Airbnb says a third of its customer support is now handled by AI in the U.S. and Canada | TechCrunch

"Airbnb says its custom-built AI agent is now handling roughly a third of its customer support issues in North America, and it's preparing to roll out the feature globally. If successful, the company believes that in a year's time, more than 30% of its total customer support tickets will be handled by AI voice and chat in all the languages where it also employs a human customer service agent."

""It will help guests plan their entire trip, help hosts better run their businesses, and help the company operate more efficiently at scale," Chesky explained, adding that's why Airbnb brought Al-Dahle on board. "Ahmad is one of the world's leading AI experts. He spent 16 years at Apple, and most recently led the generative AI team at Meta that built the Llama models. He's an expert at pairing massive technical scale with world-class design, which is exactly how we're going to transform the Airbnb experience," Chesky noted."

Airbnb's custom-built AI agent currently handles about a third of customer support issues in North America and is set for global rollout. The company expects AI voice and chat to handle over 30% of total support tickets within a year where human agents also operate. Leadership says AI will reduce costs and improve service quality. Airbnb hired CTO Ahmed Al-Dahle to accelerate an AI-native product that can 'know' users, plan trips, help hosts manage businesses, and scale operations. The firm highlights the ability to message hosts, used by 90% of guests, as a competitive advantage.

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