Airbnb Plans to Integrate AI Across Search, Discovery and Support

The company aims to make its app more personalized and intuitive with large language models.

Published on Feb. 14, 2026

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Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced that the company plans to significantly increase its use of large language models to enhance the customer experience across search, trip planning, host support, and internal operations. This includes launching an AI-powered search feature that can understand natural language queries, expanding its AI-driven customer service chatbot, and integrating AI tools more broadly across the company's engineering efforts.

Why it matters

As one of the largest travel platforms, Airbnb's embrace of AI could set new expectations for how consumers interact with travel apps and services. Integrating large language models has the potential to make Airbnb's platform more personalized, conversational and efficient - potentially improving discovery, boosting host productivity, and reducing customer friction. However, the company will need to carefully design these AI experiences to maintain trust and avoid potential pitfalls like biased recommendations or intrusive advertising.

The details

Airbnb plans to roll out an AI-powered search feature that can understand natural language queries, allowing users to more intuitively search for and discover properties. The company is also looking to expand its existing AI-driven customer service chatbot, which currently handles about a third of customer inquiries without human intervention. Airbnb aims to enable voice-based interactions with the chatbot and expand language coverage. Additionally, the company wants to increase AI usage internally, with a goal of having 100% of its engineers utilize AI tools.

  • Airbnb's AI-powered customer service chatbot was launched in North America last year.
  • Airbnb is currently testing the new AI-powered search feature with a small percentage of user traffic.

The players

Brian Chesky

The CEO of Airbnb who announced the company's plans to significantly increase its use of large language models.

Ahmad Al-Dahle

Airbnb's new Chief Technology Officer, who previously worked on Meta's Llama language models.

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What they’re saying

“We are building an AI-native experience where the app does not just search for you. It 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.”

— Brian Chesky, CEO (TechCrunch)

“A year from now, if we are successful, significantly more than 30% of tickets will be handled by a custom service agent, in many more languages, in all the languages where we have live agents. AI customer service will not only be chat, it will be voice.”

— Brian Chesky, CEO (TechCrunch)

What’s next

Airbnb plans to continue experimenting with its AI-powered search feature, gradually expanding its capabilities and integrating it more deeply into the overall user experience. The company will also work to scale its AI-driven customer service chatbot to handle a larger percentage of inquiries across more languages.

The takeaway

Airbnb's embrace of large language models signals a broader trend of travel platforms leveraging AI to enhance the customer experience. By making its app more personalized, conversational and efficient through AI, Airbnb aims to improve discovery, boost host productivity, and reduce friction - potentially setting new expectations for how consumers interact with travel services.