Airbnb 2025 Summer Release: An Interview with Jud Coplan and Teo Connor
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Hello and welcome to a very special episode of App Stories. I'm John Voorhees and with me is Federico Faticci. Hello, John. How are you? I'm doing really well. Federico, we have a couple of sponsors today. We have In Our Reader and Terminal, and we also have a couple of special guests with us today. We are going to be interviewing two folks from Airbnb from my trip out to Los Angeles earlier this week.

So, without further ado, I think we will transition this video feed straight over to our guests and start the interview. Let's move John to California right now. Hello and welcome to a very special edition of App Stories.

I'm John Voorhees. I'm with Federico Vittici in Rome, Italy. And we have with us two people from Airbnb. We have Jud Copeland, the VP of Product Marketing, and Teo Connor, the VP of Design. Welcome to the show, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Very good to be here.

Today was a really big day for you too and for the whole company at Airbnb because you launched a lot today It's got to feel good to have gotten that launch that cuz I'm sure everyone worked on that for a long time a lot of people So congratulations on the big launch Thank you. Yes

Really nice to have it out in the real world, the real things out in the real world. Yeah, yeah. You know, to kick things off today, I'd like you to, for listeners, explain a little bit about what it is you do at Airbnb. And then we'll get a little bit into the new services and experiences, as well as talking about the app and what's gone into building the app. But maybe I'll start with you, Judd. What's your background?

So I've been working on apps for a very long time in this role of product marketing. I was at Apple for some time and now I've been at Airbnb for a few years, about three and a half years. And our teams work very closely together, our product team, Teo's design team. And we consider that collaboration, that really close collaboration, to be really the best way to build new things. Product, design, engineering, everything.

And we each have our own roles, but also sort of sometimes you can't really tell who's doing what because they all blend together a little bit. And, you know, give an example of how we got to today. So Brian talked about about a year and a half ago, this vision for extending the world of Airbnb beyond homes and what that would require for.

from really the Airbnb app, the thing that we build. And so our teams got together and we said, okay, well, we're now moving beyond homes. That means building a whole new tech stack, a whole new architecture to be able to support, not just listing a home or booking a home, but all the things that go along with experiences and services in the real world, a whole new app design.

And really a whole new what we call offline experience, like what happens when you're actually on that experience or actually on that services. And so our teams have been working on this for for some time defining what those features are, and then designing them and building them. So yeah, that's right. So how about you, Tao?

So I also was at Apple for a while and also worked in traditional design and digital design and also wayfinding in London, which I always like to reference because I think that that's kind of something that's kind of...

kind of integral to how I think about sort of the product design work that I do, which is really about, you know, the way finding what I did was, you know, thinking about moving people through physical spaces, through real spaces. And now, you know, a lot of the work that we do is how do we design digital experiences and help our guests and our hosts like move through those worlds? So yeah, and partner with Judd and the team and engineering on everything that we do at Airbnb on the app.

Nice, nice. Well, let's dig in a little bit about what was announced today, because it's a lot. I mean, there's a lot going on at Airbnb now all of a sudden. And it's not just stays, it's also services and experiences. And I was wondering if you could kind of walk listeners through the highlights of that so people understand exactly what is it that's changing with the Airbnb app, the things that you offer to customers?

Maybe I'll start. Okay. Well, so, you know, there are a couple of really major things that are changing. Obviously, when you launch the app, it'll feel entirely new. But we think about it in sort of two big ways. One, we wanted to create a single place, obviously one app, the app that everybody already has on their phone if they've used Airbnb, where you can book a home anywhere.

and experience in a service all in the same place. It was really important that it feels totally integrated and that when we introduced these new things you can book, you can book them in just a few taps. In the same way that Airbnb revolutionized booking a home many, many years ago, we want to do the same thing with experience and services. So they should feel all very closely connected, very simple, and again, all in the same place. And in addition to that, the other thing that we thought was really important was that the app

changes as you go on a trip. And the reason that's so important is because we actually have different things to offer you and different things to show you along that journey. So for example, before you book a home, before you've even searched for a home on Airbnb,

Actually the things that we want to show you are the things that you can do around you So if you just launch the app and you're not currently planning a trip The stuff that you're interested in might be like the stuff here in los angeles, right? And so we should present that to you on the home page here experiences nearby here services nearby Once you start searching for a home We should show you an entirely different set of stuff because now it's pretty clear that hey You might be traveling to paris in july and we can see that that's the trip that you're starting to plan So let's help you plan that trip once you've booked the home

One of the special things about Airbnb is we know where you're staying, we know who you're traveling with, and we know when you'll be there. So now we can present experiences and services that perfectly match that trip. And so this idea of the app sort of traveling with you along the way was really important, an idea that has been with this app redesign for some time and is very different than all of the travel apps out there. So that was the other sort of big principle in this app redesign. Yeah.

