Airbnb appointed Gus Fuldner as its new chief of global operations, starting next Monday. He most previously headed up safety for Uber, which is facing thousands of lawsuits, mostly from women alleging that their Uber drivers harassed or sexually assaulted them.

Despite that track record, safety and fraud will be one element of Fuldner's role at Airbnb. Another pressing goal will be to unify the company's sometimes-far-flung teams and systems platforms.

EDITOR’S PICKS

Airbnb Appoints Former Uber Safety Exec as Global Head of Operations

by Dennis Schaal

March 10, 2026

Consider the complexity that Fuldner is walking into. Airbnb is tasking him with reshaping the company's teams and systems into a unified "intelligent platform." All this, while Airbnb is launching new verticals, and trying to become a native AI app.

Airbnb Faces World Cup Shortfall in NYC — New Jersey Is Dominating

by Dennis Schaal

March 9, 2026

Nice try Airbnb, but New York authorities do not appear ready to even temporarily lift the ban on short-term rentals during the World Cup.

ChatGPT Bails on Transactions — Good News for Expedia and Booking

by Adriana Lee

March 5, 2026

OpenAI built the checkout tech but couldn't get users to actually buy. That's a reprieve for OTAs, and a reality check for anyone assuming AI commerce is inevitable.

Airbnb’s ‘One-Stop-Shop’ Plan to Own Your Entire Trip

by Dennis Schaal

March 4, 2026

Mission creep? Nope, Airbnb is intentionally reverting to its pre-pandemic ambitions and expanding beyond homes and even hotels to fill in the "entire trip."

Booking CFO: The AI Threat Isn’t ‘Really a Risk at All’

by Dennis Schaal

March 4, 2026

In the face of the LLM threat, Booking Holdings thinks it can repeatedly grow its top line 8% annually over the "medium term" and earnings per share 15% over the same timespan.

Expedia CFO: ‘We Radically Changed the Direction of the Company’

by Dennis Schaal

March 3, 2026

Expedia has been downsizing its workforce over the last year, and plowing some of the savings into machine learning and AI. It's a playbook that's taking place across industries.

SKIFT PODCAST NETWORK

The idea of AI booking your entire trip sounds powerful — but the reality is far more complicated. In this clip from Good Morning Hospitality, Jamie Lane discusses why the vision of large language models handling the full travel booking process was always a massive challenge.

He explains how aggregating inventory, integrating with direct booking systems, and competing with the massive advertising power of companies like Booking, Expedia, and Airbnb creates major barriers for AI platforms.

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