Airbnb’s summer release is often a grand affair with tons of updates for guests and a number of for hosts. This time, nevertheless, the corporate is introducing just a number of updates for group booking together with a brand new category called “Icons,” that are experiences hosted by celebrated names in music, film, TV and sports.
Group booking features, that are probably the one update that can reach all users, allow people to create shared wishlists, and there are trip invitations for the group with details of the property.
Users can now invite friends or family to a wishlist through contacts on their phone or a link. Group members can add properties to a listing, leave notes a few property, or vote on them to choose on the booking.
Image Credits: Airbnb
After the first member books the property, they must invite people to travel with them again on the trip with a postcard. The invitation card also has details like address, check-in instructions, and Wi-Fi passwords.
Airbnb can also be introducing a brand new message tab where all travelers can chat with the host and react to messages. Hosts can use AI-powered suggestions to answer to questions, corresponding to sending the guests the property’s checkout guide.
Image Credits: Airbnb
Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb’s co-founder and chief strategy officer, said that the corporate built group features as greater than 80% of trips on the platform involve multiple person. Plus, there may be a variety of back-and-forth between the group members when it comes to making decisions.
Other than group features, Airbnb is releasing a brand new earnings dashboard for hosts with higher insights and an experience category called “Icons,” which features properties just like the X-Men mansion, the Ferrari museum, Prince’s Purple Rain House, and front room sessions with Doja Cat. These experiences might be available for a short while, and users might want to apply for them to get in. Airbnb is planning to simply accept 4,000 people across 11 experiences.
Using AI on Airbnb
Last November, in a conversation with TechCrunch, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky mentioned that the corporate is testing generative AI-powered review summaries. While Airbnb hasn’t made public announcements on this area, Blecharczyk told TechCrunch that the platform plans to make use of AI in multiple areas, including customer support.
“We’re increasingly using AI to streamline our customer support to be sure that that customers are routed to the correct agents or to have tickets routinely resolved with AI-generated responses,” he said.
The Airbnb co-founder noted that AI-powered responses are applicable only to certain scenarios, and the corporate has been testing them in limited production.
“I feel there may be a variety of potential for applying AI to the business. We expect so much about how AI goes to vary the experience at the patron layer over time,” Blecharczyk said without sharing specifics of the corporate’s roadmap.
“We have now a variety of reviews, and we sit on top of a variety of customer support data. So we’re eager about how we are able to use AI to succinctly give a greater picture of a list and its information.”
In November 2023, Airbnb acquired a stealth startup called GamePlanner, which was launched by Siri co-founder Adam Cheyer. Earlier this 12 months, Chesky mentioned that the GamePlanner acquisition was a part of the travel platform’s plan to create an “ultimate concierge.” Using AI-powered replies to unravel customer queries might be step one toward that.
