Airbnb says a third of its customer support is now handled by AI in the US and Canada

Airbnb says its custom-built AI agent is now resolving roughly a third of its customer support issues across the U.S. and Canada, and the company is preparing to expand the tool globally. If the rollout goes as planned, Airbnb expects that within a year, more than 30% of its customer support tickets will be handled by AI voice and chat across every language in which the company employs human customer service staff.

"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 during Airbnb's fourth-quarter earnings call this week, suggesting he believes the AI agent will outperform humans in resolving some categories of support issues.

Airbnb also highlighted its recent hiring of CTO Ahmad Al-Dahle, who joined from Meta and is known for deep AI expertise, alongside the company's broader ambition to build an AI-native experience across its products.

With Al-Dahle's direction, Chesky said Airbnb is positioned to deliver an app that doesn't simply search results for users, but one that "knows you."

"It will help guests plan their entire trip, help hosts better run their businesses, and help the company operate more efficiently at scale," Chesky said, describing why Airbnb brought Al-Dahle into the role.

"Ahmad is one of the world's leading AI experts. He spent 16 years at Apple and most recently led Meta's generative AI team, which 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," Chesky added.

Like many companies that view AI as both a threat and an opportunity, Airbnb's leadership argues that general-purpose AI chatbots cannot easily replicate its proprietary data and marketplace mechanisms.

"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," Chesky told analysts on the call. Rather than viewing chatbots as direct replacements, Chesky pitched a strategy of layering AI on top of Airbnb's existing experience, saying it could help accelerate growth.

Airbnb projected revenue growth in the "low double digits" this year after the company reported fourth-quarter revenue of $2.78 billion, exceeding analyst expectations of $2.72 billion. For the current quarter, Airbnb expects revenue between $2.59 billion and $2.63 billion, above Wall Street's $2.53 billion forecast.

Even with the upbeat guidance, investors pressed the company on whether AI platforms could become a long-term threat, particularly if they moved into the short-term rentals market. Chesky pushed back, emphasising that Airbnb is not only a consumer-facing app but also a host platform and a customer service operation, and that it offers protections, including insurance and user verification systems.

"We've built this over 18 years. We handle more than $100 billion in payments through the platform," he said.

Chesky also argued that AI chatbots function similarly to search engines by driving top-of-funnel traffic. He noted that traffic coming from AI tools converts at a higher rate than traffic from Google, suggesting a broader shift toward AI could ultimately benefit Airbnb.

Internally, Airbnb is already using AI in its search product. The company said its AI-powered search is currently available to a "very small percentage" of overall traffic as it tests a more conversational experience. Over time, Airbnb also plans to integrate sponsored listings into its search results.

While Spotify this week told investors that its top developers haven't written a line of code since December due to AI, Airbnb offered a higher-level snapshot of its internal adoption. The company said 80% of its engineers now use AI tools and is working to reach 100% soon.