August 7, 2025
5 min read
Sarah Perez
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says AI chatbots aren't a replacement for Google referrals yet, highlighting AI's evolving role in travel bookings.
AI agents arenât the ânew Google,â says Airbnb CEO
After a second-quarter earnings beat, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shared his thoughts on the companyâs AI strategy, cautioning investors that AI chatbots canât yet be thought of as the ânew Google.â That is, AI chatbots, while potentially driving new leads to the travel and services business, arenât entirely a replacement for the referrals that the dominant search engine brings. At least not at this time. âI think weâre still kind of feeling out the space,â Chesky told investors on the Q2 earnings call. âThe thing I want to caution is I donât think that AI agents â I donât think we should think of chatbots like Google â I donât think we should think of them as the ânew Googleâ yet.â This, Chesky explained, is because AI models arenât âproprietary.â âWe also have to remember that the model powering ChatGPT is not proprietary. Itâs not exclusive to ChatGPT. We â Airbnb â can also use the API, and there are other models that we can use,â he said. Painting a broader picture of the AI landscape, Chesky said that in addition to chatbots and other AI agents, there will be custom-built startups designed for specific applications, as well as other incumbents that have made the shift to AI. âOne of the things weâve noticed is itâs not enough to just have ⊠the best model. You have to be able to tune the model and build a custom interface for the right application. And I think thatâs the key,â he said. The company told investors it will look to take advantage of AI in a number of ways. Airbnb shared during the call that its AI customer service agent in the U.S. reduced the percentage of guests contacting a human agent by 15%, for instance. This was actually harder than tackling the lower-hanging fruit involving travel planning and inspiration, Chesky said, because AI agents performing customer service canât hallucinate. They have to be accurate and helpful at all times. Airbnbâs customer service agent was built using 13 different models and trained on tens of thousands of conversations, and is currently available in English in the U.S. This year, Airbnb will roll it out to more languages, and next year, it will become more personalized and agentic. That means it would be able to understand if someone reaches out to cancel a reservation; not only would it be able to tell them how to do so, but it could also do it for them. The agent could also help plan and book trips. Plus, AI will come to Airbnbâs search next year, the CEO said. However, the company has not fully fleshed out its plans for working with third-party AI agents, although itâs considering it. Users still need an Airbnb account to make a booking. Because of this, Chesky doesnât think agentic AI would turn its business into a commodity, the way that booking flights has become. Instead, he sees AI as âpotentially interesting lead generationâ for the company. âI 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 thatâs something that weâre certainly open to,â he said. Airbnb beat analystsâ expectations in the quarter with revenue of $3.1 billion and earnings per share of $1.03, but the stock dropped on its forecast of slower growth in the second half of the year.Originally published at TechCrunch on August 7, 2025.