ABNB: 10-K Risk Factor Changes

Our business success is heavily reliant on both hosts and guests engaging with our platform. Hosts must maintain and enhance their listings by offering a variety of desirable, competitively priced, and high-quality stays, experiences, and services, while providing exceptional hospitality and timely responses to guest inquiries. These factors are largely outside our direct control, and if hosts fail to meet these expectations, or if they choose to cross-list or list exclusively with competitors, or if we are unable to attract and retain hosts in a cost-effective manner, or at all, our revenue and business operations could be adversely affected. Our ability to attract and retain guests is crucial and can be impacted by external factors such as pandemics, natural disasters, political instability, climate change, and economic downturns, as well as business-specific factors like competition, brand perception, and platform usability. Our brand and reputation are critical to our success, as they influence our ability to attract and retain hosts, guests, and employees. Any negative perceptions or incidents related to safety, security, or quality could harm our public image and business operations. Issues such as unreliable reviews, regulatory scrutiny, or negative media coverage can further damage trust within our community, materially adversely affecting our business, results of operations, and financial condition. We continue to invest in the development of new offerings and initiatives, including innovations focused on improving the experience of our hosts and guests; however, developing and delivering these new offerings and initiatives increase our expenses and our organizational complexity, and we may experience difficulties in developing and implementing these new offerings and initiatives. New offerings and initiatives on our platform have a high degree of risk, as they may involve unproven businesses with which we have limited or no prior development or operating experience. There can be no assurance that our hosts and guests will adopt or respond positively to such offerings and initiatives, that we will be able to successfully manage the development and delivery of such offerings and initiatives, or that any of these offerings or initiatives will help attract and retain users on our platform and gain sufficient market acceptance to generate sufficient revenue to offset associated expenses or liabilities. If new offerings and initiatives on our platform are not successful, or if we fail to provide a seamless and satisfactory experience for both hosts and guests, or if our host protection programs, including those provided through AirCover for hosts, become ineffective, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected. Furthermore, our growth relies on delivering high-quality support to our community, which requires significant investment in staffing, technology, infrastructure, and training. During 2025, we introduced new artificial intelligence (“AI”) features to help deliver customer support in certain countries and languages. AI presents risks and challenges that could affect the expansion of these features, and therefore our business; for more information, see our risk factor titled “Our use of artificial intelligence and machine learning gives risk to legal, business, and operational risks, which may result in diminished performance, regulatory scrutiny, social impacts, reputational harm, and liability arising from the use of this technology.” In addition, as our global customer base expands, particularly outside of North America and Europe, we face increased pressure to provide efficient, multilingual support. The vast majority of our community support is performed by third-party service providers, and our reliance on third-party service providers necessitates stringent guidance and quality control to maintain satisfactory service levels. Inadequate support or dispute resolution can harm our reputation and affect retention, and may also lead to potential revenue reductions through refunds or coupons. The cost of maintaining robust community support is expected to rise, and efforts to reduce support requests may not offset these costs, materially adversely affecting our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

Our business success is heavily reliant on both hosts and guests engaging with our platform. Hosts must maintain and enhance their listings by offering a variety of desirable, competitively priced, and high-quality stays and experiences, while providing exceptional hospitality and timely responses to guest inquiries. These factors are largely outside our direct control, and if hosts fail to meet these expectations, or if they choose to cross-list or list exclusively with competitors, or if we are unable to attract and retain hosts in a cost-effective manner, or at all, our revenue and business operations could be adversely affected. Our ability to attract and retain guests is crucial and can be impacted by external factors such as pandemics, political instability, climate change, and economic downturns, as well as internal factors like competition, brand perception, and platform usability. Additionally, our brand and reputation are critical to our success, as they influence our ability to attract and retain hosts, guests, and employees. Any negative perceptions or incidents related to safety, security, or quality could harm our public image and business operations. Issues such as unreliable reviews, regulatory scrutiny, or negative media coverage can further damage trust within our community, materially adversely affecting our business, results of operations, and financial condition. We continue to invest in the development of new offerings and initiatives, including innovations focused on improving our host and guest experiences; however, developing and delivering these new offerings and initiatives increase our expenses and our organizational complexity, and we may experience difficulties in developing and implementing these new offerings and initiatives. Our new offerings and initiatives have a high degree of risk, as they may involve unproven businesses with which we have limited or no prior development or operating experience. There can be no assurance that our hosts and guests will adopt or respond positively to such offerings and initiatives, that we will be able to successfully manage the development and delivery of such offerings and initiatives, or that any of these offerings or initiatives will help attract and retain users on our platform and gain sufficient market acceptance to generate sufficient revenue to offset associated expenses or liabilities. If our new offerings and initiatives are not successful, or if we fail to provide a seamless and satisfactory experience for both hosts and guests, or if our host protection programs, including those provided through AirCover for hosts, become ineffective, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be materially adversely affected. Furthermore, our growth relies on delivering high-quality support to our community, which requires significant investment in staffing, technology, infrastructure, and training. As our global customer base expands, particularly outside of North America and Europe, we face increased pressure to provide efficient, multilingual support. The vast majority of our community support is performed by third-party service providers, and our reliance on third-party service providers necessitates stringent guidance and quality control to maintain satisfactory service levels. Inadequate support or dispute resolution can harm our reputation and affect retention, leading to potential revenue reductions through refunds or coupons. The cost of maintaining robust community support is expected to rise, and efforts to reduce support requests may not offset these costs, materially adversely affecting our business, results of operations, and financial condition.