{"id":53808,"date":"2025-08-08T05:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T05:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/53808\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T05:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T05:42:09","slug":"ai-agents-arent-the-new-google-says-airbnb-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/53808\/","title":{"rendered":"AI agents aren’t the ‘new Google,’ says Airbnb CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a second-quarter earnings beat<\/a>, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shared his thoughts on the company\u2019s AI strategy, cautioning investors that AI chatbots can\u2019t yet be thought of as the \u201cnew Google.\u201d That is, AI chatbots, while potentially driving new leads to the travel and services business, aren\u2019t entirely a replacement for the referrals that the dominant search engine brings.<\/p>\n

At least not at this time. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re still kind of feeling out the space,\u201d the exec told investors on the Q2 earnings call. \u201cThe thing I want to caution is I don\u2019t think that AI agents \u2014 I don\u2019t think we should think of chatbots like Google \u2014 I don\u2019t think we should think of them as the \u2018new Google\u2019 yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

This, Chesky explained, is because AI models aren\u2019t \u201cproprietary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have to remember that the model powering ChatGPT is not proprietary. It\u2019s not exclusive to ChatGPT. We \u2014 Airbnb \u2014 can also use the API, and there are other models that we can use,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we\u2019ve noticed is it\u2019s not enough to just have\u00a0\u2026 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\u2019s the key,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The company told investors it will look to take advantage of AI in a number of ways. <\/p>\n

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 can\u2019t hallucinate. They have to be accurate and helpful at all times.<\/p>\n

Airbnb\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Plus, AI will come to Airbnb\u2019s search next year, the CEO said. <\/p>\n

However, the company has not fully fleshed out its plans for working with third-party AI agents, although it\u2019s considering it. Users still need an Airbnb account to make a booking.<\/p>\n

Because of this, Chesky doesn\u2019t think agentic AI would turn its business into a commodity, the way that booking flights has become. Instead, he sees AI as \u201cpotentially interesting lead generation\u201d for the company. <\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019s something that we\u2019re certainly open to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Airbnb beat analysts\u2019 expectations in the quarter with revenue of $3.1 billion and earnings per share of $1.03, but the stock dropped<\/a> on its forecast of slower growth in the second half of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a second-quarter earnings beat, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shared his thoughts on the company\u2019s AI strategy, cautioning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,14005,36209,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-53808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-ai-agents","10":"tag-airbnb","11":"tag-artificial-intelligence","12":"tag-artificialintelligence","13":"tag-ca","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}