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DATE

Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

  • Chief Executive Officer — Brian Chesky
  • Chief Financial Officer — Ellie Mertz
  • Vice President, Investor Relations — Andrew Slabin

TAKEAWAYS

  • Revenue -- $2.7 billion, up 18% year over year, outperforming guidance by two percentage points.
  • Gross Booking Value (GBV) -- $29 billion, growing 19% year over year amid demand strength and consistent sequential acceleration for four consecutive quarters.
  • Nights and Fees Booked -- Up 9% year over year, including a 100-basis-point headwind due to conflict in the Middle East.
  • App-Based Nights Booked -- 22% year-over-year growth, comprising 62% of total nights, rising from 58% the prior year.
  • First-Time Booker Growth -- Accelerated 10% year over year, led by expansion in Brazil, Japan, and India, marking the fastest rate since 2022.
  • Expansion Markets Net Nights -- Grew at approximately twice the rate of core markets.
  • Reserve Now, Pay Later -- Drove roughly 20% of global GBV in the quarter and contributed to longer lead times and a mix shift toward larger, higher-priced homes.
  • Experiences Business -- Nearly one-quarter of new guests who book an Experience also book a stay or service, and about one-third who book an Experience book a stay within 90 days.
  • Hotel Pilot Supply -- Boutique and independent hotel pilot expanded globally; hotel bookings now grow more than twice the rate of total business, although hotel room nights remain a single-digit percentage of total nights.
  • Winter Olympics Impact -- February Olympics in Italy saw host supply jump by 30% and GBV more than triple, with almost 200,000 guests accommodated.
  • World Cup Supply Addition -- Over 100,000 new homes listed for the World Cup, the largest event in Airbnb's history by expected guests.
  • AI-Driven Development -- Nearly 60% of engineering code now produced by AI tools, estimated at twice the industry average, accelerating feature rollout and reducing cost per booking by 10% year over year.
  • AI Customer Support -- More than 40% of support issues now resolved without a human, up from one-third in the prior quarter, driving significantly faster resolution times.
  • Net Income -- $160 million, impacted by a $70 million one-time adjustment to deferred tax assets from U.S. corporate alternative minimum tax changes.
  • Adjusted EBITDA -- $519 million, increasing 24% year over year and surpassing guidance.
  • Free Cash Flow -- $1.7 billion in the quarter; $4.5 billion over the trailing twelve months, yielding a 36% free cash flow margin.
  • Stock Repurchases -- $1.1 billion of common stock repurchased during the quarter.
  • Debt Issuance -- $2.5 billion in senior unsecured notes completed after achieving investment-grade ratings.
  • Outlook Raised -- 2026 revenue growth guidance increased to low to mid-teens percent, with adjusted EBITDA margin now expected at least 35%.
  • Second-Quarter Revenue Guidance -- $3.54 billion-$3.60 billion, reflecting 14%-16% year-over-year growth, including a ~3% foreign exchange tailwind.
  • Take Rate Upside -- Both the transition to a single host fee structure and insurance program are expected to provide modest upside to full-year take rate.

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RISKS

  • Chief Financial Officer Ellie Mertz noted, "Net income was negatively impacted by a one-time adjustment of approximately $70 million to certain deferred tax assets as a result of changes to the U.S. corporate alternative minimum tax effective in the first quarter."
  • Management cited "conflict-related cancellations across EMEA and APAC" in March, resulting in a 100-basis-point drag on nights booked and expected continued impact in upcoming periods.

SUMMARY

Airbnb (ABNB +0.41%) delivered 18% revenue growth and 19% gross booking value growth, with robust expansion across app-based bookings and international markets. Management highlighted that the Reserve Now, Pay Later rollout contributed significantly to lead times and booking metrics, while AI integration accelerated development cycles and customer support efficiency. A $70 million tax-related adjustment dampened net income but did not constrain free cash flow or the repurchase program. The hotel segment grew at more than twice the overall business rate, and the World Cup is on track to become Airbnb's largest-ever event by guest count and supply addition. Updated guidance reflects increased confidence in growth and margin trajectory, with specific upside anticipated from new fee structures, product innovation, and global demand catalysts.

  • Chief Financial Officer Ellie Mertz stated, "We expect the FX tailwind to ADR to be significantly lower in the second quarter than in the first quarter," signaling a likely moderation of FX-driven gains in average daily rates.
  • More than 25% of active listings now utilize the single service fee, and further fee simplification is planned for additional hosts, supporting full-year take rate assumptions.
  • In the first quarter, management completed a $2.5 billion senior unsecured notes offering to refinance debt and fund general corporate purposes.
  • Chief Executive Officer Ellie Mertz said, "Over 55% of people who book a hotel on the platform come back to book a home," illustrating cross-category customer retention that may underpin future conversion rates.
  • Localization efforts in expansion markets, including 16 local marketing campaigns and country-specific product enhancements, are cited as major contributors to first-time booker acceleration.
  • The upcoming Summer Release on May 20 is expected to debut further feature enhancements, including AI-driven personalization and differentiated hotel offerings.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

