Detecting the Good and the Bad With AI: Airbnb’s Naba Banerjee

Naba Banerjee’s identity as a “forever learner” led to her become the first female engineer in her family. That curiosity has informed her career choices as well, leading her to companies as varied as Tata, Cognizent, Walmart, and AAA. Now, as director of trust product and operations at vacation rental platform Airbnb, she is continuing let her curiosity be her guide as she applies her previous data science experience to the travel industry. On this episode, Naba joins Shervin and Sam to talk abouthow she and her team use AI and machine learning to increase the safety of the guests and hosts who use Airbnb’s platform. She also discusses collaboration between humans and machines and the importance of recognizing that neither is an infallible decision maker. Read the episode transcript here. Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger. Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn. Guest bio: Naba Banerjee is the director of trust product and operations at Airbnb, overseeing the company’s efforts to combat fraud, build trust between hosts and guests, and stop bad actors from using the platform. Her most recent work includes the development of Airbnb’s reservation screening technology, which helps to identify users making potentially high-risk reservations and prevent them from taking advantage of the platform. Banerjee has over two decades of experience building products that deliver innovative, customer-centric solutions. She joined Airbnb after spending 13 years at Walmart.com, where she played an instrumental role in the evolution of product management, including shipping packages to customers more quickly and building mobile apps to enable customers to check out faster. We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials. We want to know how you feel about Me, Myself, and AI. Please take a short, two-question survey.