I think another big part is the host side of it as well. You know, as we're bringing in these new lines of business, like our host community is like,

you know incredibly important and um you know being able to design tools that makes their ability to kind of join the platform and use the platform is really important to us and you know thinking about the design of that and the engineering of that um we're really thoughtful about and i think like you know a lot of people think about the guest facing app and you know you see all the effort that we put into that we put the same effort into our host tools which is something that i'm

always really proud about that we put that same effort in care in there

One of the things that stood out to me and John last week when we got the demo for the app was the redesigned trips page. So when you book a home and you sort of get this timeline, right? And you see reservation and then you can progressively fill that in with more services and more experiences. And that, to me, it's not just one of my favorite details of the app, but it seems like

I can imagine that there were a lot of challenges going into sort of creating that design, because maybe you're on a trip right now, or maybe you're not. Maybe it's coming up in a couple of days, maybe it's coming up in a month. Maybe you have multiple trips planned. And so I kind of wanted to get into this conversation with you both. Like, what were some of the challenges? You know, you mentioned this more...

personalized app and sort of how it adapts to what you're doing or you're about to do. But what were some of the challenges in trying to come, you know, trying to go from the previous design where it was like, okay, let me just browse homes. Let me book one into this more flexible, this more fluid sort of UI.

There's something that, so it's interesting that you say challenge because it was a challenge in some ways, but it was actually also a solution. So the trips tab, as we had it previously, you would just have your one booking, you know, a home in there. And it had a lot of utility. You'd quickly be able to go and find, you know, your listing details, things like that.

But if you, like you say, like if you had two trips, you had no sense of, you know, really the time difference between those trips and, you know, things like that. And so we saw a real opportunity with creating this itinerary to really solve that problem by behaving to being,

allowing you to be able to see on a timeline, multiple trips, have all the information, start planning, and then creating this relationship between the new inventory and the explore panel. So you can really go back in between your booking and then looking at new things and these new lines of businesses and adding things. So it was kind of like-

a challenge on one hand, but this opportunity for us to design to a behavior that we were even starting to see before we had servicing experiences, which was pretty cool. - Yeah, I mean, one of the things that really struck me about it is that you're taking so much information, so much data about so many different kinds of activities and bringing them in together and presenting them in a way that's coherent

and not a mess. I mean, I'm used to going on trips and I have a bunch of emails scattered around in my inbox. Maybe I have a note document somewhere, some ideas jotted on a napkin or something. This really brings it together in a really consolidated whole, which I like. - Oh, thank you for saying that. - That's right. You know what we always say, like travel is one of the most exciting aspirational things you can do.

in life, in the world, trip planning is one of the most like painful and frustrating. - It's a huge chore. - It's a chore, yeah. - So how can we bring the joy of travel into really like the trip planning experience in the app? And I think we've done an amazing job and Taylor's team did an incredible job designing this itinerary in the trips tab. And the other thing that's a part of that of course is creating a platform that's super simple, that's dynamic. So it shows you like, you know, the most important thing when you need it, you arrive in your destination. Great, let me see the door code at the top level.

Very small thing, super, super useful. But also in doing that, building a platform where we can make

just simple but clear helpful suggestions and so now that we know your itinerary and we've presented it in this really nice linear day-by-day way we can say hey it looks like you have some openings during your trip and here's some experiences that you might enjoy during your time in paris for example do those experiences that are surfaced once you're on your trip do those depend on whether there are openings for that particular day is it down to that level of

We do match availability of the experiences to the time of your trip, which is really nice. And when you tap in, we also can match the availability and the number of travelers. So if you're with a group of four, we want to make sure that that experience is available when you're going to be in Paris for four people. Right, not just one person, not one-off thing.

