Airbnb cuts feature launch time 60% with AI coding, tests search
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said AI has cut the company's concept-to-launch time by 60% and increased features shipped in the first half of 2025 by nearly 80% compared to the same period last year.
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Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call that AI has reduced the time from concept to launch by as much as 60% and driven a nearly 80% increase in features and improvements shipped in the first six months of this year compared to the same period a year earlier.
- AI now writes 60% of Airbnb's code, cutting concept-to-launch time by 60% and boosting features shipped by nearly 80% year-on-year
- An opt-in AI search toggle is being tested, letting users query in natural language and receive visual, personalized results
- The AI customer-support bot, now covering 50-plus languages, resolves 45% of issues without human intervention and has cut support cost per booking by 16%
The figures build on an earlier disclosure that AI is now writing 60% of Airbnb’s code. Chesky pointed to search, sign-up, checkout, and payments as areas where the productivity gains are most visible, alongside faster onboarding flows for hosts.
“Today, we’re building, testing, and iterating faster than we could just a year ago. 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%.”
- Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO
On the consumer side, where Airbnb has moved more cautiously, the company is now beginning to test an AI-powered search feature. Rather than replacing the existing search-and-filter interface, Airbnb is adding an opt-in toggle that lets users type queries in natural language and receive results in a visual format. Listing titles in those results “could actually be AI-generated and they can be conversational as if you’re reading a chatbot, but more visual,” Chesky said, adding that product-description highlights will be generated in real time and personalized to each user.
Customer support is the area where AI deployment is furthest along. The company launched its AI-powered support bot in North America in 2025 and has since expanded it to more than 50 languages, with voice-call support planned for later this year. Nearly 45% of issues that begin with the AI agent are now resolved without any human intervention, and support cost per booking has fallen 16% year-over-year as a result.
Airbnb’s broader business performed strongly in the quarter ended June: revenue rose 17% year-over-year to $3.6 billion and adjusted EBITDA jumped 21% to $1.3 billion.
Practitioner takeaway: Airbnb’s numbers illustrate a pattern now appearing across product teams - AI-assisted coding compresses iteration cycles measurably rather than just marginally. The 60% launch-time reduction and 45% autonomous support-resolution rate are concrete benchmarks worth testing against internal workflows. For builders evaluating where to deploy AI first, Airbnb’s sequencing - internal dev tooling and support automation before consumer-facing features - suggests back-end productivity gains carry lower risk and can fund the slower, more careful rollout of AI interfaces that directly touch customers.
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