Airbnb reports faster development thanks to AI and begins testing AI search
According to CEO Brian Chesky, Airbnb used AI to reduce the time from idea to feature release by up to 60 % and increase the number of features released by 80 %. It is testing AI search with a toggle, and an AI support agent resolves 45 % of queries without human intervention.
On its second-quarter earnings call, Airbnb said that deploying AI had significantly accelerated its own product development. CEO Brian Chesky said that, for some key projects, the time from concept to feature release had been reduced by up to 60 %, and that the company had released nearly 80 % more features and improvements compared with the same six-month period last year. According to an earlier statement from the company this year, AI writes 60 % of its code. According to Chesky, AI contributed to improvements in search, sign-up, checkout and payments, as well as a faster onboarding process for hosts.
According to Chesky, the rollout of AI in customer-facing interfaces at Airbnb is slower and remains largely limited to features such as review summaries and highlighted listing features. Chesky has long maintained that a traditional chatbot interface is unsuitable for the travel use case, and the company is instead focusing on AI in search, listing discovery and support. According to Chesky, the company is now beginning to test AI search with a toggle that will let users choose a natural-language query instead of the current filters; results are intended to be visual, with AI-generated, conversational titles, while the listing page is intended to feature AI-generated and personalized highlights in real time.
In customer support, Airbnb has deployed an AI agent that has been operating in North America since 2025 and was expanded to more than 50 languages this year; according to the company, it plans to make support available for voice calls later this year as well. The company said that approximately 45 % of cases that start with the AI agent are resolved without human intervention, resulting in a 16 % year-over-year reduction in support costs per booking.
The company released these figures in the context of its results for the quarter ending in June, when revenue grew by 17 % year over year to 3.6 billion dollars and adjusted EBITDA by 21 % to 1.3 billion dollars.
Why it matters
These are concrete metrics, albeit reported by the company itself, of the impact of AI on product development and customer support at a large consumer platform. For companies considering deploying AI in development and support, they provide reference figures for acceleration and cost savings; for users of Airbnb, they signal that AI search will be rolled out gradually and on an opt-in basis via a toggle, rather than as a mandatory replacement for existing search.
Two audiences, two different impacts
What this means
For individuals
Users of the Airbnb app will be able to opt in to trying the new natural-language AI search via a toggle, without losing access to existing search and filters.
For a business
According to its own figures, Airbnb used AI to shorten its development cycle, increase the pace of feature releases and reduce customer support costs per booking by 16 % year over year, providing a reference point for companies considering similar automation of development and support.
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