  • GBV (Gross Booking Value): The total dollar value of bookings on the platform before cancellations, including fees, taxes, and ancillary services.
  • ADR (Average Daily Rate): The average rental income per paid occupied room or home per day, a key performance indicator for pricing trends.
  • Reserve Now, Pay Later: A flexible payment feature allowing guests to secure a booking and defer payment until closer to the stay date, impacting cash flow and booking cadence.
  • API Host: Property managers or partners who connect inventory to Airbnb via automated application programming interfaces rather than manual listings.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Airbnb, Inc.'s Earnings Conference Call for 2026. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay from the Investor Relations section of Airbnb, Inc.'s website following this call. I will now hand the call over to Andrew Slabin, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Unknown Executive: Good afternoon, and welcome to Airbnb, Inc.'s first quarter of 2026 conference call. Thank you for joining us today. On the call, we have Airbnb, Inc.'s Co-Founder and CEO, Brian Chesky, and our Chief Financial Officer, Ellie Mertz. Earlier today, we issued a shareholder letter with our financial results and commentary for Q1 2026. These items were also posted on the investor relations section of Airbnb, Inc.'s website. During the call, we will make brief opening remarks, and then spend the remainder of the time on Q&A. Before I turn it over to Brian, I would like to remind everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements on the call that involve a number of risks and uncertainties.

Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements, due to a variety of factors. These factors are described under forward-looking statements in our shareholder letter and in our most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We urge you to consider these factors and remind you that we undertake no obligation to update the information contained on the call to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. You should be aware that these statements should be considered estimates only and are not a guarantee of future performance. Also during this call, we will discuss some non-GAAP financial measures.

We have provided reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in the shareholder letter posted to our investor relations website. These non-GAAP measures are not intended to be a substitute for our GAAP results. And with that, I will pass the call over to Brian.

Brian Chesky: Alright. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining. Airbnb, Inc. had a strong start to 2026. Last quarter, we talked about the path we have been on to rebuild our foundation, innovate faster, and accelerate growth. In Q1, that work continued to pay off. Revenue grew 18% year over year to $2.7 billion, which exceeded the high end of our guidance. Gross booking value grew 19% year over year, driven by strong demand and continued pricing strength. Nights and fees booked grew 9% after accounting for an approximate 100 basis point headwind from the conflict in the Middle East. We are seeing this momentum show up across the business.

Nights booked in our app grew 22% year over year, and they now account for 62% of total nights booked, up from 58% a year ago. Growth in first-time bookers also accelerated 10%. This is the highest growth rate since 2022, with strong acceleration in Brazil, Japan, and India. Net nights for expansion markets grew at roughly twice the rate of our core markets. This is Project Hawaii at work—the blueprint that I talked about last quarter—where we create small elite teams and give them a clear mandate. We start with simple improvements, ship, learn quickly, and double down on what works. Eventually, we tackle bigger, more ambitious bets.

Last year, it drove hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and this quarter, you can see it really showing up more broadly across our business. First, new features for guests and hosts. We shipped a ton of improvements for guests in Q1. Reserve Now, Pay Later is one of them. We introduced it last year to give guests a more flexible way to pay, and the response has been incredible. We expanded to more markets around the world in Q1, and as a result, roughly 20% of global GBV came from Reserve Now, Pay Later bookings. This increased flexibility is changing how guests book.

We are seeing longer lead times as well as a mix shift towards larger, higher priced homes. In addition to Reserve Now, Pay Later, we are also improving search. Guests now see more relevant listings, and it is having a positive impact on bookings. On the host side, we are building more of what hosts have been asking for. We redesigned the host sign-up flow to make it easier to start hosting, and we are testing Host Insights, which are personalized recommendations to help hosts improve their listing and stay competitive. Finally, we are upgrading our pricing tools to make it easier for hosts to set prices based on demand and seasonality. Second, we are expanding what Airbnb, Inc. offers.

We continued piloting new Airbnb services to make every part of the trip better in Q1. You will hear more about what is new at our May 20 launch in two weeks. We also continued scaling Experiences, and early results show that is becoming a demand flywheel. Almost a quarter of new guests who book an Experience go on to book a stay or a service, and about one in three people who book an Experience book a stay within 90 days. So services and Experiences are about more than just standalone products; they are a great way to introduce new guests to everything Airbnb, Inc. has to offer.

We are also expanding our partnership with Delta Air Lines so that travelers can earn Delta miles on qualifying Experiences and services, in addition to homes. To capture even more trips, we are scaling our boutique and independent hotel pilot to more mature markets around the world. Early results are strong, especially in cities where our supply of homes is not meeting demand or where supply is constrained because of regulation. Bringing more hotels onto the platform helps us serve guests when a hotel might be the right choice. It also introduces more new guests to Airbnb, Inc., and roughly 55% of guests who book a hotel on Airbnb, Inc. come back and book a home.

Third, we are using big events to drive the business. Big events are how Airbnb, Inc. got its start, and we have spent years refining our strategy around them. They do a few big things for the business. First, they help us bring on thousands of new hosts at scale. Many hosts who join for a big event are renting out their home for the first time, and they may continue hosting long after the crowds leave. Events also strengthen our relationships with cities and governments that need new ways to host millions of visitors. Of course, they give Airbnb, Inc. a global stage to do what we do best, which is bring people together from all over the world.

