Airbnb leaned on artificial intelligence to generate 60 percent of its new code in the first quarter of 2026, as the company reported revenue of $2.7 billion, up 18 percent year over year.
The company revealed its latest technology deployments during its May 7 Q1 earnings call.
During the call, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told investors that one engineer can now handle work that previously required 20 people, with AI agents operating under human supervision.
The platform also reported its AI customer support agent now resolves 40 percent of issues without human escalation, up from 33 percent earlier this year, according to a Benzinga report.
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Adopting AI has been a ‘huge leverage’ for Airbnb
“API partners say they want to be better hosts and need better tools. AI gives huge leverage — where you might have needed a team of 20 engineers before, an engineer can now spin up agents to do a lot of work under supervision,” Chesky said.
“Adopting AI tools gives us leverage to build more software for API partners, accelerating work we previously did not have resources for,” he added.
Chesky said the shift gives Airbnb leverage to build software for API partners that the company previously lacked resources to develop.
But he cautioned that no company has solved AI for travel or e-commerce, citing chatbots that carry too much text, lack direct manipulation tools, offer poor comparison features, and function as single-player experiences while most bookings involve multiple people.
The company posted net income of $160 million for the quarter, a 3.9 percent year-over-year gain, with total nights booked reaching 156.2 million, up 9 percent.
