Brian Chesky Says Big Things Are Coming for Airbnb in 2025

Big changes could be coming to Airbnb next year. In a conversation at WIRED’s Big Interview event in San Francisco on Tuesday, the company’s cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky told global editorial director Katie Drummond that he hopes that, in 2025, “people say ‘that was one of the biggest reinventions of a company in recent memory.’” Though Chesky kept details scant, he did say that the company hopes to reimagine its Experiences section, which he says consumers really like but that he doesn’t think has caught on as much as it could. He posits that it’s very few, including Airbnb, but he “AI is beginning to change our digital world, but it has not yet changed the most important part of our lives, which is the physical world,” Chesky said. When AI will truly start to change the physical world, Chesky posits, is “when the apps on your phone are totally different.” “Ten years ago, everyone thought we’d all be in self-driving cars right now,” Chesky said, noting that while there are a lot on his street, they haven’t permeated the rest of America. AI is going to take some time to permeate the physical world but once it does, I think it’s going to change everything.” Drummond also questioned Chesky about his leadership style, which has become much talked about in Silicon Valley because of phrases like “founder mode” and the much-publicized notion that he doesn’t take one-on-one meetings anymore.