Zuck’s GenAI General Gets Poached by Airbnb as CEO Brian Chesky Eyes a Full-Stack Travel Takeover

Well, well, well, how the turntables…

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky just gave Zuck a taste of his own medicine by shopping in Silicon Valley’s most competitive aisle and walking out with Meta’s former head of generative AI.

(You just know every boss who’s had employees poached by Zuck’s meta addiction is smiling from ear to ear).

This morning, VRBO’s biggest competitor announced it hired Ahmad Al-Dahle, formerly Meta’s GenAI chief, as its new Chief Technology Officer. Which I’m almost certain sparked this question from Avid Airbnb users: “That’s great, but, can he use AI to get the cleaning fees down?”

Chesky, for his part, didn’t even try to hide the excitement. With Al-Dahle on board, Airbnb sees a chance to “do AI right for travel” and “do AI right for ecommerce.” Translation: this company has zero interest in staying boxed in as “just” a rental app.

If you’ve been paying attention, this move has been coming for a while.

The last several months, Airbnb has been going through an identity crisis… the productive kind. In May, the company rolled out a major app overhaul, adding services like catering, personal training, and other “hotel but don’t you dare call us a hotel” features. Then came direct messaging, then an upgraded AI chatbot. Step by step, Airbnb’s gone from “find a bed” to “run the whole trip from one app.”

(Source: CNBC)

Chesky has hinted where this all leads: Airbnb as a travel concierge… something that helps you plan, book, adjust, and manage the entire experience. Think Google Travel, Expedia, Yelp, and a slightly less annoying tour guide… all rolled into one app.

That’s where Ahmad Al-Dahle comes in.

Before Airbnb, Al-Dahle ran Meta’s generative AI efforts, including work around its Llama models. That role got a little turbulent after developers weren’t thrilled with Llama 4, prompting Meta to reshuffle its AI org and eventually bring in Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang in a massive deal. (AI musical chairs remains undefeated.)

(Source: Airbnb)

Before Meta? Al-Dahle spent 16 years at Apple, bouncing between special projects and imaging/sensing teams… which tells you Airbnb didn’t hire an “AI only guy.” They hired a design-first, product-brained technologist. Chesky even highlighted that Al-Dahle believes engineering should be a huge part of the strategy, instead of a backend support group… like how it’s treated at most companies.

There’s also a little OpenAI energy buzzing around this whole move. Chesky is close friends with Sam Altman and has openly talked about wanting to wire ChatGPT into Airbnb someday… even if he’s admitted the tech isn’t quite ready yet.

So hiring Meta’s former GenAI chief kinda reads like Airbnb saying, “No rush, Sam… we’ll just build it ourselves.”

And given how more companies have quietly started picking Gemini over ChatGPT lately, don’t be surprised if Chesky starts window-shopping over at Google too. Silicon Valley loyalty has always been… flexible.

Rentals got Airbnb on the map, but that story alone doesn’t give investors much to get excited about anymore. The bigger opportunity is turning Airbnb into a platform that owns more of the travel experience… and AI is the lever to pull it off. From an investor standpoint, this feels like a smart hire. In today’s market, standing still is basically the same as falling behind.

And if Airbnb pulls it off, it won’t just host the stay… it’ll guide the whole journey.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Meta, Google, and Apple as mentioned in the article.