disney characters.
But those agreements are costly, and as such, OpenAI could benefit from acquiring a social app in order to feed in relevant engagement data, and track insights into search trends, related products, brand insights, etc.
Pinterest, of course, has its own AI tools, and has developed industry-leading product search algorithms and systems, helping to drive more shopping-related activity in the app. And with 600 million monthly active users, and rising, Pinterest is building a solid business in its own right, and has established itself as a key discovery platform, and a valuable connector in the online shopping space.
But that could indeed be very valuable to OpenAI, and a merging of the two would create a much stronger foundation for both to combat competition from the other players in their respective spaces.
So could OpenAI be looking to acquire Pinterest? Yes, it definitely could, and it should be considering such a move, as both look to build their presence. The risk for OpenAI is that it can’t monetize fast enough to justify its expenses, and eventually, its competitors overtake it in relevance and value, as it loses connection due to lack of data insight.
OpenAI stocks rose 3% the day after The Information posted its predictions report last week.
