Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky uses AI to understand company operations

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky revealed that he has developed an artificial intelligence system to help him understand the inner workings of his company, a problem he says many CEOs face. Speaking at the Skift Global Forum, Chesky described the AI as a "brain" or "intelligence corpus" trained on a vast amount of company data, including 18,000 Keynote slides and 50,000 Google documents. This system has allowed him to significantly reduce his meeting time, stating he has cut them in half.

Chesky's personal adoption of AI aligns with Airbnb's goal to become an AI-native company. He noted that AI has already accelerated Airbnb's product development, enabling the company to ship over 600 features this year, nearly double the previous year's output. Furthermore, nearly half of the company's customer service requests are now managed by AI. Airbnb also plans to launch an AI agent next year, which Chesky described as having a richer interface than a typical chatbot.

A survey by KPMG indicated that while 77% of 100 surveyed CEOs believed generative AI might be overhyped, its disruptive potential over the next five to 10 years is likely underestimated. Nearly 80% of these CEOs are allocating at least 5% of their 2026 capital budgets to AI.