Despite Silicon Valley’s certified A.I. craze, AirBnb (ABNB) isn’t so eager to embrace the new technology just yet—at least, not across the company’s core business of travel planning. “I don’t think it’s quite ready for prime time,” Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s chief executive, told analysts yesterday (Feb. 13) during the company’s quarterly earnings call.
That doesn’t mean he isn’t excited about its possibilities. The technology will profoundly transform the travel industry one day, according to Chesky. But for now, Airbnb is taking baby steps towards A.I. by experimenting with its impacts on customer service.
Later this year, Airbnb will roll out A.I.-powered customer support that can offer multi-lingual support and read through the millions of contracts the company handles annually. The customer service A.I. agent will eventually “graduate” by expanding into Airbnb’s search and becoming “a travel and living concierge,” said Chesky.
A.I. is also already being utilized by Airbnb engineers, a strategy Chesky said has already resulted in small “productivity gains.” Major payoffs, however, have yet to be had. “I don’t think it’s flowing to a fundamental step-change in productivity yet,” Chesky said, adding that the technology could result in a roughly 30 percent productivity increase in a few years’ time.
Hesitation towards A.I. hasn’t appeared to hurt Airbnb’s business. During the October-December quarter, Airbnb’s revenue rose 12 percent year-over-year to $2.5 billion while profit surged 24 percent to $461 million. Both figures beat Wall Street expectations, sending Airbnb stock up nearly 15 percent today.
The “Amazon” of travel
Yesterday, Airbnb also announced plans to invest up to $250 million throughout 2025 to on new business opportunities that will be unveiled in May. “This is the year you’ll see the beginning of a new Airbnb,” Chesky told analysts. The grand vision is to create an “Airbnb app kind of similar to Amazon (AMZN),” one that operates as the go-to place “for all of your traveling and living needs,” he added.
While the initial launches will align more closely to Airbnb’s current travel focus, Chesky said he plans to take a page out of Amazon’s book by moving “further and further away from our core.” Amazon started off as an online bookseller in the 1990s before it began offering other media like DVDs and CDs, eventually expanding into the entire retail space and digital entertainment. “We’re going to probably follow that path,” said Chesky.
The CEO is hoping that the company’s new trajectory will bring more active users. While Airbnb is currently accessed by 1.6 billion devices annually, users typically only go to the platform once or twice a year—a figure Chesky is hoping will eventually become once or twice a week. “We’re now ready for this next chapter to expand beyond our core, where Airbnb is just a place to stay,” he said.
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