Airbnb Appoints Former Apple and Meta Executive Ahmad Al-Dahle as New CTO

On January 14, Airbnb announced the appointment of Ahmad Al-Dahle as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Al-Dahle studied engineering at the University of Waterloo early in his career and, while still a student in 2005, participated in the early development of the iPhone. After graduation, he joined Apple full-time, where he led the development of core features including the iPhone’s multi-touch system and the Apple Watch. In 2014, he founded and led Apple’s autonomous driving team, overseeing its AI systems. In 2020, he moved to Meta, where he headed mapping and AI applications for Reality Labs. In early 2023, he established Meta’s generative AI team, which launched the open-source Llama series of models—amassing over 1 billion downloads and spawning more than 60,000 derivative models—while also driving the integration of AI features into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.