Skift Take

If all of these Airbnb features work as advertised, then they will benefit hosts and guests — and Airbnb.

Dennis Schaal

Airbnb unveiled its biannual set of product enhancements Wednesday, and much of the attention will surely focus on new badges that identify customers' favorite homes – "Guest Favorites" – and a tweaked ratings page. But hosts will benefit from several other features as well.

Among them, Airbnb said hosts will be able to create photo tours of their homes "in seconds" that are "powered by a custom-built Airbnb AI engine." That tech uses some 100 million images to recognize photos and assign them to 19 rooms, according to the company.

Guests want to understand the layout of homes when choosing which ones to book, and this new tool will help hosts to organize them in a snap, the announcement said. There are glitches in any new tech rollout so one safeguard is that hosts will be able to edit their photo tours at any point.

A new Listings tab will enable hosts to offer AI-powered photo tours of their homes, and better descriptions of the properties' amenities. Source: Airbnb