We saw this playbook in action this February during the Winter Olympics in Italy. As an official Olympics partner, almost 200,000 guests stayed on Airbnb, Inc., with supply in host markets growing about 30% and GBV more than tripling. Our marketing campaigns generated around 1 billion impressions, and we met with dozens of government officials and community leaders during the Games, strengthening our relationships across Italy. The World Cup is the next chapter in our event strategy, and we expect to host more guests than any event in Airbnb, Inc.’s history. Since we started outreach in October, over 100,000 homes have listed on Airbnb, Inc. for the first time.

It is also worth noting that this is not just a strategy for big global events, because we have a playbook that works at every scale so we can be targeted about where and when we grow supply. Finally, AI. It is changing how we build and innovate. Nearly 60% of the code our engineers produce is now written by AI, which we estimate is about twice the industry average. That means our teams are shipping more features and iterating more quickly. But it is not just about speed; it is about delivering a better experience for our guests and hosts. Customer support is a great example.

When guests contact us through our AI assistant, over 40% of issues are now resolved without a human agent, up from about a third in Q4, with significantly faster resolution time. We expect to see more of this as we improve AI customer support. We have seen the cost per booking decrease about 10% year over year in Q1 2026. You can see why we are really excited about the year ahead, and our guidance reflects that. We are raising our guidance for 2026 and now expect year-over-year revenue growth to accelerate to low to mid-teens, and we anticipate our adjusted EBITDA margin to be at least 35%.

All of this is happening against the backdrop of macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. In moments like this, it shows just how resilient Airbnb, Inc.’s model is. When travel patterns shift, Airbnb, Inc. adapts with them. When tariff uncertainty led to fewer people traveling to the U.S. last year, they came to Airbnb, Inc. and found somewhere else to go. We are seeing a similar dynamic now. We have millions of homes everywhere in the world at nearly every price point, and that is something most travel companies cannot replicate. It is a core reason we are able to deliver consistent results even in challenging environments.

While we cannot predict each quarter with precision, we can control the speed of our innovation. In the long run, that is what leads to more growth. Lastly, our 2026 Summer Release is coming up two weeks from Wednesday, on May 20. I am really proud of what the team is building, and I am excited for you to see it. With that, I will turn it over to Ellie.

Ellie Mertz: Thanks, Brian, and good afternoon, everyone. I will start with Q1 financial results, then cover our outlook for Q2 and full year 2026. Q1 was another great quarter for Airbnb, Inc., with continued momentum seen across the business. Gross booking value grew 19% year over year to $29 billion, representing consistent sequential acceleration for the last four quarters, driven by both strong growth in nights and ADR. During the quarter, we saw nights growth accelerate from January to February; however, we saw a slight deceleration in March largely due to conflict-related cancellations across EMEA and APAC.

Absent the impact of the conflict, we estimate growth of nights and stays booked would have been approximately 10% year over year, an acceleration compared to Q1 2025. ADR increased 9% year over year, or 4% excluding the impact of FX, with noticeable strength in North America. Continuing on the progress we made last year, we have been steadily making it easier to find and book a home on Airbnb, Inc. Last quarter, I shared three initiatives in particular that helped drive the continued momentum across our business: the broader expansion of Reserve Now, Pay Later; updates to our cancellation policies; and the migration of certain hosts to a simplified fee structure.

First, we expanded Reserve Now, Pay Later to more markets and adoption continued to increase. In addition to driving longer booking lead times and contributing to the increase in ADR, Reserve Now, Pay Later is driving a meaningful lift to all booking metrics, net of cancellations. We believe this is a longer-term competitive benefit, locking in earlier calendar share and better aligning our payment options with guest preferences. Second, as shared previously, we redesigned our cancellation policies to give guests more flexibility and confidence to book. Lastly, we began migrating our API hosts to a single service fee. We believe this simplification of fee structure will help our hosts price more competitively and provide greater price transparency.

Over a quarter of our active listings are now subject to the single service fee. In total, we estimate these three features delivered approximately three points of nights booked growth and approximately four points of GBV growth in Q1. We are testing the expansion of the single service fee to more hosts this year, and we will continue iterating to simplify pricing, improve transparency, and help our hosts stay competitive. Now turning to our Q1 financials. Revenue grew 18% year over year to $2.7 billion, exceeding the high end of our outlook by two percentage points, largely driven by the positive impact of our product updates and FX to a lesser extent.

In terms of profitability, our net income was $160 million, while adjusted EBITDA was $519 million, up 24% year over year and also exceeding guidance. Net income was negatively impacted by a one-time adjustment of approximately $70 million to certain deferred tax assets as a result of changes to the U.S. corporate alternative minimum tax effective in Q1. For 2026, we anticipate our effective tax rate to be in the high teens, down from 20% in 2025 due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, primarily due to how foreign earnings are taxed. Next, our balance sheet and cash flow. We continue to benefit from our efficient, capital-light business model, delivering $1.7 billion of free cash flow in Q1.

