Airbnb plans to integrate AI features for search, discovery, and support

Airbnb has taken its time to launch artificial intelligence features within the app, but CEO Brian Chesky said Friday that the company now plans to incorporate features powered by large language models that will help users search for listings, plan their trips, and help hosts manage their properties.

Speaking on the company’s Q4 conference call, Chesky said the company wants to increase its use of big language models for customer discovery, support and engineering.

“We’re building an AI-driven experience where the app doesn’t just look for you, it knows you. It will help guests plan their entire trip, help hosts manage their business better, and help the company operate more efficiently at scale,” he added.

The company separately said it is testing a new feature that allows users to search and ask questions about properties and locations using natural language queries.

Currently, Airbnb offers a customer service bot powered by LLM, for some customization and communication. The new AI-powered search feature is expected to evolve into a more comprehensive and intuitive search experience that extends throughout the journey.

Asked by an analyst if Airbnb would roll out AI search-powered property openings, Chesky said the company wants to get the design and user experience right first.

“AI search is available for a very small percentage of traffic right now. We’re doing a lot of experimentation,” Chesky said. Over time, we will experiment with making AI search more conversational, integrating it into more of the journey, and eventually, we will consider sponsor listings as a result,” he said, adding that Airbnb will consider designing an ad unit that fits the flow of conversational search.

Chesky said Airbnb plans to leverage the AI ​​expertise of its new CTO, Ahmed Al Dahla (who previously worked on Meta’s Llama models), to use its trove of identity and review data to make the app more useful.

Airbnb has claimed that its AI-powered customer support bot, which was launched in North America last year, now handles a third of customer issues without requiring any human intervention. Chesky noted that there are plans to enable customers to contact the AI ​​bot for support, and to expand language coverage for customer support as well.

“A year from now, if we are successful, more than 30% of tickets will be handled by a dedicated service agent, in many languages, and in all the languages ​​in which we have live agents,” he said. “AI customer service will not only be chat, it will be voice as well.”

The company is also considering increasing the use of artificial intelligence internally. Airbnb said 80% of its engineers use AI tools, but the goal is to reach 100%.

Airbnb reported better-than-expected revenue of $2.78 billion in the fourth quarter, up 12% from a year earlier.