AI Tech Worker Demand Is Fueling Real Estate Markets In Multiple Cities
As artificial intelligence continues to grow, develop, and take over a multitude of industries, the demand for individuals who are educated in the intricacies of AI is also on the rise. This increase in demand is fueling real estate demand in office, residential, and even retail.
According to a CBRE analysis of LinkedIn data, the pool of tech workers with AI skills across the US and Canada has grown by over 50% from mid-2024 to mid-2025, for a total of 517,000 workers, CNBC reports.
The San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington, D.C. are the areas that are seeing the most concentrated levels of this AI talent, with the top three accounting for 35% of the national total.
The New York metropolitan area specifically added the most AI tech talent within the past year based on actual numbers with 20,000 new AI-skilled workers. CNBC reported that Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Toronto and Washington, D.C., each saw 75% year-over-year increases in AI workers.
The growth in jobs across multiple industries adopting AI is paralleled with the new skills being developed by these workers as well.
“With this AI revolution, it’s been a fundamental game changer for the city of San Francisco, because that’s really ground zero for the AI revolution and where most of these major high-profile firms like OpenAI are located,” said Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Center.
While Silicon Valley was the initial epicenter of this developing industry, AI has expanded to reach multiple cities and sectors where basic tech is now retreating as well. AI tech talent in general is in high demand, especially in financial services, insurance, and real estate.
Manhattan specifically is seeing a higher demand for office and apartment spaces. Financial services have been some of the hope hirers of AI talent. While other sectors of the tech industry have gone more remote, AI is still in its early innovation stages.
Reports show that in the first half of 2025, tech companies accounted for 17% of total US office leasing activity, which is up from 10% in late 2022.
According to CBRE, in San Francisco alone throughout the last two and a half years, 1 out of every 4 square feet of office space was leased by an AI company.
“AI is predominantly in-office work, and they’re sort of back to the earlier days of tech innovation, where they’re in the office five, six days a week and for long hours,” said Yasukochi.
“That’s certainly boosted office space demand.”
According to the CBRE report, the hiring of AI talent has impacted residential real estate, with apartment rentals increasing in all of the top AI tech markets.
“The apartment rent growth from 2021 to 2024 in Manhattan was more than14%, in D.C. more than12%, in Seattle above 7% and in San Francisco nearly 6%,” CNBC wrote.
“This idea that AI is obviously the future of technology, that it’s just kind of getting started, it’s still relatively early days – it’s another potential tech boom, and that’s driving people to come to cities where this is happening, and that’s affecting the real estate markets,” said Yasukochi.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
