Airbnb will launch new artificial intelligence features and tools as part of the product update.
The company considers these solutions as a way to increase the reliability of its app. The firm announced the expansion of functionality and the introduction of new artificial intelligence tools on Wednesday, November 8.
As part of the innovations, listings with a rating above 4.9 stars and less than 1% of cancellations from the hosts will receive the label Favorite Guest. The relevant information is contained in the official message of the company. The new label for users will be a kind of signal that in the case of a rental transaction or a temporary stay in a family with certain property owners, there will be no problems.
The company said that 2 million of the more than 7 million homes represented on the virtual Airbnb platform are currently eligible to receive the mentioned status.
Also, as part of the innovations, the firm will offer users a new tool based on artificial intelligence, which will provide an opportunity to sort photos of the interior of houses by room. Moreover, as part of this technological solution, consumers will be able to get more information about the authors of reviews and the experience of their trips. In this case, attention will be paid, among other things, to such data as the length of stay and the number of travelers.
The updates will be presented as part of the regular winter release of Airbnb products. The chief executive officer of the company, Brian Chesky, during a conversation with media representatives, said that the new solutions will make the process of determining the best real estate and the best owners more transparent. According to him, in this case, the best will receive legitimate advantages on the firm’s platform. He also noted that the rest in the context of competition will have to take measures to increase the attractiveness of their proposals. One of the possible actions within the framework of the corresponding efforts may be to reduce the price.
These innovations are the latest updates in a series of improvements that the company has implemented this year to adapt to changes in the structure of travel after the coronavirus pandemic. The mentioned changes were manifested in increased competition from hotels and the transition from short-term rentals to long-term bookings of 28 days or more.
On the Airbnb platform, the dynamic of the increase in the number of rental housing offers demonstrates a higher level of intensity compared to the growth rate of a similar indicator of bookings. In the new realities caused by changes in consumer behavior against the background of the coronavirus pandemic, the company had to increase its competitiveness with traditional hotels. In this case, Airbnb paid special attention to such criteria as quality, consistency, and affordability. Brian Chesky stated that reliability in addition to improving customer service is one of the last frontiers for solving the company’s fundamental problems. According to him, the current capabilities of the firm and technology allow us to achieve the corresponding goals.
Brian Chesky noted that people often describe the registration process on the Airbnb platform as a moment of truth when it is necessary to find out whether the booked house meets the initial expectations. According to him, too often this does not happen.
In early October, Brian Chesky announced the significant potential of artificial intelligence for the real estate sector. He said that the company he headed used machine learning methods to analyze the arrival of the last one and a half-billion guests and find out if any of them had parties. According to him, in the course of solving the corresponding task, a person may not pay attention to certain details that artificial intelligence will necessarily take into account. He noted that AI can view more than a billion data points, find many similarities, and create a set of rules.
Last week, Brian Chesky said that artificial intelligence can improve the quality of travel and change the tourism industry as a whole. According to him, the use of AI will be a profitable solution for online platforms because of its original digital nature.