Over the trailing twelve months, we generated $4.5 billion of free cash flow, representing a free cash flow margin of 36%. Absent the impact of Reserve Now, Pay Later bookings—which defer guest payments from the time of booking closer to the date of stay—we expect that unearned fees and free cash flow would have both grown year over year in Q1. Reserve Now, Pay Later results in lower unearned fees in Q1 and Q2, and higher unearned fees in Q3. Our strong balance sheet and cash flow generation allowed us to repurchase $1.1 billion of our common stock in Q1. As a reminder, returning capital to shareholders remains a key component of our capital allocation strategy.

Lastly, in Q1, we received investment grade ratings from the major agencies and subsequently completed a $2.5 billion senior unsecured debt offering for debt repayment and general corporate purposes. We believe establishing a presence in the corporate bond market expands our access to financing, diversifies our investor base, and supports long-term optimization of our cost of capital. Now let us shift to our Q2 and full year 2026 outlook. We are encouraged by the momentum we have seen so far this year and are excited about our roadmap to drive growth in 2026. In Q2, we expect to generate revenue of $3.54 billion to $3.60 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 14% to 16%.

This includes an approximate 3% foreign exchange tailwind after factoring in our hedging program. We expect GBV to increase in the low double digits year over year, driven by growth in nights and stays booked, and a moderate increase in ADR. We expect the FX tailwind to ADR to be significantly lower in Q2 than in Q1. Finally, in Q2, we expect year-over-year growth in nights and stays booked to decelerate slightly relative to the 9% growth we saw in Q1, inclusive of an approximate 100 basis point headwind related to the conflict in the Middle East. On profitability, we expect adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin to be up year over year in Q2.

Finally, for the full year 2026, we are raising our guidance and now expect year-over-year revenue growth to accelerate to low to mid-teens. The upward revision to our revenue outlook reflects meaningful progress across our growth initiatives and improvements to monetization through a simplified fee structure and our insurance program, which are expected to lift our full-year take rate. We remain optimistic about our continued momentum even as we face tougher comps in the back half of the year against the rollout of Reserve Now, Pay Later and current headwinds from the Middle East. For profitability, we are now expecting our adjusted EBITDA margin to be at least 35%.

We will continue to prioritize reinvestment to support further growth across the business, specifically on efficient marketing spend, international expansion, and AI initiatives. To close, our confidence in the increased full-year outlook we provided is grounded in the trends we are seeing. Underlying demand is strong, our product improvements are working, our monetization initiatives are gaining traction, and our balance sheet and significant liquidity give us the flexibility to keep investing. And with that, I will open it up to Q&A.

Operator: We will now open the call for questions. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question only. Your first question comes from the line of Ronald Victor Josey from Citi. Your line is open.

Ronald Victor Josey: Great. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask two, please. First, on app room nights, more booked through the app—the 22% growth and approaching two-thirds—Brian, talk to us about any changes in the app that you have made that are driving that. And then a bigger picture question: I think recently you had some comments on a podcast about rebuilding or rethinking how teams are structured given the world of AI. Any insights there would be helpful on how the organization is organized. Thank you.

Brian Chesky: Hey, Ron. On the app room nights growth, one of the general trends we are seeing is that more and more people are gravitating to using a mobile application. Obviously, that has been happening for over a decade. There are a couple of reasons for this. Number one, we have been more aggressive over the last year to year and a half in pushing people who open Airbnb, Inc. on a mobile website to download the app. We have been a bit more aggressive about that, really letting them know we have a much better experience. Increasingly, we also have more people opting into notifications. Notifications pull people back into the app.

The way we do emails, we try to create a lot of hooks for people to use the application. Also, we are seeing a lot of momentum on downloads in the app stores. Every year, our top rank within the global top 50 apps keeps going up year over year. I think a lot of it is general improvements and optimization. I do not think there is a silver bullet here. With regard to the broader comment on how teams are being restructured for AI, here is what I would say. It is really early, and we are at the very beginning of how AI is going to change how we all do our jobs.

One of my principles is that Airbnb, Inc. has to move at the speed of AI. AI is an accelerant to everything. I think the number one characteristic of AI is speed; it speeds everything up. It also requires everyone to be more hands-on and more nimble and adaptive. One of the benefits of the way Airbnb, Inc. is run is what some have called “founder mode,” based on a talk I gave. It is the notion that leaders should be hands-on. I do not think there is going to be as much of a role for pure people managers—30,000-feet, hands-off managers.

Everyone will have to be much more hands-on, much more in the details of the company and the data. Data inside companies is now completely democratized. You do not need to inquire with a data scientist to get data; we all have self-serve dashboards. I am seeing many of our design managers and engineering managers go back to coding or using low-code/no-code tools. We have 60% of our code being authored by AI. This is significantly higher than our peer set and benchmarks. Generally, it is about moving faster and being more hands-on. What the implications are for how we structure our teams in the future—it is too early to say.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Richard J. Clarke from Bernstein. Your line is open.

Richard J. Clarke: Hi, Brian. Hi, Ellie. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a couple on the Delta partnership you set out today. You talked about expanding take rate. I assume this partnership comes at a bit of a cost. Is it just small enough that it does not affect your take rate trajectory? Are there more partnerships like this you can do? And embedding yourself into another airline partnership—how should we think about your own ambitions to do loyalty or to sell air tickets going forward? Are those held back at all by this partnership?

