August 8, 2025
5 min read
Sarah Perez
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says AI chatbots aren’t a replacement for Google referrals yet but sees AI as a lead generator for travel bookings.
After a strong second-quarter earnings beat, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shared insights on the company’s AI strategy during the Q2 earnings call, cautioning investors against viewing AI chatbots as the "new Google." Chesky emphasized that while AI chatbots have the potential to drive new leads to the travel and services business, they do not yet replace the referrals and traffic generated by dominant search engines.
"I think we’re still kind of feeling out the space," Chesky said. "The thing I want to caution is I don’t think that AI agents — I don’t think we should think of chatbots like Google — I don’t think we should think of them as the ‘new Google’ yet." He explained that a key reason for this is that AI models powering chatbots like ChatGPT are not proprietary or exclusive. "We also have to remember that the model powering ChatGPT is not proprietary. It’s not exclusive to ChatGPT. We — Airbnb — can also use the API, and there are other models that we can use," Chesky noted. Looking at the broader AI landscape, Chesky highlighted that success in AI requires more than just having the best model. "You have to be able to tune the model and build a custom interface for the right application. And I think that’s the key," he said.
Airbnb shared that its AI customer service agent in the U.S. has reduced the percentage of guests needing to contact a human agent by 15%. Chesky remarked that this was a challenging achievement because customer service AI must be accurate and helpful at all times, with no room for hallucinations. The AI agent was built using 13 different models and trained on tens of thousands of conversations. Currently available in English in the U.S., Airbnb plans to roll it out in more languages this year. Next year, the agent will become more personalized and agentic, able to perform actions such as canceling reservations on behalf of users and assisting with trip planning and bookings. Additionally, Chesky revealed that AI will be integrated into Airbnb’s search functionality next year. While the company is considering working with third-party AI agents, users will still need an Airbnb account to make bookings. Chesky does not believe agentic AI will commoditize Airbnb’s business like flight booking has become. Instead, he views AI as a promising lead generation channel. "I think the key thing is going to be for us to lead and become the first place for people to book travel on Airbnb. As far as whether or not we integrate with AI agents, I think that’s something that we’re certainly open to," Chesky said. Airbnb beat analysts’ expectations in Q2 with revenue of $3.1 billion and earnings per share of $1.03. However, the stock dropped following the company’s forecast of slower growth in the second half of the year.
Source: TechCrunch on August 7, 2025
Source: TechCrunch on August 7, 2025