Airbnb’s Brian Chesky: Betting Big on AI Disruption

AI is pushing companies to take a stand.

For Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky, the choice is clear.

"From a business standpoint, I think AI is the best thing that ever happened to Airbnb," Brian said in an interview with CNBC.

He described AI not as a tool for incremental gains, but as a structural upheaval – one that will divide companies able to adapt from those that can’t keep pace.

"The founder-led companies and the companies that are prepared to change and transform are the companies that are going to benefit from AI," he said, "because AI means everyone changes. And if you don't change, you're going to be disrupted."

Brian's warning to other founders was blunt: "If you don't disrupt yourself, someone else will. And we're not going to allow people to disrupt ourselves.

"We're going to disrupt ourselves first."

For this CEO, AI isn’t a cautious experiment – it’s a wave to embrace early and with intent.

Innovation driving the numbers

The day before that interview, Brian was making a similar argument to investors – this time, with numbers to prove it.

During the company’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call, he said: "In Q4, we delivered strong results across the board. Revenue grew 12% year-over-year to US$2.8bn, exceeding the high end of our guidance.

"Gross booking value grew 16% year-over-year to US$20bn. This was our highest growth quarter in more than two years."

He emphasised that the acceleration was no accident, but a deliberate push to put AI at the core of Airbnb’s strategy.

He added: "The acceleration that you're seeing didn't happen by accident. It's a result of a deliberate path we've been on for the past few years."

That path has centred on tightening execution and removing friction from booking. Price transparency was a major focus.

"Hidden fees are one of the biggest friction points in travel."

The company also rolled out its “Reserve Now, Pay Later” feature. "For the first time, guests in the US could book eligible stays paying US$0 upfront," he said.

"The response was immediate, driving booking acceleration in Q4, especially for larger, higher-priced homes."

Management estimates that recent product updates contributed about 200 basis points to nights growth and 300 basis points to gross booking value growth for the quarter.

AI as an operational engine

AI underpins many of those gains.

On the earnings call, Brian explained how Airbnb developed "a custom AI agent trained on millions of our support interactions".

He said: "It's already resolving a third of the support issues without needing a live specialist, and resolution times are significantly faster."

In his CNBC interview, he expanded on that point – highlighting that AI now handles about a third of North American customer service tickets, with chatbot-driven traffic outperforming traditional search channels.

He reinforced the same message during the earnings call: "What we see is that traffic that comes from chatbots converts at a higher rate than traffic that comes from Google."

Brian moved to reassure investors that the AI push wouldn’t lead to spiralling costs.

"Our investment in AI will not affect the P&L. I don't think you'll see it in the P&L," he said.

"We do not have the huge CapEx cost base."

Instead of developing its own foundational models, Airbnb is leveraging existing systems – enhancing them with the company’s proprietary data.

"We're not trying to build a foundation model," Brian said.

"We're going to leverage the best models and fine-tune them on our data."

Leaning into the frontier

Taken together, the interview and earnings call reveal a unified strategy.

For Brian, AI serves as both shield and accelerator – enhancing customer service, refining search, boosting conversion and doing it all without heavy capital outlay.

With US$4.6bn in free cash flow in 2025 and a 28% adjusted EBITDA margin in Q4, Airbnb has the flexibility to invest while staying disciplined.

But the larger message extends beyond quarterly numbers: for Airbnb, disruption isn’t an external threat – it’s a deliberate strategy from within.