Do you do any other kind of personalization? Like, we know that you like going to cooking classes or like, do you try and suggest certain types of activities over others? Yes. So one of the things that was really important is that with this complete redesign, we now have these three different, we call them homepages, those three tabs, homes, experiences, services, and for them to actually be useful, they have to feel relevant. Hmm.

And we do have a good amount of information that guests tell us along the way. One is, of course, their past bookings. So things they've booked in the past, the kind of trips they like to go on. Even just things like how much money they've spent on homes can inform the kind of suggestions we might make in the future. Also, the current trip. So we can make suggestions based on where you're going, who you're going with. And then, Federico, really good point. We have this robust profile.

on Airbnb. And actually last year, Tao's team designed this really beautiful profile onboarding flow, which feels like this natural sort of seamless way to tell Airbnb a little bit more about yourself.

And the reason you do that is, A, your host can get to know you better, which is great. The host knows who's staying in the home. But B, we can help to personalize the app better. And so you tell us things like your interests, things that you would like to do while traveling. And we can use that information to present the right sort of things on your trip. So sort of combination of different elements. I think it's just the beginning as well. It was really important for us to design the itinerary to be a modular system that could grow faster.

And in many ways, like this launch today is like day one. Like this is the beginning. I think like, you know, the app, what's exciting, I think is that the app's going to evolve. We're going to start having people using it, you know, booking these experiences. We're going to start to see

see how these itineraries fill up and then we can start to design and add more. And we've kind of designed it in such a way that this modular system, you can imagine these extra pieces popping in and that's really exciting.

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Our thanks to Interreader for their support of the show. As I understand it, you're going to have more services and experience coming in the future. How did you kind of come up with the initial list? Like, where did you decide where you're going to start this project off in terms of what you're going to offer?

- That's a good question. Just like the collaboration on app development happens between our product design engineering teams, we collaborated really closely with our business and supply teams and research teams to say, okay, what are people spending money on when they go on a trip? What are the things that they've told us that they would like to get when they stay in an Airbnb, when they stay in a home that they can't easily get today? So that was one sort of like maybe obvious basic part of our initial thinking around services.

and experiences. The other thing that I think is really important is these are all delivered by a host. They're all hosted by a person. And as Brian said, people are at the center of Airbnb. And for all of these things that we're offering, all 10 categories of services, all the experiences, you have a person, you have a host who's an expert, who has a passion for that thing and who is going to be hosting you.

for that experience or for that service. And so that was a really important lens when we were thinking about what we wanted to offer. And it really comes through. Like one of our favorite things is just go through some of the listings and be like, I can't believe this stuff is on Airbnb. Look at this personal trainer. Like you said, like, you know, holds the record for California bench press. I was like, yeah, that's the kind of trainer I need in my life. - Well, that's interesting to me too, because I think in the past, if you were booking stays at Airbnb, you might only use the app a couple of times a year, maybe, right? But now there's a reason to go and browse

on the app. - Yes. - Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and we've designed it, I think with that in mind to try and, you know, make it really simple and easy to use, familiar. We want you to spend time in the app and find the things that are interesting, like really quickly and easily, but ultimately we then wanna get you out of the app

and out into the real world. And that's kind of an interesting design challenge to think about. We're not trying to just keep you on our app all the time. We want you out in the world doing experiences. Do you first see a scenario in which maybe people will start using the Airbnb app

even if they're not staying in a home. Like, for example, I live in Rome. It's a big city, beautiful city, obviously. Lots of things to do. Sometimes I don't even know the things I can do in Rome because like, you gotta keep up. There's local news websites or Facebook groups. I

Activities vary, you know, in different neighborhoods. Maybe there's a new restaurant and I don't even know about it. And I live here. So like, do you think there's maybe potential for people to say, let me just, you know, open the Airbnb app? Even like, I'm not staying in anywhere. I'm staying in my own home, but maybe I can use it to browse around what's around me and I don't know about it yet.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, even, you know, experiences, for sure, there's things on there that I'm definitely going to be doing like in my hometown. And I think for the services as well, like there's tons of things on there that, you know, just to be able to know that, you know,

You know, I'm thinking about like family when I have my like kids party and being able to have like a photographer come and take like proper pictures instead of me taking four ones and things like that. And, you know, being able to have, you know, catering and and have the trusted kind of Airbnb brand and making it really, you know, having the app be this like really easy way to book those things. I definitely think people are going to.

and using them locally. - Yeah, I mean, one of the challenges we put to ourselves was let's make experiences so great you wanna do them in your own city. Rediscover where I live, San Francisco, a couple of weeks ago,

Somehow my daughter got a hold of my phone. I may have given it to her. I can't remember. But she ended up in the Airbnb app and she said, dad, I really want to book this truffle making experience, which happened to be just a few blocks away. But there was a little workshop where you could learn how to make chocolate. And she's really into baking. And this was something that was just a Sunday afternoon activity. And it's a way to rediscover your own city. It's also a way to sort of get into your passions. And we think that goes beyond travel. You can do that wherever you are.

