back to article Airbnb sees AI as its ticket to become a sprawling Big Tech giant

Airbnb sees AI as its ticket out of the travel industry ghetto, and a passport to expanding its services into other industries. CFO David Stephenson outlined that planned journey on Tuesday during the short-stay rental pioneer's Q4 2023 earnings call. Asked about AI, he told investors "Airbnb is not an infrastructure company …

  1. Gavin Jamie

    Genuine people personalities

    "Your plastic pal that's fun to be with"

    All hail the late prophet Adams.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Genuine people personalities

      Though to be fair to the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, I'd rather be told to go stick my head in a pig than "I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that..."

  2. sabroni Silver badge
    Facepalm

    re: imagine an interface that is adaptive and evolving and changing in real time

    Sounds fucking irritating and very, very stupid.

  3. boblongii

    Big talk

    Coming from a company that can't even provide the breakfast they promise.

    1. sabroni Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Big talk

      Quality, have one on me!

  4. AlanSh
    Unhappy

    How do they carry on?

    The full year also produced a net loss, of $4.8 billion on revenue of $9.9 billion

    Umm - that's quite a big loss. And in just one year. Will they be around to implement AI?

    Alan

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Imagine an app that you feel like knows you," he suggested. "It's like the ultimate concierge

    that constantly reports to the mothership that sells this data on and on and on. Wet teenage fantasies.

    1. claimed Silver badge

      Re: "Imagine an app that you feel like knows you," he suggested. "It's like the ultimate concierge

      I don’t want that. This is just the same social media idiocy. If you walked into a physical store and they said “hi blah” despite never having met you, you’d be creeped the fuck out. Being a local in the pub is nice, because you go there all the time. Being seen in public in a place you’ve never been is scary.

      For the changing UI! Fucking UX101 this is not how humans work.

      Goodbye Airbnb, I guess the enshittification has come for you too

  6. katrinab Silver badge
    Alert

    I read to the end of the article. I’m still none the wiser about what they plan to actually do.

    Use AI to generate fake property listings?

    Use AI to generate fake images for real property listings?

    That’s just going to lead to a lot of unhappy customers.

    Use AI to help people find the right property that meets their requirements?

    Better to just use search filters like they do at the moment.

    Use AI to suggest holiday locations?

    Maybe, but I don’t think the extra sales, if any, would justify the cost.

    1. cyberdemon Silver badge
      Holmes

      Use AI to generate a bullshit press release about AI, to hopefully fool some gullible private equity funds to bail us out of the hole we're in ...

      They made a net loss of 5 Billion, on 10 Billion revenue... How on earth have they managed to spend 15 Billion? They bought some magic beans from the bloke who "invented" a crap voice assistant?

      Just because it got foisted on a billion crapple customers, most of whom didn't want it, never intentionally use it and only swear at it when they accidentally trigger it, doesn't make it revolutionary. And it certainty doesn't make this particular clown worth anything to AirBnB! They have done a Yahoo! on this one.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It’s AI, it’s magic! Sounds a lot better than “rent our cat-hair-encrusted spare bedroom”.

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