How Airbnb leverages AI to curb unauthorized New Year’s Eve parties

• Airbnb temporarily banned parties in 2020 and made the ban permanent in 2022.
• The company said it uses AI that checks “hundreds” of factors in an account before blocking a booking attempt.
• Last year, the company said it blocked 63,550 New Year’s Eve reservations in the United States.

Airbnb is using AI technology to crack down on people using its properties to host New Year’s Eve parties.

Airbnb first temporarily banned parties in 2020 and has since introduced various measures to discourage parties, BI previously reported. The company is making the ban permanent in 2022, and is enforcing it especially hard around holidays like Memorial Day, Halloween, and New Year’s Eve.

The company is adding limits to some one-night and two-night reservations for Memorial Day 2023, based on a user’s past rating, distance from the reservation, and whether the reservation was made. The company announced that it has blocked reservations deemed to be high-risk. The last moment.

In a blog post on December 18, the company said it had blocked 63,550 New Year’s Eve bookings in the US, 13,200 in the UK and 5,400 in Australia.

In the post, the company said it had enabled “proprietary AI and machine learning technology” to reduce the number of full holiday weekend reservations that “could be potentially high-risk for disruptive and unauthorized parties.” He said he would block the attempt.

Nava Banerjee, Airnbnb’s head of trust and safety, said in a post that “how we use technology, such as AI, is designed to benefit hosts, guests, and neighbors. “We’re focused on taking a thoughtful approach.” “We are optimistic that these measures will help to have a positive impact on the communities we serve.”

The company announced that the program will be available over the holiday weekend in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Australia and New Zealand, including Puerto Rico.

According to the post, the technology examines “hundreds” of different factors for each potential booking, including the length of the trip, how far the booking is from the location, and whether the booking was made at the last minute.

The post says the company will block some fully booked reservations within one to three days if the company deems the property to be “high risk.” Those who successfully booked an Airbnb locally for the weekend will be asked to confirm that they are aware that Airbnb prohibits parties.