Did you go to the chocolate experience? It is in two weeks.

We booked it, yes. I just wanted to know about the truffle. Yes, it was in a couple of weeks, so we are excited for it. You know, you've mentioned a couple of times the hosts, and obviously you're bringing in a lot more hosts than ever before. And I think historically one of the things that has been very important for a company like Airbnb is the trust of the customers and the relationship with the hosts.

How do you translate that from stays into these new services and experiences? I mean, I think one of the things that is really important is this quality vetting that we do with services and experiences, which is a different model than homes.

And I think, you know, maybe at the most fundamental level, if you have a home, you can take photos, you can describe it, you can list it on Airbnb, and it can be up the next day. For services and experiences, it's an application process. And the reason is because we want to vet the quality of these hosts to ensure that they are really great customers.

And they are offering these world-class services and these world-class experiences because you're right. Trust is the basis, the foundation of the platform. And especially for these things where you're going to be, you know, face-to-face with people. These things always happen with another person, even more so than a home.

So, you know, we've talked about the quality vetting process, which is this multi-step process that includes obviously identity verification, enhanced identity verification, looking at things like experience, education,

the reputation on other platforms. You know, we have a lot of great chefs who have been chefs elsewhere, of course, this isn't their first rodeo. So we look at how well they've done being professional chefs elsewhere, the menu, the offerings they have on Airbnb, and then any required licenses and certifications. And it's a very robust process that is different than homes. And we wanted to make that very clear from the start. And you'll see, as you go down the listing page, you know, there's a beautifully designed quality vetting seal. We wanted to make that a really clear part of the booking process.

And I assume this must have been like a monumental effort considering just the launch countries that you have and the different regulations per country and the different regulations for each different type of activity. Like obviously, if you want to get some food prepared, it's different if you want to get your nails done, right? So there's different regulations for different services in different countries.

How did you manage it all? Like this has to, I assume it has to be like it involves international teams. Like it's not just, you know, all being run out of LA. That is, that is absolutely right. Monumental is a good way to describe it. Yeah. Monumental might be under describing, you know, what's the word? Huge cross-functional, like huge cross-functional team that were sort of in like daily standups together, you know, legals.

operations, design, like everything you could possibly think of, global teams, really getting into the weeds of this and like figuring it out. It's actually kind of impressive. And kind of, you know, one of those things that when you look at the app,

and it feels so inevitable and simple. And then it's got this massive weight behind it of an organization that's made it possible. And I think what you're speaking about there is a big part of it. It wouldn't have been possible without all of that. Yeah, I can imagine. I would think too that, I mean, are you going to be expanding...

Is the way you're going to expand this by going city by city or country by country? Because I would think because of the underlying issues, it makes a lot of sense to like say, okay, today we're going to start with, you know, I don't know, Greece, and we've got to figure out what all the laws are in Greece and all the insurance and regulatory stuff. Is that kind of how you're going about it?

I mean, you know, in the presentation today, you saw the number of cities, 260 cities for services, 650 cities for experiences. We do think about it on a city basis because you're right, things change, whether it be regulatory environment or just the things that people want to do in different cities around the world. That's how we think about expansion. So there's both...

Yes, the new cities that we want to expand into. And then there are also the new categories that we want to expand into. So those two vectors are the way we're thinking about it. And as Taylor said before, day one, I mean, it's like...

Now it really begins. I mean, one of the things that we're most excited about is now we're opening our doors for people to apply to be services and experiences hosts. A lot of the work we've been doing has been recruiting hosts. And now we can see the folks from all over the world who will apply to be hosts on Airbnb, which is really exciting. I imagine you'll find some hidden gems that you wouldn't have ever been able to find yourselves. Absolutely. And you think about, you were just talking about Rome and all the things that have

happening there, we probably just scratched the surface of that. And you think about, you know, places outside of, you know, Rome and other regions and people who have got like, you know, really amazing talents and then being able to use our platform to share their talents. We're really excited. I'm really excited about that, you know.

