Airbnb: Chesky Leads with Internal AI and Announces an Agent

Key Takeaways

1Brian Chesky claims to run Airbnb with an AI "brain" trained on internal data

2The AI has reportedly halved his meetings and launched over 600 new features this year

3Nearly half of customer support is now automated by AI

4A KPMG survey shows that the majority of American CEOs are investing in AI despite reservations

Why it matters : The integration of AI is transforming Airbnb's management and services, while also aligning with a broader trend of major companies investing in this technology.

The CEO of Airbnb claims to have built an AI "brain" to monitor activity and halve his meetings. He also announces an AI agent expected next year, while the company boasts hundreds of new features and the automation of part of its support.

Airbnb is preparing an AI agent and claims over 600 new features

Brian Chesky announces that next year, Airbnb will launch an AI agent whose interface will be, according to him, much richer than a simple chatbot. He recalls having previously discussed the possibility of offering agents capable of booking trips. Chesky also states that AI has enabled Airbnb to launch over 600 features this year, nearly double that of last year.

Customer service partially automated by AI

According to Brian Chesky, nearly half of the requests addressed to Airbnb's customer service are now handled by AI. This automation is presented as one of the tangible effects of integrating these tools into the company.

An internal AI "brain" to monitor activity and reduce meetings

Brian Chesky explains that he has designed an AI "brain" to help him lead Airbnb and reduce the time spent in meetings by half. Presented at the Skift Global Forum, this system aims to allow the CEO to understand what is happening in the company without multiplying meetings. The AI has been trained on 18,000 Keynote slides, 50,000 Google documents, and other internal information, and relies on several dashboards. Chesky claims that this layer of intelligence now gives him complete information about the company and reiterates that he has halved his meetings. When asked about personally launching a product or an update, he answers affirmatively, specifying that it is not intended for customers.

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Divided executives: caution over hype, rising investments

According to Brian Chesky, many CEOs are unaware of what is happening within their companies, which, in his view, encourages the increased adoption of AI. According to a study conducted by KPMG among 100 CEOs of large American companies, 77% believe that generative AI has likely been overestimated, but its potentially disruptive impact over a period of five to ten years remains likely underestimated. Nearly 80% of the surveyed executives claim to allocate at least 5% of their investment budgets for 2026 to AI. For his part, Chesky aims to make Airbnb an AI-native company, claims to be nearly at that stage with a convinced leadership team, and has set a personal goal to be as comfortable with AI as if he had grown up with the technology.