Ellie Mertz: Let me speak a little bit about the partnership and then Brian will talk about loyalty. We are excited about the Delta partnership that we announced earlier this week. It is a great opportunity for us to work with partners and effectively share in demand. In terms of economics, it is a rev share program. You should not anticipate that it has a negative impact on our take rate this year. As we called out in the letter, you should see modest upside to our take rate from both the migration to the single fee structure as well as our insurance program. So you should not see this as a negative to our take rate.

We think it is a highly effective, high-ROI way to generate demand.

Brian Chesky: With regards to flights and loyalty, they are both on the table. On loyalty, I have always believed the best loyalty program is people loving the product and coming back. That said, it is remarkable how successful Airbnb, Inc. has been given we are probably the only large travel company in the world that does not have a loyalty program. I have always said we are looking at something, but if we do, we would not do an additive points program. We are looking at our version of a really compelling program. I do not have anything to announce today, but when we do something, it will be truly differentiated and unique to Airbnb, Inc.

With regards to flights, our vision is to build a global community where you can travel anywhere. How you get there is part of that vision. We do not have any announcements on flights, but it is certainly on the table as part of our future vision.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jed Kelly from Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Jed Kelly: Great. Thanks for taking my question. I have noticed an improvement in the hotel product in New York City. Can you give us an update on how room nights are trending in some of your test markets? Thanks.

Ellie Mertz: We are really excited about the work that we have done on hotels. We are actively scaling the number of great, high-quality boutique and independent hotels on the platform. At the same time, we have fundamentally upgraded the product experience for hotels. We have upgraded the product display for individual hotels so that they have the right information a guest is looking for from a hotel versus a home—making it much easier for consumers to find hotels if that is what they are looking for, and to know when they are looking at a hotel relative to a home.

What we have shared about the scaling is that hotels today are a relatively small portion of the business—it is a single-digit percentage of total nights. But over the last couple of quarters, the top-line metrics for hotels are growing more than double that of the entire business. We are seeing really nice scaling both on the supply side as well as bookings, and we are excited about the path forward to build this into a meaningful portion of our business. When you think about why we have entered hotels, it is for a few reasons. One is the size of the market.

Today, as we have said many times, Airbnb, Inc. only represents about one in ten nights stayed in accommodations. Adding hotels to our platform does three things that Brian mentioned in his opening remarks. One, it allows us to satisfy demand in markets where, for regulatory or other reasons, we do not have sufficient supply. Second, it allows us to fill in travel nights for many of our loyal guests when a hotel is a better offering for a particular trip—last minute, one night, traveling by yourself. We want to make sure that we have an accommodation that fits any travel need.

Third, and probably one of the largest opportunities, is we believe having hotels on the platform is a nice onboarding ramp for global travelers who have not yet tried Airbnb, Inc. We can bring in new guests to the Airbnb, Inc. ecosystem—start them on hotels and, over time, migrate them to homes as well. Over 55% of people who book a hotel on the platform come back to book a home, so we are already seeing that onboarding ramp. We are really excited about the path forward for hotels on Airbnb, Inc.

Brian Chesky: The only other thing I would add is we are going to have some updates to our hotel product and strategy on May 20.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Kenneth James Gawrelski from Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Kenneth James Gawrelski: Thank you. If I could just follow up on the hotel point—could you talk a little bit about what you expect the user experience to look like? Will it look more like Booking, where you are searching for lodging and there will be both homes and hotels all commingled, or do you expect separate tabs and separate experiences and entry points for users? That is question one. Question two: can you talk about early learnings from the AI search experience? It seems like you have expanded it somewhat from a smaller test. What have you learned? Thank you.

Brian Chesky: Thanks, Ken. On hotels, I think our experience is going to be quite different than other OTAs. We care a lot about conversion, but first and foremost, we really care about doing something in a differentiated way and doing it in a design-forward way. With regards to inventory being commingled versus tabs, two points. Number one, if you search right now in New York City, it is commingled. But we are testing a variety of user interface components like a carousel—a left-to-right swipe module with a title—so it allows a distinct type of inventory to fit within a search results page. This works really well.

Second, with regards to hotel tabs, without giving away too much of our product strategy, we are probably going to have more tabs in the future for people who want to find something very specific. The more important answer is personalization. There are people who only want to book hotels—they should only see hotels. There are people who only want to book homes—they should only see homes. There are people who would book homes or hotels depending on the trip type. If you search last minute for one night on a business trip, and we know you sometimes book hotels, we will probably show you hotels.

If you are looking for a family vacation, traveling with four other guests, staying for a week in Tuscany, a hotel is probably not right—we will show you a home. The ultimate paradigm is not tabs versus commingled inventory; that is a pre-AI paradigm. A post-AI paradigm that we are moving towards—and this relates to AI search—is deep personalization, understanding every user. A hundred percent of people who book have an account, and they have to have a verified ID. You cannot book as a guest; you have to be a member of the community. Therefore, we know something about you. We can infer a lot from your on-site behavior and past activity.

In the age of AI, we know you and we give you exactly what you are looking for. I think this is what most e-commerce sites will look like in the age of AI. Now, on AI search—our strategy with AI is quite different than our competitors. Many competitors started top of funnel—“Where should I travel?” We started bottom of the funnel with customer service, which we thought was the hardest problem in AI.

