According to a recent TechCrunch article, Airbnb is now handling one-third of its customer support issues in North America and Canada with its custom-built AI agent. The company plans to expand this globally and aims to have the AI handle over 30% of all customer service tickets within a year.
During a recent earnings call, CEO Brian Chesky reportedly shared with shareholders:
We think this is going to be massive because not only does this reduce the cost base of Airbnb customer service, but the quality of service is going to be a huge step change.
It will help guests plan their entire trip, help hosts better run their businesses, and help the company operate more efficiently at scale.
A chatbot doesn’t have our 200 million verified identities or our 500 million proprietary reviews, and it can’t message the hosts, which 90% of our guests do.
– Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO (source: TechCrunch)
In the call, Chesky also reportedly mentioned the recent hire of CTO Ahmad Al-Dahle, who will lead the development of Airbnb’s AI-native app. This app will help guests plan trips, assist hosts, and improve the company’s overall efficiency.
Ahmad is one of the world’s leading AI experts. He spent 16 years at Apple, and most recently led the generative AI team at Meta that built the Llama models. He’s an expert at pairing massive technical scale with world-class design, which is exactly how we’re going to transform the Airbnb experience.
Chesky also reportedly added, “A year from now, if we’re successful, significantly more than 30% of tickets will be handled by a custom service agent, and in many more languages—across all the languages where we have live agents. AI-powered customer service won’t just be chat; it will also include voice.”