How to spot AI slop on Pinterest – and why it's such a big problem

For years, Pinterest has been dubbed the go-to social media site for inspirational mood boards, tracking lifestyle, fashion, and beauty trends, and finding niche and popular consumer-based products. Recently, however, the site has been plagued with an onslaught of AI slop, making it difficult for users to decipher what’s real, human-made content or fake.

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Because AI has infiltrated all of the popular Pinterest categories, much of the slop often links to AI-powered content farming sites that pose as DIY blogs, blending the AI-generated imagery with the site’s human-made content. This results in SEO spammers profiting off of the display ads attached to these content-farming pages.

AI inspo or AI slop?

The abundance of AI slop on Pinterest and other social media platforms, which are full of “inspo” or aspirational content, also hurts small businesses. According to the Washington Post, AI inspo refers to AI-generated photos that “customers find [and] reflect unattainable standards or incorporate impossible details, making it hard for real-world businesses to meet clients’ demands.”

As a result, small business owners have noticed an increase in the number of situations where they have to explain to their clients how to spot AI-generated imagery and why it’s not realistic inspiration, especially for events such as weddings or hairstyles and even plastic surgery.

How to spot AI slop on Pinterest

Most top results for searches I attempted, spanning from “nail art” to “cozy loft apartment interior design” and specific hairstyles ranging from “braided hairstyles” to “pixie cut styles for black women,” were rife with AI-generated pins.

Take a search for “braided hairstyles for black women,” which, compared to other hairstyle searches, is not flooded with AI-generated images. Still, after scrolling through the first couple of rows, I came across an AI-generated hairstyle that is not only hard to replicate in real life but is also linked to an AI-generated blog explicitly tailored for black women’s hairstyles.

I tried this again for a more common search like “comfort dinner recipes” and was immediately bombarded with AI-generated posts linked to spammy blog sites. All of the pinned recipes in the first row, except one, were AI-generated. They also seemed to have been created by fake food bloggers with AI-generated profiles.

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For example, the first recipe that comes up, “Marry me chicken pasta,” has about 2K likes and 500 comments; however, the so-called food blogger behind the post, “Emilia,” has no last name, and her profile pic is obviously AI. Like other fake food blogs, the person running the site claims to be a “busy mom” interested in “family-friendly” quick-to-make meals but advises site viewers that some recipes may be tagged with affiliate links — usually Amazon.

This was common amongst food-related searches, like “easy breakfast ideas,” where the top pins are generally AI-generated images of popular food dishes linked to fake blog websites helmed by generic mononyms.

How to avoid AI slop on Pinterest

To avoid AI slop, I recommend being as specific as possible when it comes to popular searches. For food content, I found that searches such as “low-calorie meals” or “high-protein vegan recipes for breakfast” had fewer AI-generated pins. Even though most pins are linked to blogs, they appeared to be free of AI-generated profiles and run by actual people.

However, the platform’s abundant amount of AI slop spans numerous topics and searches, and it’s hard to pinpoint how to navigate that as a user looking for human-made content, especially for more instructional DIY pins like recipes or home decor projects.

For instance, when I searched “studio apartment layout ideas,” it appeared clear of AI slop. Still, after a closer look, I noticed that the top pins used pictures of actual studio apartments to entice users to click on them. Then, they redirected me to AI-generated blogs with listicles of AI-generated images of apartments with little to no instructional advice about layout design.

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I noticed that the images were AI-generated because they had an unnatural sheen. Upon looking closely, objects in the photos, such as plants or books, looked fake. And the books also never had titles on them.

It’s important to note that many of these content-farming pages that use AI images and text are run by SEO spammers who use various AI models to generate dozens of fake articles on an AI-generated site under counterfeit names that they then pin to Pinterest for click-based revenue.

Pinterest’s recent AI pivot

Currently, Pinterest is in the experimentation phase in regards to labeling generative AI-enhanced content on the site. Also, the social media site recently introduced Pinterest Performance+, a suite of ad-focused AI tools for marketers who want to create ads for products using Gen AI. Moreover, as Pinterest enters the e-commerce space and continues to move away from the aspirational content the platform was built on, AI slop will be a recurring issue. 

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According to a Pinterest spokesperson, “Impressions on Gen AI content make up a small percentage of the total impressions on Pinterest. As people continue experimenting with Gen AI content, we are working to provide users with more control and context over the content they see on Pinterest. Pinterest will continue intentionally leveraging AI, such as our inclusive AI features, to enhance the experience for our users and creators.”

“We have been building labeling of AI-generated or modified content to provide relevant context to users about what they see on Pinterest. We’ll continue to expand these labels in the coming months.”