The stakes are high; you cannot hallucinate; you have to answer very quickly; you have to be multilingual; you have to adjudicate difficult issues; you have to escalate to humans accurately, especially for trust and safety; and you have to handle PII and be able to read and train based on nearly a hundred policies and millions of data points. It is very hard. I am proud to say we have made a lot of progress, and over 40% of people who connect with our AI assistant self-solve. I believe it is by far the best AI self-solve in all of travel. From bottom of the funnel, we moved to mid-funnel.

On listing pages, guests told us that when they see 100 reviews, they do not have time to read them all. We now have AI summaries, and AI is helping our matching, search ranking, and relevance. On May 20, you will see a bunch more AI features in the mid-funnel. Finally, top of funnel—AI search—is what we are currently testing. AI feels like magic, but it is not. In order to be good at AI, you need strong foundational technology and great data infrastructure. Over the last two years, we have gotten our data warehouse really clean because your AI is only as good as your data.

We hired Ahmed, our CTO, who was the leader of the Llama model at Meta. We are one of the only technology companies in travel with an AI-native leader running the entire technology stack. We are piloting a variety of ways to use AI—whether in the search box, interrupting search, in the filter panel, or once you book a trip. We are trying a lot of different things. I do not think anyone has figured out AI for travel or e-commerce yet. For example, while chatbot traffic converts higher than Google traffic when sent to Airbnb, Inc., the design of a chatbot, as currently constructed, does not work for travel or e-commerce.

There are four problems: too much text (most of e-commerce is photo-forward); no direct manipulation (you have to type everything rather than adjust sliders); poor comparison (you can get lost trying to compare thousands of options in a thread); and most bookings are multiplayer, while chatbots are primarily single-player, and not map-native. While AI is a risk to everyone, it is also an opportunity. Over the next year, you will see a lot of innovation around AI-native interfaces. I think not only can we solve this for home sharing, we can solve it for all parts of travel, and maybe even parts of living.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Analyst from BNP Paribas Exane. Your line is open.

Analyst: Thanks for taking the questions. I would like to touch on the World Cup in North America. Can you talk about booking patterns? Do you feel a lot of the bookings are done so far? How should we think about the shape of that? We have to get through the group stage and see what happens—any thoughts on how that will unfold or what we should be paying attention to? And can you also speak to what happens to the supply after the event? You said you added 100,000. Do those stick around, and is there follow-through after the event where people still access that supply? Thank you.

Ellie Mertz: Thanks for the question. We are extremely excited about the World Cup. So far, in terms of cumulative bookings heading into the event, the World Cup is slated to be the largest event in Airbnb, Inc.’s history. What is particularly exciting is not just the scale of total nights booked or guests we expect to serve, but also the breadth—16 cities across three countries—giving us a large canvas for driving brand awareness and sentiment, driving supply, and building on community and policy opportunities that such a partnership creates. In terms of what we are seeing so far, we are happy with performance leading up to the tournament.

One thing to note, based on past events—both previous World Cups and the most recent Olympics—is that a lot of booking activity happens close to the games. As the tournament continues and people know who is playing and where, many bookings are closer to the date than typical travel. Where we are today, we feel really good about how big this is going to be for football enthusiasts and for the Airbnb, Inc. brand and business. In terms of supply, yes, in the 16 host cities for the World Cup, we have attracted an incremental 100,000 listings.

As a data point on retention, after Paris, six months after the Games we had retained in excess of half of the listings that came on specifically for the Games. We do not need all of the supply to stay because these are peak moments in these cities, but many stay because they realize the benefits of being a host on Airbnb, Inc.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Eric James Sheridan from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Eric James Sheridan: Thanks so much for taking the question. We talked about the hotel side growing in the business. On the core alternative accommodation side, can you talk about the opportunities and challenges that exist in continuing to grow the supply base of alternative accommodations? I would be curious about any views on how AI might play a role in finding or sourcing less easily discoverable supply that would align with that side of the business over the medium to long term. Thanks so much.

Brian Chesky: Hey, Eric. You can think about our core accommodations business of homes as a few categories. You have hosts that connect via an API—primarily property managers. Then you have primary homes—homes people live in more than 180 days a year—vacation homes, and private rooms. I would break them into two buckets: API partners and primary/vacation homes. For API partners, AI enables us to build more tools. We have been a bit behind third parties in building great tools for API partners, and as a segment, they are growing really fast. We see a big opportunity to better serve them. One thing we found is that the more properties you manage on Airbnb, Inc., the lower your rating is.

Our customers have higher satisfaction with individual hosts over property managers. On the one hand, that is encouraging because that inventory is more unique and exclusive to Airbnb, Inc. On the other hand, we see that as an opportunity. API partners say they want to be better hosts and need better tools. AI gives huge leverage—where you might have needed a team of 20 engineers before, an engineer can now spin up agents to do a lot of work under supervision. Adopting AI tools gives us leverage to build more software for API partners, accelerating work we previously did not have resources for. That is more about enabling them to be successful than about acquiring properties.

