I think there's a lot of fear about artificial intelligence outside of Silicon Valley. I understand why. Because it's changing your job, it's displacing you, and some of that may be true. But what I'm saying is that now everyone has the power.
He is Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, a Fortune 500 company valued at 95 billion. The AI click is widening the gap between people who have access to the same tools. So I wanted to understand what really gives people an advantage in an AI-driven world.
Artificial intelligence is like an amplifier. It makes people who are already good at what they do better, and for people who weren't so good, the multiplier effect is smaller.
I'm just trying to translate this for people who are thinking about different business ideas. How do they know if that idea is viable to launch it?
This video is sponsored by Hotspot.
Hello, Ryan.
Hello, how are you? I'm glad to see you.
Welcome to Silicon Valley Girl. It's been 7 years since we first met, and I wanted to show you this. I don't know if you remember, but that crazy girl at the airport who saw Brian Chesky and then ran towards you.
And were you boarding a commercial flight?
It was at LAX. Thank you for being so kind and friendly.
Of course. Look, thank you for being here, and it's an honor for me to be on your show. Thank you, and I invited you to a podcast back then, so 7 years later we're doing it. We're doing it.
So I came to San Francisco to build a travel company, and then we went through really difficult times during COVID. And seeing how you faced that situation really gave me inspiration and strength. And now we're in this new era of transformation, which is AI. So today I wanted to focus on how you're transforming the company for the AI era, and I wanted to make it as applicable as possible for people who might be thinking about starting a business in the AI era, or who might be going through difficult times as professionals because a lot of changes are happening. So tell me about how Airbnb is becoming an AI-native company. What does it mean for guests? And I'm also a host, I have a place in Hawaii that we're renting through Airbnb. So what does it mean for both guests and hosts?
I think it really means modernizing every touchpoint of the app to make it smarter, easier to use. So I'll give you some examples. Suppose you're a guest. Before AI, you did a normal search, you type in a location, and you get a bunch of results. Now with AI, starting today, you can turn on an option and you can do an AI search. It's very natural, very similar to natural language, like writing in a chatbot, and then it's a very intelligent search. So you can say, "I want to go to Paris this weekend with this number of people. I want this type of view and I want this type of architecture." And it won't just show you all the results, but it will also pre-filter everything for you, because Airbnb is a lot about filters and controls. You see, chatbots really aren't very good at buying. Chatbots aren't very useful for organizing trips, and the reason is that they're text-based. With them, it's very hard to compare options. You want an experience that inspires you and lets you explore options. Do you want it to be fun and entertainment-oriented? It's multiplayer. So on average, trips booked on Airbnb are for three people. So everyone has to be able to share, you have to be able to message a host, you have to be able to have filters, and you have to be able to see. For example, if I remove this filter, I get this house, but if I put this filter back, I get that house. So we had to find an interface that wasn't a chatbot, but that felt like a chat you could start having a conversation with, without taking away the functionality that people loved. Then, when you arrive at an Airbnb, we have these AI-generated summaries, so the AI will basically summarize the listing for you. And these are short, engaging, personalized texts. They're personalized for you, so we can make the listing literally written for you, saying this is the reason why you'll like this listing. I mean, when you get to the bottom of the page, if you have a question, you don't even have to ask the host anymore. You can literally ask the page, and the listing could answer things for you. You can still message the host, but now you can send messages. Then, if you have a bunch of listings and you want to compare them, we have an AI comparison tool that lets you compare them intelligently and simply. And one of the challenges that people don't realize, and one of the problems with chatbots, is that Airbnb is really about comparing options before booking. Okay, I like these 10 houses. This one has a pool, this one has a grill, this one has very high ratings. This one is new. This one is a bit more expensive. This one is in a very good location. How do I make decisions and how do I compare side by side? And how do I narrow down the options? Now we have completely new maps where I can, starting in Paris, tap and see information about each neighborhood. Eventually this will be rolled out in 1,000 different cities around the world. And these are just some of the features we have for guests. On the host side, we're going to make the app feel more and more like an agent that can be your coach, that understands your goals, that can help you price your listing. So I think the basic idea is that Airbnb is becoming smarter. The entire Airbnb app is going to feel more like an agent. But when I say agent, I don't mean a chatbot. People, when they hear agents and chatbots, think they're the same thing. They're not. An agent is an evolution of an application. It's an application that's smarter and understands you and knows you and leverages the power of artificial intelligence. A chatbot is a user interface.
I think because most agents are chatbots, we confuse the two, yes, but they're not the same. And I think a chatbot isn't the right interface for travel, it isn't the right interface for shopping, but agents are great, and I think the great thing about agents is that they're interoperable, so one person can talk to another agent. So I think agents are definitely the future of Silicon Valley, and chatbots are not.
