November 07, 2025
Airbnb’s AI Speeds Customer Service, Boosts Profits, Plans for Real World Impact
Airbnb announced revenue up 10% for its latest quarter, driven by 133.6 million nights and seats booked, up 9% from a year ago. Within the app and company’s system, AI is playing a larger role in boosting those numbers, and Airbnb has some very interesting plans beyond the usual AI customer experience fodder.
During its earnings call, Airbnb stated, “we rolled out smarter and faster AI customer support. Our AI customer support assistant has smarter responses. It includes answers to your reservation or listing and also provides quicker, more personalized responses.”
“It also lets you take common actions like cancelling or changing reservation dates directly from the chat. We designed this custom user interface that’s not just text-based, but it’s got rich user interface modules. So it’s a really custom-built AI interface built right into the messaging platform.”
“Now, we initially launched this in the United States, where it’s already reduced people’s need to contact a human agent by 15%. So now we’re going to expand it to more countries in more languages, and we expect this to be in over 50 languages next year.”
The Rise of AI Powered Property and Trip Search
While many companies are panicking about their content vanishing in the riptide of AI search, Airbnb is putting a strong internal play on AI-powered search as a major strategy evolution.
“We’re testing it now. You’ll see this rolling out through the app next year. And this will let people have conversations with the app, just like a chatbot about what they’re looking for, so we can help them design the perfect trip. And remember that we have access to all the same models that every other chatbot and AI application has. So we think this is going to be a really delightful product to use.”
“This is just the beginning of a much bigger AI strategy, because we’re integrating AI across our app to make Airbnb smarter and more personal and easier to use.
Making AI More Personal, Real World, Less About Screens
Also during the call, Brian Chesky Chairman and CEO at Airbnb talked more about the future of AI, looking to use it to move further away from passive loyalty.
“But I think what makes our approach different is that we’re not just using AI to pull people deeper into the screens. We’re using it to get them off their phones and help them connect in the real world. Because I believe in the age of AI, more and more what’s going to happen is what’s on a screen will be artificial.”
“You won’t know if it’s real or not. In the age of AI, people are going to increasingly want what’s real. And what’s real is in real life. They are going to crave real experiences with real people in the real world.”
And I think that’s especially true for younger generations who grew up on social media, are now surrounded by AI-generated content. So we think Airbnb is the best way to experience the magic of the real world. So while other companies are using AI to keep you online, we’re really trying to do the opposite: get you off your phone and into the real world.”
Giving AI real-world value will be essential across travel, hospitality and retail brands as they try to differentiate from online sources. And even digital firms will need to find something for customers and consumers to love in the future all-encompassing AI world.
