Airbnb says AI is speeding up feature delivery as it starts testing AI search

Airbnb says AI is rapidly becoming part of how it builds products, even as it takes a careful approach to consumer-facing AI tools. Earlier this year, the company said AI writes 60% of its code. On its latest earnings call, CEO Brian Chesky said the technology is helping Airbnb create features faster, cutting the time from concept to launch by as much as 60% on some key initiatives. He also said the company shipped nearly 80% more features and improvements in the latest six-month period than in the same period last year.

Chesky said AI has helped in areas including search, sign-up, checkout and payments, and Airbnb has released host tools such as a quicker onboarding flow. Consumer-facing AI has been slower to arrive, mostly limited to features like review summaries and listing highlights. Chesky has previously said a chatbot-only interface won't work for travel, so the company has focused on AI for search, discovery and support.

Airbnb is now preparing to test AI search. The feature will be optional, with a toggle letting users switch from the current search and filter experience to a natural-language search that returns results in a visual format. Chesky said titles in those results could be AI-generated and conversational, and product pages could show AI-generated highlights in real time, personalized to the user.

On support, Airbnb says its AI bot, launched in North America in 2025, has expanded to more than 50 languages, with voice calls planned later this year. The company says nearly 45% of customer issues that start with the AI agent are resolved without human intervention, and support cost per booking is down 16% year over year. Airbnb also posted quarterly results with revenue up 17% to $3.6 billion and adjusted EBITDA up 21% to $1.3 billion.