Airbnb says AI now writes 60% of its code and cuts feature launch time in half
The company ships nearly 80% more features than it did a year ago, and its AI customer support bot now handles 45% of issues without a single human stepping in.
Key points
- Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said AI has cut the time from idea to launched feature by up to 60%, as of the company's Q2 2025 earnings call.
- AI writes 60% of Airbnb's code, a figure the company disclosed earlier in 2025.
- Compared with the same six months in 2024, Airbnb shipped nearly 80% more features and improvements in the first half of 2025.
- Airbnb's AI customer support bot, which handles queries without a human agent, now operates in more than 50 languages and resolves 45% of issues on its own.
- Support cost per booking fell 16% year-on-year as a result.
Airbnb has not splashed AI across its app the way some tech companies have. But behind the scenes, the company has quietly let artificial intelligence take over a striking share of its engineering work, and the results are showing up in cold, hard numbers.
On its second-quarter earnings call, co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky told investors: "Across some of our key initiatives, we've reduced the time from concept to launch by as much as 60%. And compared to the same six months last year, we've increased the number of features and improvements we shipped this year by nearly 80%."
That is a lot of software, built very fast.
How is AI actually doing this?
AI is writing the code itself. Earlier this year Airbnb confirmed that AI tools now generate 60% of the code its engineers produce, which means developers spend more time deciding what to build and less time typing it out line by line.
Chesky said the productivity gains are showing up across search, sign-up, checkout, and payments. Hosts, the people who rent out properties on the platform, are getting a faster onboarding flow too, so new listings reach guests more quickly.
For customer support, the story is even sharper. Airbnb launched an AI-powered support bot in North America in 2025, then expanded it to more than 50 languages the same year, with voice-call support coming later in 2025. Nearly 45% of customer issues that start with the bot are now resolved without any human ever getting involved. That dropped the company's support cost per booking by 16% year-on-year.
What does the new AI search actually look like?
Right now, nothing changes for ordinary users unless they choose it. Airbnb is testing an opt-in toggle inside its app that switches you from the familiar search-and-filter interface to a conversational AI search, where you type in plain language, something like "a quiet cabin near a lake for four people in October", and the app returns results in a visual format.
Chesky described the experience this way: listing titles could be generated by AI and written in a chatbot-style tone, while the product description page would show AI-generated highlights personalised to the specific person searching.
The toggle approach matters. Airbnb is not forcing the new experience on users who are happy with the current app. You switch only if you want to.
What about Airbnb's actual business?
The financials back up the engineering story. For the quarter ending June 2025, Airbnb posted revenue of $3.6 billion, up 17% year-on-year, and adjusted EBITDA (a measure of operating profit before certain costs) of $1.3 billion, up 21%.
Faster shipping plus lower support costs is a combination most companies would want. The open question, as always, is what happens to the feel of the product when AI writes more of it. Airbnb has been careful on that front, moving slowly on consumer-facing features like review summaries and listing highlights before going further.
Whether the new AI search toggle becomes the default one day is the bet worth watching.
