Airbnb may be taking a measured approach to rolling out AI features on its consumer-facing platform, but behind the scenes, the company is embracing the technology at full speed to build its products. Earlier this year, the company revealed that AI is now responsible for writing 60% of its code. During the latest earnings call, co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky highlighted how AI is accelerating the pace of feature development, cutting the time from initial idea to final launch by 60%. "Today, we're building, testing, and iterating faster than we could just a year ago. Across some of our key initiatives, we've reduced the time from concept to launch by as much as 60%. And compared to the same 6 months last year, we've increased the number of features and improvements we shipped this year by nearly 80%," he said during the company's second-quarter earnings call.

Chesky noted that AI has been instrumental in improving areas like search, sign-up, checkout, and payments. The company has also introduced tools aimed at helping hosts, such as a faster onboarding process. However, when it comes to consumer-facing AI, Airbnb has been more cautious, with features limited mainly to review summaries and listing highlights. Until now, Chesky has argued that simply adding a chatbot interface wouldn't work well for travel use cases. Instead, the company has concentrated on developing AI for search, discovery, and support.

During the earnings call, Chesky announced that Airbnb will finally begin testing AI-driven search. Even with this new test, the company is careful not to force the feature on users who are comfortable with the existing search and filter options. To address this, Airbnb is introducing a toggle that allows users to switch to AI search, where they can type in natural language and receive results presented in a visual format. "The titles [in the answer] could actually be AI generated and they can be conversational as if you're reading a chatbot, but more visual. Then you get to the product description page and the highlights are AI generated in real-time and personalized to you," Chesky explained.

On the backend, customer support is where Airbnb has made the most significant AI investments. The company launched its AI-powered bot in North America in 2025 and has since expanded it to more than 50 languages, with plans to add voice call support later this year. Airbnb reported that nearly 45% of customer issues that begin with its AI agent are resolved without any human involvement. As a result, the company's support cost per booking has dropped by 16% year-over-year.

Financially, Airbnb posted strong results for the quarter ending in June, with revenue climbing 17% year-over-year to $3.6 billion and adjusted EBITDA rising 21% to $1.3 billion.