The Rundown - Airbnb Executive On Hotel Expansion, AI, and the Next Phase of Growth

Episode Date: March 15, 2026

Airbnb Chief Business Officer Dave Stephenson joins The Rundown to break down how the company is expanding beyond short-term rentals. Stephenson explains why Airbnb is investing heavily in experiences, services, and even hotels to become a full travel platform. He also discusses how global events like the Olympics and FIFA World Cup drive massive demand for hosts and travelers. Stephenson addresses regulatory challenges facing short-term rentals and how Airbnb works with cities around the world. Plus, he shares how AI, new booking tools, and international growth are shaping the next phase of Airbnb.

Welcome back to the rundown interview edition. Today, we are talking to Dave Stevenson, the chief business officer at Airbnb. Dave has been at the company for nearly seven years now, and he's in charge of figuring out Airbnb's next area of growth. So in today's conversation, Dave broke down how Airbnb is preparing for the People World Cup this summer. He also talked about the company's expansion into experiences and even grocery delivery. And yes, I even told them that I prefer hotels. over Airbnb, and he had some thoughts about that. So let's get into the conversation. Dave Stevenson, welcome to the rundown. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm really excited

to talk to you today. You know, I was looking through your, through your LinkedIn profile, and I saw that you've been at Airbnb for seven years now, right? You started off as a CFO. You were at the company through COVID, through the IPO, and now you're the chief business officer. So my first question to you is like what does a chief business officer actually do besides having a really cool title? Yeah, we created this new role about two years ago when we were ready to again expand beyond the core. Because as you said, I joined Airbnb back in 2019. We were doing all kinds of things. We were working on flights. We were working on a magazine. We had Lux. We had plus. We had hotels. We had all these things. And all of a sudden COVID hit. And we had to retrench and focus on the core.

But then we perfected, we thought the core business, it did incredibly well. We took the company public and we're seeing great success. And then we were ready to expand and do more things again. And so we created this chief business officer role to do exactly that. Expand into services, expand into experiences all around the world. And the things that I own are the global markets, execution on the ground in countries all around the world. We're in 220 countries and regions. Boy, about 14 places where we have country managers and people doing that work.

I generate all the supply. We have 5 million homes, experience, and services all around the world. We need to acquire great hosts and great supply. I lead the business and strategy teams. So, you know, what are we going to do with hotels and services, experience, et cetera? And then partnerships teams. I know we're going to talk a little bit about FIFA and things today. But I lead the teams that have done the negotiations with the Olympics,

that did the deal with FIFA. We do things with the Lollapalooza. So that's my remit. Expand beyond the core of what Airbnb has been about for the last 15 years. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the Olympics and FIFA. You know, the Olympics just wrapped up in Milan. You guys were a sponsor there. I saw a lot of your ads there.

And then now you have FIFA coming up. I mean, how much of a needle mover are these gigantic events, right? And like, what does it take for you guys on your end to get ready for events like this? Yeah, if you actually even rewind the tapes, Airbnb was founded on events, right? Joe and Brian, when they were living in San Francisco. and sharing their home for the very first time, it was to support an event, a design conference didn't have enough hotel rooms.

And they couldn't pay their rent. And they needed to actually earn some money. And they were like, hey, if we have air beds, we can actually earn some money, help pay the rent, and make this amazing experience for guests coming to this event. And then we did the Democratic National Convention, the Republican National Convention, Super Bowls. Events have been in our DNA.

And this is why we started sponsoring the Olympics, which is great success. said I was just in Milan. We had over 160,000 people staying in Airbnb's across the country. And what it does, though, is it's not just staying in Airbnb's. It's actually the entire experience is better when you travel on Airbnb. The majority of travelers, over 50% of those that go to these events are in groups or families. Staying in Airbnb is a little easier than maybe spreading a bunch of people across a whole bunch of hotel rooms. And then we actually add people, things like services and experiences. We had 20,

six athlete experiences in Milan that were amazing that people could come and actually participate with former Olympians and see some of their expertise, meet them, greet them, learn all about what they care about. So these are just exciting ways to engage. We saw about the Olympics, and I'm excited to do the same kind of thing with FIFA here this summer. I think that's a lot of people, I think a lot of people still kind of see Airbnb as like a platform where you just kind to go and rent someone's apartment or house or something like that. But you guys have expanded into services and even things like, I think I read that you guys were piloting grocery deliveries as well. Is that like the, is that the next area of focus for Airbnb to really kind

of, the next area of growth for the company? No, that's exactly right. That's why you're created the chief business officer role to do that expansion. The reason why we did the expansion is we need to help make the trip better overall. We know that when people travel to things like these events, they travel in larger groups, that there are a bunch of things that we can do to make it easier. That would be grocery delivery or airport pickup and better. Wow, we're going to show you the best part of the community that you're visiting in. You're going to experience the community that you're staying in. You're going to stay in a local neighborhood.