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Our thanks to Terminal for supporting App Stories. All right, let's talk about the app because I really want to talk about the app. I really want to talk about the design of the app. So the first thing I noticed, I'll be extremely upfront. The first thing I noticed, so we're getting this demo. They share the screen. I'm looking at the app and I see the icons and I see this really delightful, slightly 3D design.

should I even say slightly skeuomorphic icons. Absolutely stunning.

kind of a throwback at the same time to a different era. And I kind of wanted to get into this. Like, what was the... I have to assume this is a sort of company-wide design effort, obviously not limited to the iPhone app, but I wanted to get into this design language that you're now doing. Yeah, I mean, if you've been in our app sort of like the last, I'd say like two or three years, we've slowly been adding more and more of this kind of

dimensionality and kind of like moments of delight movement to, you know, I think Brian described it to reflect what's happening out in the real world. The real world is kind of, you know,

animated and full of life. And we want to bring some of that into the platform. We've been able to do that because our team has evolved. We've got more kind of in-house 3D artists, prototypers, things like that. We've got amazing technologists have allowed us to do some of these things.

And we're always really thoughtful about, you know, these things and making sure that they have utility. So if you see in the little itinerary and we've got like the check in and check out and we've got the door opening, the door closing, like that's a lovely detail. But there is also some utility where you can kind of like quickly just glance at these things that take something away from it. And, you know, it's been really important for us as a design team to, you know,

express the brand as well. And I think, you know,

Airbnb, whether you're doing an in real life experience or if you're in our app, we are a welcoming global community that's full of life, a joy to be in. And so we're trying to express that with iconography, with design and all of those things. Hopefully that comes through. I think it does. I think it does. And I was about to say, I think it feels...

delightfully human. And by that, I mean, especially because we're all seeing it, right? We live in this era where we're surrounded by AI-generated illustrations, you know, Ghibli images or, you know, this sort of cookie-cutter UIs that are pretty much all the same. And so when you do see something that you can tell, like, I don't know, you can tell that somebody

made that on their computer. Like you mentioned, it does have utility. Like, for example, the little thing that you did for door code or the calendar icon. It does have utility, but it's also like...

it's fun, you know, because somebody made that and there's a quality to that that is surprisingly, I think, rare to find right now. Can you come and work for me? I basically, I'm so glad to hear you say that because that's exactly what we want to express. And I think like, it's really important for us, like the craft that goes in is about us expressing care. So we're saying like, we care enough

to think about these little details. We care enough to actually have a person make them, think about them. And yeah, we can use AI to create things, but we're always gonna create a craft, we're always gonna edit. A lot of it is about what we don't show, what we don't include. And yeah, I think we wanna make sure that people feel when they're in our app that we,

we give a damn. We actually give a damn to think about these things. It's not just transactional. You're not just coming in to spend money and get out and we've optimized it to hell. We actually want you to come in and recognize that Airbnb does actually care about you, cares about you and your experience, whether you're a guest or you're a host, anything you do, whether you're on an app or if you're out in the real world. And the way that

on a design team and in the product that we express that is through those little details. That's how we show we care. - Right, right. And the icons along the tab, the tabs across the top, they really, to me, it felt like you're trying to express that you want people to have fun. - Yes.

You're going to ding the bell, you know, you tap on the tap on the bell and you get a little the bell animates just a little bit. It's not like wild and crazy and jumping around, but it looks really cool. I like it a lot. Thank you. Yeah. And we don't want to get in the way. Right. You know, it shouldn't be kind of stopping you from getting to what you need to do. But if you go in there and you feel like you're having a bit of fun and you're dreaming and excited about your trip, then we've won.

Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder, too, I mean, to me, it feels like this is part of trying to make people comfortable and to build that trust with users because maybe somebody comes for the first time to Airbnb and people know something about what Airbnb is, but they're not certain about the services or the experiences. And to me, that makes it a lot more welcoming, I think, too. Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, the Taya was talking about the the amazing little details that are part of the app.

