Airbnb turns to AI to crack down on renters throwing New Year's Eve parties

This New Year’s Eve, plenty of businesses will have security in place to keep people in line. 

For bars, that could mean a bouncer. For Airbnb, it means AI.

Company officials said they’d use the technology to reduce the risk of unauthorized and disruptive parties by looking at hundreds of signals that could indicate a booking is at higher risk. 

For instance: the duration of the trip the guest is trying to book, how far the listing is from their location, the type of listing they’re booking, if the reservation is being made at the last minute, and more.

"This is really no surprise," said Cyber Defense Group Founder and CEO Lou Rabon. "It’s expected. This is the way the world is going."

But Rabon added that privacy is a concern.

"Airbnb can use AI for determining the state of a renter by collecting certain data points, and those data points might be on Airbnb or they might actually be other apps or sites that you’ve gone to that have sold their data to Airbnb," he explained.

So, Rabon said, if someone were to be denied when looking to make a legitimate rental, he’d recommend reaching out to Airbnb and demanding to know why.

"When people say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ well actually you might," explained Rabon. "They might make an AI-automated decision based on something that’s completely unrelated, and you just happen to have the misfortune of having a friend that has a bad Airbnb rating, and therefore you don’t get your house, but you gave away those privacy rights."

Airbnb also used what they call anti-party measures last New Year’s Eve. 

In the U.S., officials said that led to more than 63,000 people being blocked.