Airbnb has reached a key milestone in AI deployment, with its custom AI now handling nearly a third of customer service requests in the US and Canada.
Trained on millions of past interactions, it manages routine tasks like booking changes via voice and chat. The firm plans global rollout, targeting over 30 per cent of worldwide tickets next year.
“We think this is going to be massive because not only does this reduce the cost base of Airbnb customer service, but the quality of service is going to be a huge step change,” CEO Brian Chesky said on the fourth-quarter earnings call. He believes AI outperforms humans on some issues, boosting efficiency.
Airbnb hired AI expert Ahmad Al-Dahle from Meta as CTO to build a personalised app that plans trips and aids hosts.
“It will help guests plan their entire trip, help hosts better run their businesses, and help the company operate more efficiently at scale,” Chesky explained.
“Ahmad is one of the world’s leading AI experts. He spent 16 years at Apple, and most recently led the generative AI team at Meta that built the Llama models. He’s an expert at pairing massive technical scale with world-class design, which is exactly how we’re going to transform the Airbnb experience,” he added.
Chesky also noted that generic chatbots lack Airbnb’s 200 million verified users, 500 million reviews, and host messaging used by 90 per cent of guests.
“A chatbot doesn’t have our 200 million verified identities or our 500 million proprietary reviews, and it can’t message the hosts, which 90% of our guests do,” he told analysts.
Q4 revenue hit $2.78 billion, topping $2.72 billion forecasts, with low double-digit growth expected. Chesky dismissed AI rivals, citing 18 years of infrastructure handling $100 billion in payments.
“We’ve built this over 18 years. We handle more than $100 billion in payments through the platform,” he said.
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