Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told CNBC’s David Faber at Goldman Sachs’ technology conference that AI is the best thing to happen to his company, and he backed the claim with numbers, 24/7 Wall St. reported. Airbnb is shipping 80% more software than a year ago, he said, and almost half of customer service tickets are now handled by AI.
Chesky also compared AI to electricity, arguing that the long-run economic value will go to the companies that apply the technology rather than those that build it.
What the numbers show
On Airbnb’s second-quarter call, Chesky said the company had cut the time from concept to launch by as much as 60% on some key initiatives, and shipped nearly 80% more features and improvements than in the same six months last year, TechCrunch reported. Airbnb said earlier this year that AI writes 60% of its code.
Customer support is the clearest example. Airbnb’s AI agent launched in North America in 2025, now covers more than 50 languages, and is slated to handle voice calls. Nearly 45% of issues that start with the agent are resolved without a human, and support cost per booking is down 16% year over year.
Second-quarter revenue rose 17% to $3.6 billion, net income climbed 27% to $816 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin reached 35%. Management raised its full-year margin target to at least 35.5%. “It’s not about how many tokens you use, it’s about the throughput of your product and the quality of your product designs and how much you’re shipping,” Chesky told analysts.
New businesses and AI search
Chesky argues AI lowers the cost of launching new lines of business. “We’re selling tickets on Airbnb now. We had no business selling tickets, but now we can spin up new businesses,” he said. Experience supply grew nearly 80% year over year, and Airbnb has added services such as grocery delivery, car rentals and airport pickups. Hotel nights are growing about three times faster than home nights.
Airbnb has moved more slowly on consumer AI. It’s testing an AI search option users can toggle on, with natural-language queries returning visual results rather than a chatbot-style answer. Chesky has said a plain chatbot interface doesn’t suit travel.
Airbnb grew revenue faster than Booking Holdings, up 8.2%, and Expedia, up 14%, in the second quarter. Both rivals are deploying similar AI tools, and 24/7 Wall St. noted that the advantage could narrow as the technology becomes standard.
Housing fund
Separately, Airbnb launched a $250 million Housing Accelerator to provide “last-dollar” financing for stalled affordable and mixed-income projects, Inman reported. Its first commitment is $6.4 million toward 201 affordable units in Austin, Texas, and the company says the program could unlock more than $5 billion over 10 years. “The housing crisis wasn’t created overnight, and it won’t be solved overnight,” Chesky said.
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