Chesky says Airbnb will spend ‘a lot more’ on AI as earnings beat and stock surges 15%

Airbnb shares surged 15% Friday after the company delivered one of its strongest growth quarters in years and raised its full-year outlook — a turnaround CEO Brian Chesky is directly crediting to artificial intelligence.In an exclusive interview with CNBC after the earnings report, Chesky said Airbnb will spend "a lot more" on AI tokens this year than it originally forecast because the cost of inference "pales in comparison" to the revenue and productivity the company is getting back. Airbnb is cutting product-development time by roughly 60%, shipping about 80% more features year over year and keeping headcount roughly flat even as AI spending rises sharply, Chesky said."I think now it's safe to say AI is the best thing to have happened to Airbnb," he said. "I think we're becoming an AI-native company, and I think that is probably the number one explanation for our results."That conviction marks a sharp turn for Chesky. A year ago, Chesky said the question inside the company was essentially, "Is AI good for Airbnb or is AI bad for Airbnb?"The shift is notable for a CEO who has long approached technology more like a designer than a traditional engineer.Chesky went to the Rhode Islan...