COLUMBUS, Ohio — Airbnb is using new AI technology to help crack down on New Year's Eve parties around the world.
The artificial intelligence technology identifies one-to-three-night booking attempts for entire home listings over the holiday that could potentially be high risk for disruptive and unauthorized parties, then blocks those attempts from being made.
This technology looks at hundreds of signals; like how long the stay is, how far the listing is from their location and if the reservation is being made last minute.
The system is being used in countries and regions in the U.S., including Puerto Rico, Canada, the UK, France, Spain, Australia and New Zealand.
“For our guests who are able to make reservations, we require them to add guests to our party policy and if they break the rule, they risk suspension or removal from Airbnb,” said Naba Banerjee, head of trust and safety at Airbnb.
Here in Columbus, Erich Schick is the CEO and owner of Air Bulter LLC. He manages 56 short-term rental properties within the Interstate I-270 belt.
"There's no better family feel, there's no way to gather I think than at a short-term rental,” said Schick.
He said in the past he’s dealt with issues like parties or unwanted guests staying within his properties.
"We would have issues when we would do one-night stays when we didn't have a lot of controls or rules in place, we'd have some events we'd have some parties some not safe situations,” said Schick.
Schick said his properties are roughly 70% full for the month of December. But with any new piece of technology, there are hiccups.
Schick said he’s run into issues where qualified guests who would book for three nights were blocked by the system.
"We always provide a human touch if a guest is qualified, we can usually get them past the AI roadblocks if we think they're going to be a good guest,” he said.
He’s in favor of the new restrictions and said it will help hosts continue to provide great service.