AI especially can help sourcing, discovery, and listing of primary homes. Today, you type everything in—address, title, description. Eventually, you could say “list my place,” put in your address, we can scrape information, use your photos, and write the description with computer vision. It is difficult for a regular person to list a property; businesses have staff to do it. Removing friction is less important for API partners, who want power tools. Regular people want things to be easy—AI makes things easy. It can help find properties, help us target which neighborhoods need supply, understand incentives, and then make it easier to list.

AI is one of the best things to happen to Airbnb, Inc., and these are some of the reasons why.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of John Robert Colantuoni from Jefferies. Your line is open.

John Robert Colantuoni: Great. Thanks for taking my question. On the expansion of the Reserve Now, Pay Later offering, can you talk about how consumer adoption and awareness have evolved since rolling the product out to more markets, and any notable observations around cancellations or conversion improvements compared to the U.S. market? Thanks.

Ellie Mertz: John, thank you for the question. To give a little color on the expansion and results: last year, we initially launched Reserve Now, Pay Later in the U.S. in Q3 to great results. Over the course of Q4, we began merchandising higher up the funnel so there was broader awareness to the consumer before checkout; that was incremental to lift as well. Most recently in Q1, we rolled out RNPL to most of the rest of the world. There are slight differences in growth lift by geography, but not material. In every market that we have launched Reserve Now, Pay Later, there is a material lift to gross bookings.

In all cases, we tested extensively to ensure that the net lift to bookings was positive. With the offering, there is a higher level of cancellations that comes with the program, but across all regions, the net impact is positive to the business. In terms of relative adoption, the U.S. has the highest level of adoption, but other markets are not far behind.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Lloyd Walmsley from Mizuho. Your line is open.

Lloyd Walmsley: Thank you. I have two on hotels. First, where are you in terms of ironing out the kinks—on the API or otherwise? Ellie, you mentioned redesigning the merchandising page. What is left to do before starting to expand to more cities? Second, for Brian: outside of just filling inventory gaps, how do you see Airbnb, Inc. competing in hotels? Why would a consumer who is intent on a hotel shop on Airbnb, Inc. rather than stumbling on it while looking in a region where there is not a lot of short-term rental supply? Help us understand how you compete there.

Ellie Mertz: On what is left to do, we have had great success out of the gate in building a product that works for our hotel partners. There is a continued roadmap to make sure that we have the tools hotels need that are different from our home hosts. At the same time, there is considerable opportunity on the front end—making sure, as Brian mentioned earlier, that our product surfaces hotels at the right time to the right guests to ensure they get booked. It is a different use case in terms of when and how we should merchandise, and we continue to test and refine to make sure we are not just bringing on high-quality hotels, but also getting them booked.

Brian Chesky: Not to keep plugging May 20, but part of your answer will be answered in two weeks on why they would book on Airbnb, Inc. We want to have a lowest price guarantee and best-in-class merchandising. If you search New York, I think we already have the best merchandising of hotels of any major travel site, and that is our v1 of a new business we barely entered. You will see many more improvements, iterations, and customization. There are a lot of reasons people would book hotels on Airbnb, Inc., but one key point: we have billions of visits already. Hotels could be a multibillion-dollar revenue business without anyone intending to come to us to book a hotel.

We have so much traffic, and our conversion rate is significantly lower than Booking.com, so there is a massive opportunity by converting travelers already on our site. They are already in our store looking for a place to stay. If they do not find a home, they go to another store to book a product we do not have. If we have that product on another aisle, many will book it. There is enough upside that, without attracting people specifically for hotels, you could still build a giant business. Of course, we want people to come to Airbnb, Inc. to book hotels as well, which requires disclosing more of the product roadmap.

We envision a differentiated strategy where we have the lowest prices, the best quality hotels, and the most differentiated product offering.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Colin Alan Sebastian from Baird. Your line is open.

Colin Alan Sebastian: I wanted to follow up on the comments around the acceleration of first-time bookers. Maybe the regions or demographics driving that expansion, and whether those users are showing different booking windows or property preferences compared to historical cohorts. Related to that is momentum in expansion markets—what you would say are the biggest drivers there in terms of things like localization and payments? Thank you.

Ellie Mertz: Great, Colin. On first-time bookers, we are excited to see continued acceleration. We are seeing it in two demographics. First, expansion markets—these are relatively new for us, so the opportunity to attract new guests is huge. Second, in age cohorts, we are seeing great strength among younger customers, particularly Gen Z. These are two pools of guests where we have a huge opportunity to build the base of loyal users. More broadly on expansion markets, we are seeing great indicators that the strategy is working. Brazil is the market we have been in the longest as an expansion market.

We spent the last couple of years investing from a marketing and product perspective, and you can see compounding growth at scale. As we shared last quarter, a couple of years ago—before we had targeted Brazil as an expansion market—it was barely in our top 10 markets, and now it is consistently number three, four, or five, and compounding at over 20%. It gives us real confidence that the country-by-country approach—tailoring our marketing messages and the product to be relevant for local consumers—is a great approach to penetrate outside of our core markets. A couple of recent efforts: localizing marketing messages—Q1 alone, we had 16 local marketing campaigns capturing the local zeitgeist of cultural moments to drive awareness and consideration.