You can go to the local coffee shop. You can actually experience what the locals care about. And that's what the experiences service does. You can go to amazing restaurants, maybe a tour of a particular neighborhood. Maybe you see a unique boutique or clothing shop. you can experience the best of that community when you stay at Airbnb and we want to put all these things together to travel like a local. Yeah, I mean, that's just from personal experience. I mean, my wife, we were in Italy a few years ago and, you know, that was the hardest thing for us at the time was like defining all the, the experience and stuff.

Like, what do we do? You know, where do we, you know, we stayed at an Airbnb, but we didn't know what to do. And so I think the experience tab is awesome. I'm looking forward to try and get on my trip. summer to Scotland. I also noticed that you guys, I think you mentioned hotels, right? And I think my audience knows this about me. I'm still, I still prefer hotels whenever I'm traveling solo. Sometimes even traveling with my wife. I'm a hotel guy. I like the familiarity of it. Do you, do you see this partnership with hotels as a way for you guys to kind of get more solo

travelers and win over solar travelers and maybe even business travelers? No, that's exactly right. We would hate to lose you to a different platform. because we don't have the right home for you. What we can do, though, is bring the best hotels for when it's you traveling alone or you with your wife in the best locations, and then we can actually continue to round those out with other kinds of servicing experiences. We can actually do things.

You can still highlight, hey, you're staying at this hotel, here's this amazing experience just two blocks down the street. We can still arrange for an airport pickup to bring you to that hotel. We can find the best independent and boutique hotel that maybe isn't just a cookie cutter, bland, bland, four beige walls, and a nightstand. So we can actually find the unique thing. And I think we can make your trip better as a result. And you don't have to go elsewhere. I think the concern that

investors have, people have in general about Airbnb, though, is the regulatory hurdle, right? I think you're seeing some cities. New York has pretty much killed short-term rentals, which is, you know, that's happened a couple years ago. There's a lot of pushback now. So I just wonder if that, How much of a bearer case does that become, you know, long term? Every community is different, and we work with each of the communities on what their particular challenges are. We've seen some other great successes, like in Kansas City, for example, specifically for FIFA. They gave us an exemption which allows hosts to host for up to 90 days for $50, whereas normally the hosting rate is $250, because they know that actually by working with Airbnb, they're actually going to be able to support guests coming to Kansas City for the game.

because they may not be ready. They would not actually be able to host the FIFA games if it wasn't for Airbnb. This is what we saw in Paris. We had over 700,000 people staying in Airbnbs for the Paris Olympics. We worked really closely with the city, had a great partnership in understanding

what they care about and what the right regulation was for the city of Paris. And by working closely with them, we were able to unlock great supply and support hosts that could earn good money and enable the games that could earn good money enable the games take place. And we did the same thing with the Olympics in Milan.

So just over and over again, we just work closely with the communities to understand their concerns, work on positive regulation that meets their needs and actually supports the community. Yeah, that gotcha, gotcha. For 2026 and beyond, I mean, you mentioned the services you guys are, you guys are launching services,

you guys are expanding experiences. Is there anything that's in the pipeline that you guys are working on to get excited about maybe some, you know, expanding into other verticals. Well, you've seen some of them, and we're just dipping our toe in the water. The grocery delivery and airport pickups are in select cities around the world. They're not everywhere yet. We're expanding more services, massage services, hair and makeup, workout, athletic services.

You can see us getting into many more of those kind of things that just make the trip better. On the experiences side, we're continuing to add huge number of experience. and many more cities around the world. I'm sure in Scotland, I know we have a number of experiences, but maybe not enough. We should be adding more unique things so when you make that trip, you can really feel what it means to be in Scotland

and what that trip is all about. So expanding the actual number of listings, the number of experiences we have. And then you're gonna see us continue to lean in on these bigger events and putting it all together so that when you travel to an event and you have all of these activities together, the overall trip is better.

is better when you travel with us. And that's our ultimate goal. I saw you guys also launched Buy Now, Pay Later. That was mentioned on the earnings report. What, what is that done? Is that helped you guys kind of increase bookings and is that made it easier for the guests to kind of book some of the more expensive properties? Yeah, these are basic things. It's like some of the basics, least sexy things can have a huge driver of growth. And the reserve now pay later basically allows you to reserve a home with no money up front. It's part of a. a broader project we call Project Hawaii, which is a whole suite of fairly basic, but material things that just make the experience better.