- You know, we want the sense you get of that craft and the attention that we pay to the very smallest things also to translate into the stuff that you're doing in the real world. So that you think about the experience you're gonna get or the service you're gonna get. And you say, "Oh yeah, you know what? "If they spent this kind of time thinking about "how I transitioned between tabs "or between different parts of the app,

it just gives me that sense that they've paid the same amount of attention to this thing that I'm actually getting, to the real product that I'm buying. I think that's really important. And then to the point earlier,

if you want somebody to use something more often, it helps if it's fun. Yeah. You know, it's nice that the app is like enjoyable to use to get people to open it instead of just a couple of times a year for their trips. But when they're thinking about something to do with their daughter for the weekend and the app is beautiful in that way. Yeah. Well, and two for me, like right, one of the things you're adding so much to this app and yet you have to make it usable on a smart phone.

That to me is a real design challenge because you have these icons at the top with the tabs that are fairly large and that takes up a decent amount of the vertical space and vertical space is valuable on a phone that that first page, how many tiles you can show with experiences and services. What was kind of your thinking behind figuring out how you're going to lay that out in order to make the experience the best it could be for customers? I mean, I'd say throughout the app,

We really think about things being able to be modular and flexible and contextual. So we want things to be able to, when we want to kind of show you a lot of things, we can do that. If we want to like focus you in on one thing, we can do that. And the system will flex depending on what we're trying to show you.

And with that design, we've got some lovely details as you scroll, the icons kind of disappear away. And the carousels can be different sizes depending on where you are in your journey. And as you get deeper in, we're recognizing that your intent is high. So we're gonna maybe make things bigger. So there's a lot of thought there, but ultimately we're designing a system that can flex to what we're doing today, but also hopefully what we're doing tomorrow and in the future.

Right. Yeah. And the tiles, I think there's a nice coherence between the tiles and the sheets that come up from the bottom, which is obviously a bit more, I'd say, I mean, it's not brand new, but I think maps, Apple Maps is probably the first app that did that. But it's becoming more and more prevalent among apps. And I think it's a nice way to kind of combine those two aspects of the app, both what's more unique to the Airbnb app itself and what's more of like a system design language. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And we did a lot of work actually, you know, haven't talked about it that much in this launch, but if you go in, we've got a lot of details in our map that, you know, we're recognizing that, you know, when you're looking for a trip or experience or anything, the location is really important. So we made it really easy for you to like, you know, know the distance between the experience that you're doing and your stay and things like that. There's a lot of kind of work done there on sort of a platform level

in the app. - That's one of the hardest things about a Maps app, is that you're kind of like, "Oh yeah, now I'm on this one, but now I'm here, but how far is that one from this one?" - Exactly. - Yeah. - Understanding the content. - And when it comes to this kind of design, I have to imagine that prototyping plays an important role. I wanted to ask you, how do you iterate at Airbnb on new design,

Test it, like, do you use prototypes much? What's your workflow like with the team? Loads of prototypes. Lots of prototypes. Yeah. Yes, many prototypes.

I mean, we have a mixture. We use, you know, depending on like where we are in the process and, you know, how deep we want to go. We have a mixture of sort of design prototyping where we're kind of working in maybe origami or Figma. And then we have kind of engineering prototypes where we're working with real code and testing stuff and building stuff that way.

And yeah, we find that the faster we can move into something that's like a real prototype where we can actually see the interactions and click through and have a sense of things, you know, when you're just looking at sort of flat wireframes, you're never really going to understand. So the quicker we can get into prototyping and looking at a prototype, and especially putting a prototype in Brian's hand for him to kind of like, you know, get a sense of things, the better. Okay.

And with such a, this unique and strong identity that you have now,

I have to imagine that maybe you're not too preoccupied with these rumors of like a major iOS redesign coming up. And I think it has to be the case with a lot of companies, right? That have sort of established their own brand, their identity. They look a certain way, you know, and you look at Spotify, Spotify looks a certain way. You look at Airbnb, now Airbnb looks a certain way. And maybe they're not too worried about a major redesign, but that has to be, at the same time, it has to be on your mind.

that possibility. - Not really. - I mean, I think we have this combination of wanting the app to feel super simple and easy to use. When you think about a major OS redesign, yes, we wanna make sure that the share sheets, for example, in the app feel like the share sheets you're used to elsewhere. That certain design elements and interactions that you're used to across the operating system do show up in the app in a way that's expected. But I think even more than that,

Having a strong identity, having a strong brand for the app, that's the main focus. I mean, the Airbnb app should always feel like the Airbnb app. It shouldn't change depending on the latest OS release and it shouldn't change depending on sort of the ways the winds are blowing. I think Tao's point that she made just a minute ago is like a really valuable one.

