Airbnb is gearing up to introduce AI-driven enhancements to its app, aiming to revolutionize how users search for accommodations, plan their trips, and assist hosts in property management. CEO Brian Chesky announced on Friday that the company plans to leverage large language models to improve customer discovery, support, and engineering. During the fourth-quarter earnings call, Chesky emphasized the goal of creating an AI-native experience that goes beyond simple searches. "Our app will understand and assist users throughout their entire journey, enabling guests to plan comprehensive trips and helping hosts manage their businesses more effectively," he explained.
Airbnb is also testing a new feature that allows users to search and ask questions about listings and destinations using natural language. Currently, the platform offers a language model-powered customer service bot for some level of personalization and communication. The newly anticipated AI search feature aims to develop into a more comprehensive and intuitive tool that enhances the travel experience from start to finish.
When asked about the potential for sponsored property slots within AI search results, Chesky stated that the company is focused on perfecting the design and user experience before moving forward. "The AI search is currently live for a limited audience. We are conducting numerous experiments to make it more conversational and integrated into the overall travel experience. Eventually, we may consider incorporating sponsored listings," Chesky added, noting the possibility of designing ad units that align with the conversational search model.
Airbnb is set to benefit from the expertise of its new CTO, Ahmad Al-Dahle, formerly of Meta's Llama project, to harness its extensive data on user identities and reviews. The company's AI-powered customer support bot, launched in North America last year, now resolves a third of customer issues autonomously. Chesky highlighted plans to enable customers to interact with the AI bot via phone and expand its language capabilities across all regions where Airbnb operates. "In a year, we aim to have over 30% of support requests handled by AI in all the languages we support, transitioning from chat to voice interactions," he said.
Internally, Airbnb is also increasing its reliance on AI. While 80% of its engineers currently use AI tools, the goal is to reach full adoption. The company reported a revenue of $2.78 billion for the fourth quarter, marking a 12% increase compared to the previous year.