After a second-quarter gain to hitBrian Chesky, Director General of Airbnb, shared his thoughts on the company’s strategy, cautious investors that AI talks still cannot be considered the “new Google.” That is, AI chat boots, though potentially driving new ones lead to the travel and services business, is not entirely a replacement for the references that the dominant search engine brings.
At least not at the moment.
“I think we still feel the space,” the executioner told investors about the call of the Q2. “The thing I want is cautiously that I don’t think AI -agents – I don’t think we have to think of talkboots like Google – I don’t think we should think of them as the” new Google “.
This, Chesky explained, is because AI models are not “own.”
“We must also remember that the model operating Chatgpt is not of its own. It is not exclusive for chatgpt. We – Airbnb – can also use the API, and there are other models we can use,” he said.
Painting a wider image of the AI landscape, Chesky said that in addition to talkbots and other AI agents, there will be accustomed starts designed for specific applications, as well as other officials who have made the change to AI.
“One of the things we have noticed is that it is not enough just to have … the best model. You have to be able to set the model and build a custom interface for the correct application. And I think that’s the key,” he said.
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The company told investors that it would look to use AI in many ways.
AirbnB shared during the call that its AI Customer Service agent in the United States reduced the percentage of guests contacting a human agent by 15%, for example. This was actually more difficult than dealing with the lower hanging fruit involving travel planning and inspiration, Chesky said, as AI agents performing customer service cannot hallucinate. They must always be accurate and helpful.
The AirBNB 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 United States this year, Airbnb will roll it to more languages, and next year it will become more personalized and active. This means that it could understand if someone reaches a reserve; It couldn’t only tell them how to do that, but it could do it too. The agent could also help plan and reserve trips.
Additionally, AI will come to the search for Airbnb next year, the Director General said.
However, the company did not fully devise its plans to work with third-party AI agents, although it considers it. Users still need an AirBNB account to make a backup.
Because of this, Chesky does not think that Agenti AI would transform its company into a commodity, the way to reserve flights. Instead, he sees AI as “a potentially interesting lead generation” for the company.
“… I think the key thing will be to guide and become the first place for people to reserve travel in Airbnb. Until we integrate or not with AI agents, I think that is something we are definitely open to,” he said.
Airbnb hit analysts’ expectations in the fourth with revenue of $ 3.1 billion and revenue per share of $ 1.03, but the stock dropped about its forecast of slower growth in the second half of the year.