It's great to see in Figma how things look. I think what we care about a lot is how things feel, how the app feels. And you can only do that in prototypes. And that's the point at which we, I think we spend, I don't know, a monumental amount of time. That's a good word for it. Just on the interactions, you know, just like, how does this feel? Because we want it to feel fun. And you can't do that with statics. You can't always do that with just images. And so that will be our own Airbnb thing, I think, regardless of...

what happens, you know, on the OS level. Yeah, makes sense. You know, we talked a little bit about

So much is underlying the surface of this things like the legal and the regulatory and all that I got if I got to imagine that it's similar when it comes to all the metadata that you're dealing because I think of it I think about booking a stay and when you book a stay, you know You have some things that are going to be common to things like experiences and services like the location and the cost and things like that

But it's a whole new world when you're talking about the difference between getting your nails done and going and baking cookies. You know, I mean, how did you kind of approach that from kind of like the fundamentals? Because I know Brian talked about how the fundamental technologies underlying the app changed a lot with this this app redesign. You know, maybe the best example of that is is like chefs, because when you think about a chef on Airbnb at the highest level, you say, OK, they need to set up their listing.

that listing is a chef service, it's hosted by a person, a chef. In some ways, it should actually be very transferable and actually very compatible at the highest level with elements of a home. There's a listing that's a home and it's hosted by a person.

But while there is some shared architecture that should exist across everything, there are unique elements that need to be built specifically for some of these areas. So for example, a chef on Airbnb has a menu with offerings. We've never had offerings before. There's no concept of offerings for a home.

So we had to build a new architecture that allowed us to basically offer things within a listing. So you could choose from between different versions of that listing. And you had to build an architecture to represent that, right? A new infrastructure. You also had to build a new design language and this beautiful design language for offerings you can tap into. Saw it in the demo and they sort of pop out on cards. You can get even more information about them. And that carries all the way through to the booking process and even what you see in the trips tab.

So the way that we approached it was there are some universal elements that should carry across everything. And then there are some things that are specific to certain businesses, services, for example, that we will build just for this new version of Airbnb. And I think what's really exciting is that when you build these new elements, they actually, you realize,

They can be transferable to other things. You can imagine a world in which a host of a home could say, well, I'd like to offer add-ons to my home. - Oh, sure. - Well, we have an architecture for offerings within a listing. You can extend that to add-ons within a home. You can see how these things start to play off each other with our new businesses and our existing ones. - Oh, that's very interesting. - What happens when a chef is also a host? - We have quite a few new experienced and services hosts who are hosts of homes and they set up different listings.

And if you are a host of a home and you're also a chef, then you can maybe even recommend yourself to your guests in messages when they come to stay at your house. Host recommendations are a very valuable thing when you stay at Airbnb. But yes, we actually have a decent number of hosts of homes who have now expanded their world of hosting into these new areas, which is really cool to see. Cool. Very cool.

You know, we haven't talked about the social aspect of the app yet. I'd like to get into that because I know some of that's not, I guess that's not coming in September, till September. Is that correct? Till later in the year. Yeah. Okay. Could you tell me a little bit what that's all about and how it adds to the experiences? Yeah.

Yeah, I think one thing to call out is we already have a lot of guests to host connection. So, you know, Brian talked about people being at the center and that's really true. We've got this business that's built on connection between people and this guest and host community.

What's really exciting about where we're going into now with experiences is we've got a world where you can have guest-to-guest connection. Right.

And that was a really kind of big opportunity and design challenge for us as we think about, you know, how do we extend this world of connecting different groups on our platform and connecting people who are going on experience and really facilitating things that we know happen naturally when you go on experiences or if you've ever been on a holiday. I know I've been on holiday before.

with my kids and you know we meet people with kids that are similar age and you're like you know you kind of want to maybe stay in touch and things like that and make it really easy to do that so you know we're really trying to build on behaviors that we know exist that are already on our platform and extending it to this new world now that we have experiences.

That's right. I think one phrase that has stayed with us throughout the entire development up to this launch is a social network in the real world. We did not build something where you have followers or you follow others or where you have online connections.

