Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky discusses importance of human connection and his advice to OpenAI's Sam Altman
Airbnb announced new social features to help users stay in touch with those they’ve met through Airbnb Experiences. A new "Connections" section on users' profile tab now showcases people they’ve met through the app, making it easier to connect ahead of an activity or event and reconnect after.
“One of the things we heard is that people love meeting other people on Experiences,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis in a wide-ranging interview. “So, we added social features where you can see who's going on the experience [and] keep in touch with them after. It's kind of like a social network in the real world.”
Alongside the social updates, the company is expanding its AI-powered customer support, which now responds within seconds, offering answers that are tailored to a user’s reservations or listing. Plus, it can do things like modify or cancel a reservation.
For Chesky, these additions go beyond product upgrades. He sees them as part of Airbnb’s broader mission to deepen connection in an increasingly divisive and digital world.
“People are lonelier, they're more divided than ever, and we think the antidote is travel and human connection,” Chesky said. “That’s what we’ve always been about.”
His mission also informs how he thinks about Airbnb’s adoption of AI. While he said he’s “steeped” in the technology, he’s also deliberate about when and how to deploy it.
Chesky, a close friend and advisor to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, said he offered Altman advice when he was starting ChatGPT to “position it as a tool, not as some anthropomorphic being.”
“Steve Jobs had a saying at Apple, ‘never trust a computer you can't throw out the window’. In fact, that's why they created a handle on the Mac. In other words, what he meant was, these are tools, they're not sentient, they're not alive, they don't control you, you control them,” Chesky said.
“As long as we're in control of the technology, we're okay, but we have to be careful because we make our tools, then they make us,” he added.
Airbnb isn’t working with OpenAI yet, but Chesky says they are “always open” in the future when the products are ready for a company like Airbnb.
“We are not a commodity, we're a community,” Chesky said. “You need to have an account; you need to verify your identity. We want you to feel like you're a part of the community and so to do that, we have to build an ecosystem within these other apps and they'll take some time.”
While Chesky sees enormous potential in the future of AI, he also sees it as something that will deepen the need for actual connection.
“People, I think, are yearning for what is real,” Chesky said. “And AI will increasingly become this magical fantasy land. It will be amazing to be in a little bit, but not live in all the time. We need to still be in the physical world.”
When asked what AI will do to leadership in the future, Chesky’s instinct is that management of AI and management of people aren’t actually that different: they’re both hard.
“AI is not magic,” Chesky said. “It needs rules. People need clear instructions.”
But some things, Chesky told Jarvis, will never change.
“People are still going to want relationships,” Chesky said. “Leadership is still going to matter.”
