Airbnb is ramping up its use of artificial intelligence behind the scenes, introducing AI-powered search features and operational efficiencies while carefully managing its consumer-facing AI functionalities, as it reports significant growth in revenue and productivity.
Airbnb is leaning more heavily on artificial intelligence inside its engineering and service operations even as it moves more cautiously on customer-facing features. On the company’s second-quarter earnings call, co-founder and chief executive Brian Chesky said AI is helping Airbnb work faster across product development, with some initiatives moving from concept to launch up to 60% quicker than a year ago. He added that the number of features and improvements shipped in the latest period rose by nearly 80% compared with the same six months last year.
The company’s use of AI is already visible behind the scenes. Airbnb says the technology is helping teams work on search, sign-up, checkout and payments, while also supporting faster host onboarding. That fits with Airbnb’s broader push to use AI in ways that improve discovery and efficiency rather than simply dropping in a chatbot. The company has said AI is already used to make search more personalised for guests and to help hosts find suitable co-hosts.
For search, Airbnb is testing a new experience that lets users switch between its standard filters and an AI-driven option. The company says the system will accept natural-language prompts and return results in a more visual format, rather than forcing travellers to rely only on conventional filtering tools such as destination, dates, guest count, price range, room type and amenities. Airbnb has said its standard ranking system still weighs factors such as price, quality and popularity, with total price before taxes also playing a role.
Chesky said the search results could include AI-generated titles and listing highlights that adapt in real time to a user’s request. That marks a measured shift for a platform that has so far limited consumer-facing AI to features such as review summaries and listing highlights. Airbnb has been more aggressive on the service side: it launched an AI support bot in North America in 2025, expanded it to more than 50 languages this year and plans to add voice support later in 2026. The company says nearly 45% of issues handled by the AI agent are resolved without human help, helping reduce support cost per booking by 16% year on year. Airbnb also reported a 17% rise in second-quarter revenue to $3.6 billion and a 21% increase in adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to $1.3 billion.
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