Airbnb Stock Rises After Analyst Calls It an AI Boom Winner

Airbnb shares are up 20% this year. (Kimberly White / Getty Images for Airbnb)

Key Points

• KeyBanc upgrades Airbnb stock to Overweight from Sector Weight and sets a $191 price target.
• Analyst Sergio Segura says Airbnb is largely safe from artificial-intelligence disruption due to exclusive listings, trust and direct traffic.
• Airbnb is expanding into hotels as cities tighten short-term rental rules, with hotel bookings growing three times faster than home rentals.

Travel stocks, including Airbnb, took a hit when Meta Platforms’ Muse launched last month. But in the end, Airbnb could emerge a winner as the artificial intelligence boom shakes up the sector, a Wall Street firm says.

KeyBanc analyst Sergio Segura upgraded shares to Overweight from Sector Weight and set a $191 price target, citing core home rental growth, hotel expansion as a secondary growth engine, and upside from AI adoption.

Airbnb stock rose 1.3% to $162.63 Friday. Shares have risen 20% this year, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Investors feared that the launch of Meta’s Muse would spell doom and gloom for travel stocks. For a time, those concerns seemed justified: Airbnb shares have fallen 6% since Muse launched in September, while competitors Expedia , Booking Holdings , and Tripadvisor experienced similar declines during that same period.

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Following Airbnb’s stock upgrade, however, some travel stocks traded in the green Friday. Expedia advanced 1.1%, Tripadvisor rose 0.5%, while Booking Holdings dipped 0.3%.

Segura thinks Airbnb is largely safe from any AI disruption, and the case comes down to three things: exclusive listings, trust, and direct traffic.

Millions of homes exist only on Airbnb, making them impossible for external AI bots to scrape or book elsewhere. On top of that, travel is pricey, so customers want the safety net of Airbnb’s customer support over an AI agent. Add to that the fact that travelers often open the Airbnb app first, bypassing Google entirely and preventing AI assistants from becoming a major threat.

Segura highlighted strong growth in core home rentals, driven by a resurgence in night bookings across the U.S., Europe, and newer international markets. First-time users have also grown at their fastest rate in four years, while direct mobile app bookings have continued to gain momentum.

Airbnb has been using internal AI tools to build and release app features faster, converting more visitors into paid bookings.

Hotels have become a huge growth engine for Airbnb as cities have tightened their restrictions on short-term tourist rentals. While hotel bookings currently make up a small portion of Airbnb’s total business, they’re growing three times as faster than traditional home rentals.

And he’s not the only bullish analyst. Last month, Citizens analyst Matthew Condon noted Airbnb’s growing hotel market and AI-powered pricing tools represent two key catalysts for the stock in the second half of this year and into 2027. He raised the firm’s price target to $200 from $190 while affirming an Outperform rating on the shares.

In the fiscal second quarter ended June 30, Airbnb reported revenue and earnings per share that topped Wall Street’s estimates while issuing better-than-expected forecast for the third quarter. The company had cited strong demand across all regions as the primary reason for its positive guidance.

The average rating on Airbnb stock is Overweight, according to the 47 analysts polled by FactSet. Nearly 60% of those people are bullish on the stock.

Write to Mariapaula Gonzalez at mariapaula.gonzalez@barrons.com

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