For us, Airbnb is all of the stuff that you do out in the real world. And that social network, those connections should reflect that. The people that you've traveled with, that you stayed in a home with, the people you've met on experiences. And that is very different than other platforms. In many ways, I mean, it was, as Brian was saying, like maybe the promise of the internet from 20 years ago, from decades ago, but it's turned into something else. And we think there's something very special about a place that,

Where you can go do things in the real world and remain connected to the people that you did them with. And that is, uh, I mean, that's why the design is so beautiful because it brings people to life in a way that other platforms, other profiles don't, you know, it can often sort of flatten people. You get some information, you get some details here. The way that we present people on Airbnb is totally unique. And, uh,

That's really exciting. I think there's some really nice utility as well with, you know, being able to something as simple as being able to share your itinerary with other friends or other, you know, folks that are on the platform that you're connected to.

And we know that this happens. So I don't know if you've ever had this, but you know, whenever I go somewhere, people will be like, Oh, where did you say, which Airbnb did you stay in? Like, what did you do? And, um, you know, this is our way of making that really, really easy to do. People are already doing it where, you know, and we know that people trust, you know, their friends and their community when it comes to recommendations of what to do, where to go. And they really looking for that stuff. And so we,

We see this as just really like building on top of that and making, you know, as Brian called it, this like global travel community, like making it easier for us to do all of those things within the app. That's great. I think one of the things I wanted to touch upon before we wrap up is this idea of with the new Airbnb, sort of the nature of Airbnb itself. Because what struck me when I saw the demo and today, you know, with the event was

It's a different type of service in that. So the vast, you know, you look at your phone, you look at your computer and the most of the apps they use, most of the websites that you go to, like those are digital experiences. Like they begin there and they end there and they want you to stay there. So you're in Gmail, you know, you are in Gmail and then you listen to Spotify, you're in Spotify. You watch a video on YouTube, you're staying on YouTube. Like it begins and it ends there.

And with Airbnb, you've built this really incredible foundation with like cities, countries, services, experiences, new design language, social features for messaging coming up. But ultimately, people are going to close Airbnb and they're just going to have fun. And so from that perspective, you're... And I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but from this perspective, you're always going to be in the backseat. Like you're always going to know and maybe...

That's when you've accomplished your goal. Like when people, not sure when people open Airbnb and make a booking, but actually when people close Airbnb.

And that I think is so fascinating because there aren't that many companies that kind of want you to close their apps. That's true. Yes. Understatement of the century. I think that's really cool. Yeah. I think that's so cool when you think about like, you know, just the world that we're in now. And I think that, you know,

There's a trust in that. Like if people come and use our platform and recognize that we are pushing them out into the real world to do real things, they'll come back naturally, you know, and they do open it again and they book another thing. But we're not trying to like, you know, use dark patterns to keep you staying in our app doing stuff. Like we want you out in the world, you know, using our experiences and booking services and living, having a fun time. Yeah.

Yeah, one of the things we say to ourselves is like, our goal is maybe the exact opposite of every other app developer. Spend as little time as possible in the app. We want you to come back frequently. It's great if you start using Airbnb every week, but find something you love, book it, and then go do it. And for those of us with Kiteo and I both have younger kids, and we see how they spend time online, how they spend time on screens. And I love, I mean, I love the other week when my daughter was like, let's go do this truffle making experience. She discovered it in the app.

Spent a little bit of time. We booked it. But the thing I'm most excited about is the thing in the real world, is the actual experience we're going to go on together. And that is really special and is very unique. You're right about that, Federico. That's fantastic. Well, I want to thank both of you for inviting us here to talk to you today. It's been fascinating talking to both of you. Congratulations again on the big launch today. The app is fantastic. We love it. We can't wait to get this interview out there and share it with our audience. Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting us. Thank you.

Federico, that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed speaking with you. You're back already. Yes, I have magically transformed and teleported back to North Carolina from Los Angeles. I had a great time. It was a lot of fun. Thanks to Airbnb for inviting us out to do those interviews. It was a great, great experience and a great conversation. We will be back next week, of course, thanks to our two sponsors, InnoReader and Terminal.

And Federico and I can be found, as always, at MacStories.net and on social media where Federico is at the teachy. That's V-I-T-I-C-C-I. And I'm at John Voorhees. J-O-H-N-V-O-O-R-H-E-S. Talk to you next week, Federico. Ciao, John.