AI use among small hosts went from 14% to 58% in a year, and the overwhelm halved

PriceLabs has published its second annual Global Host Report, surveying 1,203 hosts who manage between one and four short-term rental listings across 72 countries. The headline number is the AI jump. 58% now use AI to answer guests, check the market or handle other tasks, against 14% a year earlier.

The more telling figure sits next to it. The share of hosts describing AI and technology as overwhelming fell from 43% to 26%. Adoption quadrupled and anxiety nearly halved in the same twelve months, which is not the usual pattern for new technology in this industry.

Who answered

The survey ran in six languages, English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian, and recorded a country for 1,135 of the 1,203 respondents. Fieldwork was July and August 2026, via Pollfish.

The exclusion matters more than the inclusion. Operators with five or more listings were deliberately left out and covered in a separate property manager report. So this is the small-host end of the market, not the professional managers most PMS vendors sell to.

The other findings

A direct booking website is the top planned investment for the second year running, named by 33% of hosts, ahead of smart home technology at 23% and market data at 21%. 89% said they would spend the same or more on their direct booking site.

Daily price checking rose from 19% to 28%. Among hosts planning to grow, 37% check performance every day. Current AI users were markedly more expansionist: 45% planned to add properties in the next twelve months, against 32% across the whole sample.

Most worries eased. Concern about negative reviews fell from 71% to 56%, finding cleaners from 49% to 38%, and not earning enough from 55% to 50%.

Regulation was the exception, and the only worry that grew. 53% now fear new short-term rental rules could hurt their income, up from 48%.

Sentiment on the year ahead softened. 41% expected 2026 to beat 2025, down from 51%, while those expecting a worse year rose from 12% to 19%.

The regional spread was wide. 70% of Latin American hosts struggled to fill empty nights, against 43% in North America and 30% in Europe. 60% of Latin American hosts planned to add properties, against 37% in Europe and 34% in North America.

97% used Airbnb, rating it 4.1 out of 5 on average, and 73% believed booking platforms favour guests over hosts.

Richie Khandelwal, PriceLabs co-founder, said: "Admin and guest communication still take up most of a host's week, but now they have far more help getting through it."

One figure to handle carefully

The report's own landing page headlines that "58% of hosts already use tech to run their pricing", reusing the same 58% that measures general AI use across guest replies and market checks. Those are not the same behaviour, and PriceLabs sells pricing software. The AI adoption number is well supported. The pricing-specific reading of it is not.

What it means for the PMS market

Two signals are worth acting on. Small hosts are buying direct booking capability ahead of everything else, for the second consecutive year, which is a clear instruction to anyone selling booking engines and website tools at this end of the market.

And the hosts using AI are the ones planning to grow. Whether the tooling causes the growth or confident operators simply adopt faster, the overlap means AI features are no longer a differentiator aimed at early adopters. For a segment that found all of this overwhelming a year ago, 58% is close to the default.