You can now enable auto-AI replies to guests' messages and inquiries.
Our AI looks at the listing's details (title, description, amenities), your active automated message rules, the previous messages in the conversation thread, quick replies and questions asked, and how they were answered from previous reservations to craft a personalized message to answer your guests' questions. Anything you set up in Host Tools is fair game for training context. Read more about how to train the AI here.
You can view your AI settings by visiting the "AI Assistant" page in your settings. From there, you can choose if you want AI to auto-respond to guests, give suggestions only, or disable it altogether. If you do just "auto-respond," you will also choose a threshold for sending a message. For example, the default is that AI will only send a message if they are 80% sure it is correct and if the guest is expressing a positive sentiment. This ensures that AI will not be responding to an angry guest or making up information that it is not sure about.
AI emoji reactions for short acknowledgments
Beyond text replies, Host Tools AI can now also send emoji reactions to brief, positive Airbnb guest messages — such as "thanks!", "perfect!", or "see you soon!". Instead of composing a full text reply or leaving the message unanswered, the AI selects an appropriate reaction (👍, ❤️, or 🙏) and sends it directly on Airbnb.
This works alongside — not instead of — text auto-responses. When the AI determines a message is a simple acknowledgment that warrants a reaction rather than a reply, it routes to the emoji reaction path automatically. Auto-send must be enabled in the listing's AI settings for reactions to send without your review; in suggest-only mode, the suggested reaction appears in the inbox for you to send manually.
For more information on how emoji reactions work (including manual reactions and removing a reaction), see How do I use emojis to react to guest messages?
When a reply is held for your review
Before a reply goes out, Host Tools checks any hard specifics it states — the floor or unit position, an access code or entry timing, a count of bedrooms, bathrooms, guests or parking spaces, a distance or walk time, or a house policy such as pets, service animals, smoking, events or quiet hours.
If the reply states one of those and it isn’t backed by your listing details, the reservation details, or an answer you have trained, it is not sent to the guest. It is saved as a suggestion in your inbox and you get an email marked Unverified, so you can check the detail, edit the message and send it yourself.
This is the same hold that already applies when the AI is not confident enough to reply on its own. The email tells you which of the two applied: Unverified for a specific it could not back up, Low confidence for a reply it was unsure about.
💡 If the same detail keeps being held, add it to your listing details or train an answer for it. Once the fact has a source the AI can point to, replies that mention it send normally.
Availability answers come from your calendar
When a guest asks about dates, the reply is based on your calendar rather than a general statement. For a booking inquiry, Host Tools checks the dates the guest asked about and says whether they are free, partly blocked — naming the blocked nights — or fully blocked.
It also looks at the 30 days before check-in and the 30 days after check-out and reports the longest run of free nights it finds there, so the reply can offer real alternative dates instead of reporting nothing available because of a single blocked night next to the stay.
The same calendar information is used when a guest asks for a discount, so any mention of how busy those dates are reflects what your calendar actually shows.