We have also made product changes to help in particular markets—for example, restructuring displays for popular bed-and-breakfasts in Italy, and tailoring feature sets to specific country preferences. As an example, German travelers care a lot about cleanliness, so we particularly highlight that for those guests. We are trying to do this increasingly at the country level so that when you open Airbnb, Inc., it feels local and relevant.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Douglas Till Anmuth from JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Douglas Till Anmuth: Thanks for taking the questions. Ellie, can you help us understand the confidence in the higher revenue growth for the year and then also the slight uptick in view on EBITDA margin? And then, Brian, given the Reserve Now, Pay Later penetration, are there other payment innovations or services you see as an opportunity on the platform? Thanks.

Ellie Mertz: Let me talk about the revenue revision upward—what does it reflect? It reflects the momentum we have seen year to date in our growth initiatives. In particular, we have more confidence in our underlying nights booked forecast for the year; more confidence in the durability of slightly higher ADRs over the course of the year; and, as we called out in the letter, we are starting to see the benefit from some of our monetization efforts, so you should see a slightly higher implied take rate in the back half of the year. Those three components round out the upward guide on the top line.

On the bottom line, thank you for noticing the slight change in the language around the 35% EBITDA guide. Relative to a quarter ago, there is upside on the top line, and with that upside, we are actively looking to reinvest to drive growth. We are reinvesting in marketing channels where we see high ROI; expansion markets where we can lean in and capture more growth; policy opportunities where we can be more aggressive in a particular city to get a better outcome; and, yes, we are ramping up our use of AI internally and anticipate that expense will ramp over the course of the year.

Given how we have managed the P&L and delivered efficiencies over time, we have the ability to absorb that within the strong margin we are confirming and updating here.

Brian Chesky: With regards to payments, Reserve Now, Pay Later is still in early innings. We are doing a global rollout, bringing it to desktop, and we do not merchandise it much yet; we can merchandise it top of funnel. Beyond that, we have payment installments—huge in Brazil. Many countries have unique payment methods they want to use. Having more updated, flexible cancellation policies—we got rid of the very strict policy; many moved to flexible or medium-flex policies—has helped a lot. We have an entire roadmap around payments and pricing. The payments and pricing roadmap has the opportunity to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue each year. In our Project Hawaii model, we have an entire team on pricing.

There is a lot to do. Reserve Now, Pay Later is uniquely large, but there are dozens of projects that can deliver growth.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brian Thomas Nowak from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Brian Thomas Nowak: Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. First, back to hotels: what is the biggest hurdle or constraint that will dictate how quickly hotels will roll across the platform this year and into next? Second, a bigger picture: you have a massive “shop” of people in your store. There are so many things you could do to drive more revenue per transaction. How do you think about adding air, adding a car service, adding a grocery offering, adding a much more complete travel experience through an agentic offering? Is that too big? Do you have teams working on it? Walk us through the ancillary revenue opportunities on your front burner.

Brian Chesky: Let me start with the second question. Is that too big? No. We are thinking very expansively, and you have rattled off a number of things. Zooming out: I see Amazon as a good inspiration. There are many differences—Airbnb, Inc. is much more capital light, and design is central to how we approach things—but their model going from books to “everything” is a good model for us. They considered new businesses as category expansions. We think there is a lot of category expansion ahead; some will be first-party and some third-party. For example, we have already announced groceries with Instacart—that is third-party. They have done this for over a decade; we do not need to learn grocery delivery.

Some first-party services we do—like photography—are unique to Airbnb, Inc. and hosts. We are building an ecosystem. Today, people think of the home as the center of the Airbnb, Inc. solar system. In the future, it will be the member—the guest. We want a constellation of services and ancillary offerings. Homes, hotels, services, Experiences are just the beginning. Even within services, the opportunity is huge. The natural question is: will we get distracted? The answer—again from Amazon—is that every subsequent offering is less work than the prior offering. Once you solve one service, the next is only 20% different; then 10% different, and so on. Every new service gets more efficient.

Each new service or offering brings in a different type of guest—some come in to book a service, Experience, or a hotel, and they might book a home later. We imagine offering just about everything a traveler needs—or anything someone needs to live somewhere for less than a year. This is where Airbnb, Inc. shines: sight-unseen bookings in the real world. Regarding the biggest hurdles for hotels: there is no single large hurdle. It is about relentless optimization and execution—speed. We have an MVP that is excellent, but it is the minimum, not the maximum. We are going to make it much better.

We will crack a few cities; it is about supply and demand, having the right prices at the right hotels in the right markets. We want the best prices online, the best hotels, the best merchandising, the most features, and strong discovery. This will take a bit of time, but we can do it quickly. We are hiring great people—some internal, some from the hotel industry—and I am very optimistic. One thing about hotels: hotels want to be on Airbnb, Inc. They are enthusiastic. Boutiques and independents typically pay higher commissions than chains on OTAs, and many independents feel pressure to franchise; not all want to join a franchise.

They lack membership or loyalty programs and cannot negotiate lower commission rates with OTAs. Airbnb, Inc. can be a very appealing channel for them. It is about relentless optimization and execution.

Operator: That concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Brian for closing remarks.

Brian Chesky: Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. I am incredibly proud of what the team continues to deliver. Revenue grew 18%. We beat and raised guidance, and the momentum is showing up across every part of the business. I will have more to share at our Summer Release on May 20. Thank you for joining.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.