SAN JOSE: Airbnb wants to make its accommodation platform more personalised for individual users – and is turning to artificial intelligence to do so, co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk told dpa.
Among other things, features that are known to be relevant to specific customers will be more prominently highlighted in the home's description, Blecharczyk said on Thursday.
If a user has frequently booked accommodation with a pool in the past, for example, that feature will be prominently displayed when browsing other listings.
AI is also set to be used to analyse reviews on the platform. "We have more than a billion reviews on our platform, right? You're not going to read all those," Blecharczyk said.
Instead, AI will summarise the content of reviews by topic. Aspects that appear particularly frequently in reviews will be highlighted – such as location, cleanliness, transport links, heating, check-in procedures or noise.
Airbnb is also placing greater emphasis on additional services like car rentals, luggage storage and even food deliveries inside the app. The company also plans to offer experiences such as tours, tastings and workshops more prominently.
Airbnb is competing with the hotel industry, but has also offered stays in boutique hotels for years, and is now also trying to ensure that hotel rooms are displayed on the platform in all relevant city districts, Blecharczyk said.
"We recognise that even our most loyal Airbnb users still sometimes book hotels," he said. In some cases that could be the better solution – for example on business trips or for a single overnight stay. Rather than sending users to another website, Airbnb wants to serve that market too, he said. – dpa
