Airbnb expands to services and experiences, and plans for more social and AI features

As part of the broader application update, Airbnb presented on Tuesday a new feature that allows travelers to book services and experiences, such as receiving a message, haircut or meal ready for chefs, or participating in some activities. These new offers can be added to your stay, but it can also be reserved independently, says Airbnb.

For example, you can reserve a tour of a city that I traveled to, but where you chose to stay elsewhere, the company suggests.

This is not the first time that Airbnb has tried such an advantage – I temporarily stopped a previous version of experiments in 2023 To improve its essence Providing residencies. Now, the company again wants customers to go beyond planning a trip.

This step aims to take advantage of the Airbnb site for the traffic that it already receives. During the Airbnb Q1 2025 call, CEO Brian Chisky said that her service was accessed by more than 1.5 billion devices last year, but he indicated that many people come to the site and do not reserve a house.

It also brings Airbnb more directly in competition with other travel companies such as Tripadvisor, Booking.com, Viator, Gtyourguide and service providers like howling.

Initially, Airbnb allows you to reserve services across 10 categories, including chefs, food, prepared meals, photography, massage, spa therapy, personal training, hair, nails, and makeup. Services will be provided in 100 cities around the world in eight countries.

While users can take advantage of the services in which they reside, they will usually travel to a place for experiments.

Initially, experiments will include cultural and museum tours; Outdoor experiments, water winds, and wildlife; Food tours and cooking lessons; Technical workshops and shopping experiences; Exercise, wellness, and beauty experiences. The company launches experiments in 19 categories across 1000 cities in the world.

Airbnb also launches exclusive experiences on its platform called Airbnb Origeins, which includes popular partnerships. These include things such as making pastries in the French bakery with Chef Rafael Elbaz, or playing beach volleyball with Olympic Carroll Solburg on Rio Laibel Beach.

“These experiments and services are a way to try a city like a local. We believe that these natural extensions of the house (residencies). What is great in Airbnb is that you get unique places that you cannot find anywhere else. We are thinking about our new offers in the same way.”

Coplan believes that Airbnb experiences may inspire people to travel and make a trip that they may not think. In addition, he believes that new offers can lead to people discovering new things to do in their town.

Airbnb will take 15 % of services and 20 % of experiments. However, users will see one price when searching for or reserving any category. The company says that the hosts in these groups will go through the verification and quality checks that include their experience, their presence online, education and licenses required.

The new Airbnb application adds a social play

Adding services and expertise is part of updating a larger application where both applications for guests and hosts will be renewed to accommodate new groups, among other changes.

Guests will be able to explore and book accommodations, services and expertise. If travelers already have a next journey to be booked, the application will suggest relevant expertise or services. On the other side, hosts will have evaluation functions and menus that help them manage reservations and offers.

Airbnb is also preparing to launch social features later this year.

Today the application contains a group correspondence to planning trips, but it plans to add a group chat feature to the people who were in experience together. In this way, they can talk about the experience, share photos and videos, or make recommendations for another trip.

On the other hand, Airbnb hopes this will lead to people’s desire to travel more and use their platform to do so.

The company says it is developing privacy features on these social contacts to create a safe experience for users.

Social features follow the launch of the updated profile page, which allowed users to describe more about themselves, including where they live, the languages ​​they speak, and other facts about themselves.

After this version, Koblan said, the number of complete personal files on the platform increased by 15x.

“There was a significant increase in a number of people who wanted to share more about themselves. For us, this was evidence that traveling is something related to communications,” he said. “Whether it is your host, the people you travel with, or the people you meet along the way. There is especially, at this moment of time, the desire to communicate with others.”

Customer service limiting with artificial intelligence

The women’s comments made by ChiskyCoplan noticed how Airbnb uses Amnesty International to provide customer service, and how AI will become, over time, a concrete that can handle the planning and inspiration.

Earlier this month, Chesky presented Customer service agent in which AI works from Airbnb. Unlike the previous version of the robot, which redirects users to an article support, the assistant now provides an answer inside the chat.

The robot is initially available for English -speaking users in the United States and will be fully put forward by the end of the month for this market. Later this year, the feature will be available to more countries and languages.

Over time, he says Airbnb will add more advantages to AI’s assistant, including personal answers specifically designed for your trip and reservation, and movement buttons in the line to take quick action, such as canceling the reservation.

The updated Airbnb site, iOS and Android applications are launched to all users who start worldwide today.