And yeah, we're seeing a nice uptick in our overall growth. It actually pulls forward more bookings, more people are booking earlier because they can actually do it without actually am going to put any money down. And we're seeing a nice response in our growth rate as a result. Yeah, I mean, I, that's a good option to have. I also like the fact that like the pricing has become more transparent, right? I think that was one of the criticisms back of the day. It's like, well, it says $200 a night when you click it and you check out.

It's like, oh, my God, all these fees. The transparency is nice to see. So you guys are making moves there. One thing I want to mention, your commercials, I know I feel like the commercials are just very, very effective, especially for seven-year-olds because I was watching it. I forget what the specific commercial was, but like the tagline was, have your own room. And so my daughter saw that and she's like, Daddy, like, we need to get an Airbnb because I want my own. room whenever we go travel. So I'm like, man, they got me. So that's a very effective tagline,

especially with all the graphics and like the, it's just a beautifully designed commercial. So shout out to whoever does that because they're very effective, especially for children. No, I love it. Well, I think they're effective for a lot of people. Some of them can get tug at your emotional heartstrings. Now my kids are off at college and I think about the traveling when we get all back together. And I kind of choke up when I see some of our ads too. So no, you're seven-year-old loves it. They're great. And so they're effective. And again, that's probably would convince me to like get an Airbnb for some of the longer trips because she's like, I want my own room if we're going to be out for a week. So I was like, you know what? That's,

that's fair enough. I want to end with a couple questions here. You know, since you've been at Airbnb since, what, 2019, about seven years now, what's the one thing that you're most proud of during your time at Airbnb? I'm just proud of the resilience and tenacity of the company. We had to endure so much change and upheaval when COVID hit. I mean everyone knew. around the world in different ways. But to do it as a travel company, it was incredibly challenging. And yet the creativity, the perseverance, the intensity at which we focused on the core and then got ready so that we could be prepared for expanding beyond that core business again, I think was just amazing. The design ethos, the way in which we create on behalf of our hosts and our guests,

I couldn't just be more proud about that effort. I had to ask the AI question. Everyone's like, what's the AI strategy? What are you doing with AI? How do you think about AI? Obviously, you're not like an AI. You're not like obviously your product is an AI, but how are you implementing AI? Is there a way you guys have thought about it? Yeah, I mean, it's important. It's pivotal time. There's a lot of change. One of the things that I am again proud of at Airbnb is that we are probably one of the few tech companies that's focused on using technology to connect people in the real world. So our goal is not to have you spend more time on your phone, but to use the phone and the computer to book your Airbnb, your experience and your service so that when you arrive at a place, you can be in that place. You can connect with others. You can connect with the community. And that's how we're using AI. So how do we get you the right place? Can we make sure that we understand more about you, your travel needs so that you find, again, if you and your wife would want to be in a hotel, how do we find the right hotel for you? We can use AI to help with that. If you have problems, Our problems are more complex than many others because we're connecting hosts and guests millions of times a day,

often in even sometimes different languages, different cultures, different experiences. How do we do that through customer service? The more that we can help use AI to help solve problems and offer guests and hosts, that makes it better. So these are the ways we're going to be unlocking a better experience for people. And we just hired Ahmad Adelae, who just came. He was a really senior leader of AI meta, and he's now part of Airbnb, and he's going to help us unlock even maybe more creativity and productivity and be able to do more and more for our hosts and our guests. That's our goal with AI. Awesome.

Well, looking forward to seeing that. Dave, thank you so much for the time, and I appreciate you coming on and talking about Airbnb. So great to meet you. Thanks for having me on today. Well, all right, guys. Hope you enjoyed that conversation with Dave Stevenson. The big takeaway for me is that Airbnb is trying to become a one-stop shop for travelers similar to a booking.com and Expedia.

But if you look at the stock performance, though, Airbnb has lost 35% over the last five years, while booking.com has gone up 80% and Expedia is up 30%. So we'll see if Airbnb's stock turns around after leaning into experiences and hotels. As for me, I'll still continue being a hotel guy outside of Long Island. stays or traveling with a large group. Let me know what you guys thought about the interview. Are you bullish on Airbnb moving forward? Do you think that they can pull off a pivot of being an experience this company?

Drop your comments on YouTube and Spotify. Thank you guys again for listening, watching, and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow. Rosen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play-Ojo, the online casino with all the latest slot and live casino games.

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