mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Applying Deep Learning To Airbnb Search

arXiv 1810.09591 ↗First posted 22 Oct 2018cs.LG cs.AI cs.IRcited by 24

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Abstract (arXiv)

The application to search ranking is one of the biggest machine learning success stories at Airbnb. Much of the initial gains were driven by a gradient boosted decision tree model. The gains, however, plateaued over time. This paper discusses the work done in applying neural networks in an attempt to break out of that plateau. We present our perspective not with the intention of pushing the frontier of new modeling techniques. Instead, ours is a story of the elements we found useful in applying neural networks to a real life product. Deep learning was steep learning for us. To other teams embarking on similar journeys, we hope an account of our struggles and triumphs will provide some useful pointers. Bon voyage!

Key facts. Cited by 24 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 22 Oct 2018.

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Citing papers per year: 2020: 1; 2021: 5; 2022: 3; 2023: 3; 2024: 5; 2025: 4; 2026: 3.

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  1. 2021Software Engineering for AI-Based Systems: A Surveycited by 68
  2. 2022The Role of Machine Learning in Cybersecuritycited by 21
  3. 2023High-Throughput Vector Similarity Search in Knowledge Graphscited by 19
  4. 2024LiRank: Industrial Large Scale Ranking Models at LinkedIncited by 12
  5. 2021EEGDnet: Fusing Non-Local and Local Self-Similarity for 1-D EEG Signal Denoising with 2-D Transformercited by 11
  6. 2025Quake: Adaptive Indexing for Vector Searchcited by 8
  7. 2023Optimizing Airbnb Search Journey with Multi-task Learningcited by 7
  8. 2020Adversarial Mixture Of Experts with Category Hierarchy Soft Constraintcited by 6
  9. 2022Learning To Rank Diversely At Airbnbcited by 6
  10. 2025MicroNN: An On-device Disk-resident Updatable Vector Databasecited by 6
  11. 2021Muddling Label Regularization: Deep Learning for Tabular Datasetscited by 5
  12. 2022On the Generalizability and Predictability of Recommender Systemscited by 3
12 more
  1. 2021ModelPS: An Interactive and Collaborative Platform for Editing Pre-trained Models at Scalecited by 2
  2. 2021With One Voice: Composing a Travel Voice Assistant from Re-purposed Modelscited by 2
  3. 2023Challenges and Opportunities of Using Transformer-Based Multi-Task Learning in NLP Through ML Lifecycle: A Surveycited by 1
  4. 2026Applying Embedding-Based Retrieval to Airbnb Searchcited by 1
  5. 2024Learning to Rank for Maps at Airbnbcited by 0
  6. 2024On a Scale-Invariant Approach to Bundle Recommendations in Candy Crush Sagacited by 0
  7. 2024Transforming Location Retrieval at Airbnb: A Journey from Heuristics to Reinforcement Learningcited by 0
  8. 2024Scale-Invariant Learning-to-Rankcited by 0
  9. 2025From Features to Transformers: Redefining Ranking for Scalable Impactcited by 0
  10. 2025Industry Insights from Comparing Deep Learning and GBDT Models for E-Commerce Learning-to-Rankcited by 0
  11. 2026JourneyFormer: Encoding Airbnb Guest Journey with Sequence Modelingcited by 0
  12. 2026RMB: Reward Model Boosting Mitigates Reward Hackingcited by 0