Meta Muse AI Agent Sends Airbnb Stock Down 8% as Travel Booking Model Faces Disruption

Shares of Airbnb fell roughly 8% on Wednesday, September 23, as investors repriced the entire online travel aggregator sector against the threat posed by Muse, Meta Platforms' personal AI agent. Expedia dropped 7% and Booking Holdings sank 5% in the same session, while Meta itself rose 2%. Goldman Sachs warned during the selloff that AI agents are broadly positioned to disrupt industries reliant on aggregator traffic, raising the concern that platforms like Muse could route travel bookings directly, bypassing Airbnb and its peers entirely.

Airbnb also announced on September 23 that it is broadening access to OpenAI models, including GPT-6 Astra, across its engineering and product development teams. The move signals an internal AI push even as the company faces external AI-driven competitive pressure from Meta's consumer-facing agent.

On a separate front, Instacart expanded its grocery delivery partnership with Airbnb, alongside new tie-ups with Gopuff and Dollar General, a development that analysts at Seeking Alpha noted was supportive of Instacart shares. For Airbnb, the expanded Instacart integration adds a value-layer for guests but was overshadowed entirely by the Muse-driven sector selloff on the same day.