Airbnb says AI now writes 60% of its new code

Airbnb reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2026, alongside a shift in how the company writes its software. During the quarter, 60% of the code produced by Airbnb engineers was written by artificial intelligence. This shift mirrors reports from other companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Spotify, which have also discussed using AI to accelerate programming. This internal efficiency push occurred alongside the company’s financial growth for the three-month period:

• Revenue: Increased 18% to $2.7 billion compared to the previous year.
• Net income: Rose 3.9% to $160 million.
• Nights booked: Increased 9% to 156.2 million.

Beyond software development, Airbnb is expanding its use of AI in customer operations. CEO Brian Chesky stated on Thursday that the company’s customer support AI bot now handles 40% of issues without human escalation, up from about 33% earlier this year. Chesky noted that AI tools provide substantial leverage for building software for its API partners—the third-party software developers and property managers who use Airbnb’s API to manage properties. He explained that while a team of 20 engineers might have been required previously, a single engineer can now spin up supervised AI agents to handle a significant portion of the work. Additionally, the company’s Reserve now, pay later feature—a financial option for booking accommodations—accounted for almost 20% of gross booking value during the quarter.

Despite these internal operational gains, Chesky expressed skepticism about the current state of consumer-facing AI in the travel and e-commerce sectors. He argued that current AI chatbot designs are ineffective for these industries due to text-heavy interfaces, a lack of direct manipulation tools, poor comparison features, and a focus on single-player rather than multiplayer, map-native experiences.

“I do not think anyone has figured out AI for travel or e-commerce yet […] The design of a chatbot, as currently constructed, does not work for travel or e-commerce. There are four problems: too much text (most of e-commerce is photo-forward); no direct manipulation (you have to type everything rather than adjust sliders); poor comparison (you can get lost trying to compare thousands of options in a thread); and most bookings are multiplayer, while chatbots are primarily single-player, and not map-native,” said Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky.

Why it matters

Airbnb is integrating AI into its internal operations to drive efficiency, yet CEO Brian Chesky remains cautious about the utility of current AI chatbot interfaces for consumer-facing travel and e-commerce applications.