Airbnb Acquires Secretive Firm Launched By Siri Co-Founder

Airbnb has acquired a secretive new AI startup, GamePlanner.AI, for around $200 million. TechCrunch reports: GamePlanner was co-founded by Adam Cheyer and Siamak Hodjat. Cheyer famously helped co-launch the startup Siri, which Apple acquired and whose technology became the basis for Apple's AI-powered Siri assistant. Hodjat previously worked with Cheyer at Viv Labs, a firm that Samsung bought and leveraged to launch its own AI assistant, Bixby, in 2017. It's not immediately clear what GamePlanner does. A LinkedIn search only turns up two associates: Gabe Greenbaum, a general partner at B Capital who sits on GamePlanner's board of directors, and Joseph Huang, head of design at GamePlanner. GamePlanner hasn't had a web presence for some time; the Internet Archive's earliest cache of the website (from December 2021) yields a blank page.

But in a canned statement, Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky hinted that the 12-person startup combines expertise in AI and design toward crafting AI-driven experiences, sort of like an AI-focused consultancy. "AI will rapidly alter our world more than any other technology in our lifetime, but we need to ensure that it augments humanity in a positive way," Chesky said, adding that the GamePlanner team will focus on "accelerating" select AI projects and integrating their tooling into Airbnb's platform. "Airbnb is one of the more humanistic companies in technology, and I believe that, together with Adam and his team, we can develop some of the best interfaces and practical applications for AI."

"Airbnb is one of the more humanistic companies.."

[ozmartian]

LOL If driving rental prices up to ridiculous levels and being part of the root cause of the housing crisis in many countries is humanistic then the word's definition surely needs an update.

Re:

[ls671]

I read somewhere that airbnb is slowly dying or at least not doing so well lately. Basically, hotel chains started to offer similar deals with new types of resorts and people renting on airbnd have raised their prices because of the price rise they helped to cause in the first place when buying units to rent. Also, nothing is proprietary and unique about airbnd, anybody can implement the same and copy their concept.

Airbnb licencing

[Epeeist]

A number of town planning authorities in tourist areas (such as Pitlochry [pitlochry.org], where I live) are refusing planning permission to change flats (which accommodate local people) into "short-term let" properties.

As much as anything, this is to try and fix the problem where local businesses, as well as schools, and health centres can't get staff, because there is no accommodation or accommodation is too expensive.

Re:

[ls671]

permission to change flats (which accommodate local people) into "short-term let" properties.

A lot of airbnb hosts don't bother about that. They rent on airbnb it anyway.

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[tlhIngan]

I read somewhere that airbnb is slowly dying or at least not doing so well lately. Basically, hotel chains started to offer similar deals with new types of resorts and people renting on airbnd have raised their prices because of the price rise they helped to cause in the first place when buying units to rent. Also, nothing is proprietary and unique about airbnd, anybody can implement the same and copy their concept.

Well, that and AirBnB Karens have made it quite an annoyance. Between cleaning fees and "chor

Re:

[Opportunist]

It puts the human into the center of attention.

That way you can abuse him from all sides equally.

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[CEC-P]

Don't worry, the AI is just going to help them calculate how bad of a business model AirBNB is and why it's losing money left and right. Or spit out "42." One of the two.

AI assistant, Bixby ?

[0xG]

So my 2015 galaxy tab has AI? Who'da thunk it?
And there i was, doing my best to remove that pos...