Airbnb has been introducing AI features within its app over time, and CEO Brian Chesky said Friday that the company plans to include features that leverage large-scale language models to help users search for properties, plan trips and help hosts manage their properties.
Chesky said on the company’s fourth quarter conference call that the company wants to increase its use of large-scale language models for customer discovery, support and engineering.
“We’re building an AI-native experience where the app doesn’t just search you, it knows you. This helps guests plan their entire trip, helps hosts run their businesses better, and helps companies operate efficiently at scale,” he said.
The company separately said it is testing new features that will allow users to search and ask questions about real estate and locations using natural language queries.
Currently, Airbnb offers a customer service bot powered by LLM for some personalization and communications. The new AI search feature is expected to “evolve into a more comprehensive and intuitive search experience across your journey.”
Asked by an analyst whether Airbnb would roll out sponsored accommodation slots within AI search, Chesky said the company wants to get the design and user experience right first.
“Right now, AI search is being used for a small portion of our traffic. We’re doing a lot of experimentation. Over time, we’ll be experimenting with making AI search more conversational and incorporating it into things other than travel, and eventually we’ll look at sponsored listings as a result of that,” Chesky said, adding that Airbnb will consider designing ad units that fit into conversational search flows.
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Chesky said Airbnb plans to leverage the AI expertise of its new chief technology officer, Ahmad Aldar (who previously worked on Meta’s Llama model), to tap into its trove of identity and review data to make the app more useful.
Airbnb claimed that its AI-powered customer support bots, introduced in North America last year, can now handle a third of customer issues without the need for human intervention. Chesky said there are plans to allow customers to call the AI bot for assistance, and there are also plans to expand customer support languages.
“A year from now, if we are successful, more than 30% of tickets will be handled by custom service agents in more languages and in every language we have agents on staff. AI customer service will be voice, not just chat,” he said.
The company is also looking to increase its use of AI within the company. Airbnb says 80% of its engineers use AI tools, but the goal is to get that to 100%.
Airbnb reported better-than-expected revenue of $2.78 billion in the fourth quarter, up 12% year-over-year.