Yes. And the chatbot feels more like something reactive, while agents are more proactive, knowing your interests. And I really like the comparison feature because you don't know how many hours I spent. It's like two very similar bookings, but this one is quieter and this other one has a bigger bedroom, and having them side by side I think makes a big difference. And they're also adding a social graph, something that fascinates me.
You know? It's funny. I came to Silicon Valley 19 years ago, and when I came to Silicon Valley there was this thing called a social network, and it was Facebook, and everyone was on Facebook, and it was mainly just your friends, and you could keep in touch with your friends, and they shared what they were doing. And now none of my friends are on Facebook. Instagram isn't a social network, it's a social content platform. So basically Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok really aren't social networks, they're really platforms for showing off to an audience, they're broadcast platforms. And this isn't, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but what I'm saying is now there's no place on the internet where I can know not only what my friends are doing, but one of the things I liked was knowing where people traveled. The people in my life, where have they traveled? Where are they going? Here's a use case. Suppose I'm going to Chicago. I'm sure I have several friends who have been to Chicago, but I don't know which ones, and now if I connect with people on Airbnb, I can see all my friends who have been to Chicago, and I can see where they stayed. I might want to stay where they stayed, but more importantly, I can ask them, "Hey, what's worth doing in Chicago?" Because what we discovered is that more and more people want recommendations from their friends and family instead of, you know, celebrities or writers. More and more they want people who feel like they know them. Like you know me, you'll know what I like. But this is an unsolved problem because you don't know where everyone in your life has traveled. Another thing about Airbnb is that one of the best parts is meeting someone new. You know, nowadays it's hard to meet people. I asked my parents how they met people. They went to a mall, they went to a theater, they went to physical spaces. More and more people nowadays aren't in physical spaces, they're on their phones, and phones really are a way of talking to strangers online, but it's very hard to meet strangers in person, and that's why we want to help solve this problem by making it easier to meet people in the real world and stay in touch with them. So if you travel, you stay in a house with someone, you could meet them. If you go to an experience with someone, you can stay in touch with that person. So I think a lot of what we're trying to do is turn Airbnb from a kind of just a lodging platform into something more like a community of travelers. And I think the travel network is really great. And if you go to Airbnb, you can basically add your friends, your family, and you can see where they're traveling. And here, this is a really interesting use case. Wouldn't you be curious to know where all your friends are going to travel this summer?
I think it's really cool.
Now you can know, and you can decide.
Well, if they go, we can go at the same time.
And one of the reasons I started this podcast was because I wanted to meet people in person, and every time guests suggest doing something online, I say, "No, no, that's not the reason I wanted to do this in the first place," so I understand you perfectly. And I think you're also opening opportunities for new businesses, right? Because now you offer grocery products, baby items, restaurant food deliveries. There are more than 700 features that they're launching.
Because yes, yes, we are launching. I think the statistic is that we're launching 80% more features than a year ago. Most of it is thanks to artificial intelligence. Obviously, artificial intelligence is like this incredible superpower, you know? 10 years ago, even a few years ago, everything had to be hand-coded, everything was much harder to do. Now that you can ship things much faster, we can ship features faster. Before it took us a year to launch a new service, now we can do it in weeks. And now, for example, with services, one of the things we heard a lot from guests is, "I love staying in houses, but they don't have all the services of a hotel." And we thought, well, what if we could have not only all the services of a hotel, but even more services? So we can have baby equipment if you have kids. You know, sometimes hotels have cribs, but maybe they only have two cribs or three cribs that are already gone. You have. This is what we, I don't have kids, but I hear from my friends who do have kids. Maybe you want your laundry done. A hotel has laundry. Well, now on Airbnb you can hire a laundry service, so we just wanted to keep going down the list. Ski equipment rental. I'm going skiing. I don't want, I don't have my own ski equipment. So renting ski equipment can be very, you know, it can be heavy, right? And you arrive in a city, you're tired, you don't want to figure out how to get the ski equipment. We can have all the sizes waiting for you, all the equipment for you. So we're really trying to make Airbnb as easy and practical as possible. So you don't just get a house, but you also get a full-service experience. So eventually I see that we'll be able to add dozens, even hundreds of services that can be integrated into the house so that when you book a house you can get everything you need for your trip.
What do you think is the biggest opportunity for small businesses that are trying to integrate into your system? Suppose I'm a masseuse. I'm a masseuse in Tulum, Mexico. I'm just using a place as an example right now. How do I get clients? I only get clients from locals who know me. But how would I, if a traveler, how would I get clients?
