Airbnb sold some of its intellectual property to a private AI lab founded and controlled by CEO Brian Chesky, according to the company’s quarterly filing on November 5th. The lab paid $7.1 million in cash, which covers both the IP and reimbursement of certain Airbnb expenses.
Airbnb CTO Ahmad Al-Dahle also holds equity in the lab and works for it. That puts Airbnb’s CEO and CTO on both sides of the deal, months before Airbnb’s own AI travel agent reaches guests.
What Airbnb Sold, and What It Got Back
Airbnb got a license to use some of the lab’s technology internally, plus the right to invest in the lab’s future funding rounds. A special committee of independent directors approved the deal. The filing doesn’t name the lab, describe the IP, put a value on it, or split the $7.1 million between IP and expenses.
The Information reported that Chesky has funded the lab himself so far, and that a California filing lists it under the temporary name Kaboodle Labs. Bloomberg first reported the lab in June as a company that would build AI models, with Chesky staying out of day-to-day management. Chesky has repeatedly told investors that Airbnb won’t train its own models, a pitch Skift founder Rafat Ali said the lab contradicts.
Who Builds the AI Between Hosts and Guests
Airbnb hired Al-Dahle from Meta in January, and AI already sits between listings and guests. It picks which photos and reviews each guest sees, and AI-powered dynamic pricing is rolling out to hosts this fall.
Next is the agent, which Airbnb says will start rolling out in the first half of 2027. On the earnings call, Chesky said Airbnb will figure out ads after the agent launches. That ties the agent to the sponsored listings he’s called a potential $1 billion opportunity. Neither the filing nor the shareholder letter says whether the agent uses the lab’s technology, or (as Skift noted) whether the lab could license the same IP to Booking or Expedia.
Open Questions
The filing leaves a few big questions open: Why build the lab outside Airbnb? What exactly did Airbnb sell? And if the lab takes off, how much of the upside goes to Airbnb shareholders versus the executives who own it?
To be fair, independent directors approved the deal, and a simpler read is that running expensive, experimental AI outside Airbnb keeps the cost and risk off its books, while Airbnb keeps a license and the option to buy in.
Even so, it’s rare for a public company’s CEO and CTO to own a stake in a private AI business that’s buying IP from the company they run. Until Airbnb says what it sold and what the lab is building, shareholders are taking the arrangement on trust.
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