- Airbnb CTO hiring news appears to confirm Apple’s long-rumored self-driving car project
- This adds context to Apple’s broader AI strategy, especially with the Google partnership news.
- It also shows Airbnb’s AI ambitions, which are firmly focused on the human element.
Apple is known for being one of the most secretive technology companies, rarely confirming projects in development and usually announcing new hardware or software only when the time is right. Entire initiatives can live – and quietly die – in Cupertino without ever being publicly recognized.
That’s why it’s remarkable that after years of rumors surrounding Apple’s work on autonomous vehicles, an unexpected confirmation appears to have come from Airbnb.
As part of a publicly shared internal announcement naming Ahmad Al-Dahle as Airbnb’s chief technology officer, a memo sent to employees states:
“In 2014, Ahmad created and led Apple’s autonomous technology group, responsible for developing the core AI systems for the company’s self-driving car project.”
Although Apple never officially confirmed the project, the statement aligns closely with long-standing reports and offers one of the clearest acknowledgments yet that the effort has existed in a serious and sustained way.
The memo also highlights the length and scope of Al-Dahle’s tenure at Apple. He joined the company two years before the first iPhone shipped, working on multitouch and display systems, then helped develop the Apple Watch and other hardware initiatives, before ultimately leading work on Apple’s standalone systems.
Al-Dahle left Apple in 2020 and joined Meta, focusing on AI and, since 2023, working in Meta’s Generative AI group. There, he helped launch Llama and roll out AI features across Meta’s suite of applications.
What makes the disclosure particularly striking is not only what it reveals, but also how it surfaced. Rather than an official Apple announcement or regulatory filing, confirmation arrived via Airbnb’s hiring announcement — an unusual but telling route for such a high-profile effort.
This timing also adds context to Apple’s broader AI strategy, including its recent partnership with Google to use Gemini as the basis for next-generation Siri and other AI-based features. Taken together, these developments suggest less a step backwards than a recalibration.
Autonomous vehicles represent one of the most complex intersections between hardware, software and AI, and Apple’s decision to end the project seems consistent with a renewed focus on areas where it can ship products at scale within its existing ecosystem.
Partnering with Google on foundational AI models also reflects a pragmatic approach, where Google can accelerate and potentially offload some of its AI capabilities, while also focusing on the finished product, user experience and placing user privacy at the center internally.
For Airbnb, this hiring highlights how central AI has become to its future. Al-Dahle brings experience building large AI systems and scaling them, which aligns with Airbnb’s growing use of the technology on its platform.
In 2025, Airbnb rolled out a complete overhaul of its iOS and Android apps, focusing on cleaner navigation, improved discovery, and expanded experiences beyond just rentals. The company also introduced AI-powered customer service tools and personalized recommendations, while continuing to experiment with social features.
Brian Chesky, CEO and co-founder of Airbnb, is becoming increasingly vocal about the role of AI in everyday life. In the same communication with employees, he emphasized a human-centered approach:
“In an increasingly artificial world, people crave what’s real: a real connection with real people in the real world. No company is better positioned to meet this need than Airbnb.”
Chesky added that Al-Dahle “shares our belief that technology should serve people – not the other way around – and that its highest purpose is to bring us together.”
Airbnb is unlikely to move into autonomous vehicles, but it’s clear from Chesky’s statement that it intends to stay focused on the customer experience and encourage people to connect in the real world.
Chesky’s announcement of the CTO hire also provides a rare window into Apple’s past ambitions and the evolution of how big tech companies approach AI. Although the confirmation came in a unique way, it is still not confirmed by Apple.
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