Airbnb says artificial intelligence is speeding up product development and will soon be tested in its search experience. The company argues that AI is most useful when integrated into travel search, discovery and support, rather than simply offering customers a chatbot.

Chief executive Brian Chesky said AI has cut the time from concept to launch for some initiatives by up to 60%, while feature releases and improvements rose nearly 80% compared with the same period last year. Airbnb plans to offer an optional AI-search toggle that accepts natural-language queries and returns visual, personalised results; meanwhile, its support bot resolves nearly 45% of issues without human help, contributing to a 16% annual fall in support cost per booking. Second-quarter revenue rose 17% to $3.6 billion, while adjusted EBITDA increased 21% to $1.3 billion.