Short-term rental hosts use of AI has quadrupled in one year, according to PriceLabs

AI adoption is also highest among hosts looking to grow.

PriceLabs has released its second annual Global Host Report, a survey of more than 1,200 short-term rental hosts across 72 countries, revealing a rapid shift in how hosts are using AI to run their businesses.

A year ago, PriceLabs found hosts split on AI to be 43% called it overwhelming, and only 14% said they were embracing it. 

Today, 58% of hosts actively use AI tools to run their listings, a fourfold increase in just 12 months. 

Hosts are using AI to draft guest messages, write listing descriptions, and analyse market data, while the share who find AI and technology overwhelming has fallen from 43% to 26%. 

AI adoption is also highest among hosts looking to grow. Almost half (45%) of AI users plan to add properties over the next 12 months, compared with 32% of hosts overall.

Digging deeper into threats presenting itself, one was while hosts appear to be getting a better handle on many of the day-to-day challenges of running a short-term rental, concern about regulation is moving in the opposite direction.

Worries about poor reviews, finding cleaners, and not earning enough all fell by between five and 15 percentage points year-on-year. 

Regulation was the only measured concern to increase, with 53% of hosts now worried that short-term rental rules will hurt their revenue, up from 48% in 2025.

A near-universal 97% of hosts list on Airbnb, which holds the highest satisfaction score of any platform for a second year running, at 4.1 out of 5. At the same time, nearly three-quarters (73%) of hosts believe booking platforms prioritise guests over hosts. 

That tension is feeding interest in channels hosts control themselves. A direct booking website remains hosts' top investment priority, named by 33%, ahead of smart home technology (23%) and market data (21%). 

89% also plan to invest the same or more in their own booking site next year.

I found that 69% of hosts describe themselves as proud of what they've built, unchanged from 2025, and 86% choose at least one positive word (proud, inspired or excited) to describe hosting but expectations for the year ahead are more cautious: 41% expect this year to be better than last, down from 51% a year ago, while the share expecting a worse year rose from 12% to 19%.

The report also revealed a stark regional difference in hosts' ability to fill their calendars. 70% of hosts in Latin America struggle to fill empty nights between bookings, compared with 43% in North America and 30% in Europe. 

Despite that challenge, Latin American hosts have the strongest expansion plans of any region surveyed. 60% plan to add properties over the next 12 months, compared with 37% in Europe and 34% in North America.

Richie Khandelwal, co-founder of PriceLabs, said: "A year ago hosts told us AI was overwhelming. Now more than half use it to run their properties, especially the most ambitious hosts. Admin and guest communication still take up most of a host's week, but now they have far more help getting through it.

"As we head toward 2027, the list of tasks that AI can take off a host’s plate will only get longer, and the hosts experimenting and comfortable with it now will be ahead."