Airbnb Plans AI-Native App Experience to Transform Travel Search and Hosting

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky outlines plans to integrate large language models into search, trip planning, and customer support as Q4 revenue reaches $2.78 billion.

Airbnb is accelerating its artificial intelligence strategy, with CEO Brian Chesky announcing plans to integrate large language models (LLMs) across its platform to enhance search, trip planning, and host management.

Speaking during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Chesky described Airbnb’s vision of building an “AI-native experience” where the app not only searches for listings but understands users’ preferences. The company is currently testing a natural language AI search feature that allows users to ask conversational questions about properties and destinations. While the feature is live for a small percentage of users, Airbnb plans to expand it into a more intuitive system that supports travelers throughout their journey.

Chesky also confirmed that sponsored listings could eventually be integrated into AI-driven search results, though the company is prioritizing user experience before monetization strategies.

Beyond search, Airbnb is deepening its AI investment in customer service. Its LLM-powered support bot, launched in North America last year, now resolves approximately one-third of customer inquiries without human intervention. The company aims to expand the system into voice-based AI support and increase multilingual capabilities.

Internally, Airbnb is also pushing AI adoption, with 80% of its engineers already using AI tools — a figure the company hopes to raise to 100%.

With new CTO Ahmad Al-Dahle, formerly involved in Meta’s Llama models, leading AI initiatives, Airbnb is positioning itself at the forefront of AI-powered travel search and trip planning, large language models in hospitality platforms, and AI customer service automation in travel industry innovation.

Airbnb reported stronger-than-expected Q4 revenue of $2.78 billion, marking a 12% year-over-year increase.