Airbnb Accelerates with AI and Tests New Search Feature

Airbnb Bets on AI to Accelerate Its Innovations

Airbnb has embraced artificial intelligence to boost the development of its products, although the rollout of consumer-facing features is progressing at a more moderate pace. Earlier this year, the company revealed that AI was responsible for writing 60% of its code. During the latest financial results presentation, Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, emphasized that AI enables the company to create features at an unprecedented speed.

Chesky specified that thanks to AI, Airbnb has managed to reduce the time required to go from design to market launch of new features by 60%.

"Today, we are building, testing, and iterating faster than we were a year ago. For some of our key initiatives, we have reduced the design-to-launch time by 60%. Compared to the six months of last year, we have increased the number of features and improvements we delivered this year by nearly 80%," he stated during the second-quarter earnings call.

The Impact of AI on Internal Processes

AI has allowed Airbnb to enhance various aspects of its operations, including search, listing, payment, and the checkout process. The company has also introduced features to make life easier for hosts, such as a faster onboarding flow.

However, the adoption of consumer-oriented AI features by Airbnb has been slower, primarily limited to elements like review summaries and highlights of listings.

A New Approach to AI-Powered Search

So far, Chesky has maintained that integrating a chatbot-like interface would not be effective for travel-related use cases. The company has therefore focused on developing AI for search, discovery, and support.

During the earnings call, Chesky announced that the company would finally begin testing AI-powered search. Even with this new test, Airbnb does not wish to impose AI search on customers accustomed to the current search and filtering function of the app. To this end, Airbnb is adding a switch that allows users to switch to AI search, where they can type in natural language to get results, which would be presented in a visual format.

"The titles [in the response] could actually be generated by AI, and they can be conversational as if you were reading a chatbot, but in a more visual way. Then, you arrive at the product description page, and the highlights are generated by AI in real-time and personalized for you," Chesky said.

AI in Customer Support

Behind the scenes, customer support is an area where Airbnb has extensively deployed AI. The company launched its AI-powered bot in North America in 2025, and this year, it has expanded it to over 50 languages, with plans to make it available for voice calls later this year.

The company indicated that nearly 45% of customer issues that start with its AI agent are resolved without any human intervention. As a result, the support cost per booking has decreased by 16% year-over-year.

Positive Financial Results

Airbnb reported positive results for the quarter ending in June, with revenue up 17% year-over-year, reaching $3.6 billion, and adjusted EBITDA up 21%, reaching $1.3 billion.