Deepak Pathak

I'm extremely excited, like Brian said, to bring craft to the art of deploying AI-first features and products.

So I hope to be able to surprise the world with really beautiful features that they're going to love using every day.

That was Airbnb's new CTO, Ahmad Aldale, weighing in on the short-term rental platform's AI efforts.

Let's get more with our own Latterly Lung, who spoke with Aldale and Airbnb CEO, Brian Chesky.

I think an interesting way to start is what is Airbnb trying to solve for here by bringing in a new CTO?

What is it they want to change about the platform?

And I think you sort of put that exact question to Brian Chesky himself.

Let's just take a listen to how he responded as to why they're pivoting and focusing all in on AI at this moment.

Take a listen.

We are at the beginning of this incredibly exciting technological transformation with AI.

It's going to be a journey.

And I couldn't be more excited about Ahmed because he's one of the leading AI experts in the world, but he also brings a sense of craft to Airbnb, something we're really known for.

And I think what you're going to see in Airbnb is not only AI search, but a very personalized AI experience where I think we're going to bring great design sensibility into the experience of Airbnb.

Let's talk a little bit about how they're talking of the narrative of change because they've said farewell to the previous CTO who's there for about seven years and brought in this expert from Meta.

So who do they say farewell to and why is this Meta executive the best placed?

Airbnb, the company whose stock rose about 3% last year, it's down a couple of percent so far this year.

And Chesky was one of those people that was the early vocal behind founder mode.

What's the health of Airbnb right now?

Is this them saying we've got to do something to re-accelerate?

Is there more executive leadership changes to come?