AI-related activity is increasingly visible across US offices with a cluster of recent deals. But look closely, and you realise it is specific only to certain companies and certain types of properties.
There have been several deals in San Francisco recently. Databricks added 90,000sqft to its headquarters at One Sansome Street, taking its total footprint in the tower to roughly 240,000sqft, while Reflection AI’s latest lease at 140 New Montgomery lifted occupancy at that tower to 94%. On 12 March, Open AI announced the sublease of about 280,000sqft at 1800 Owens Street, pushing OpenAI’s footprint above 1m sqft.
CBRE’s Colin Yasukochi states AI companies represented 25% of all office leasing activity in San Francisco in 2025 and about 80% of net new growth.
It’s also happening up the West coast in Seattle, where OpenAI took an extra 10 floors at City Center Plaza bringing its footprint to 296,000sqft, and across in NYC OpenAI took a 90,000sqft lease at Kushner Companies’ Puck Building in SoHo at the end of last year, marking its first New York office.
In 2025, AI firms added roughly 1m sqft of office space across Manhattan – a 152% jump from the previous year – and they’re looking to add another 1.4m, according to Savills.
Why is this happening? A lot of the activity is OpenAI, and whilst it has a work-from-anywhere policy, the company notes that Sam Altman and leadership “believe that cutting-edge innovation in AI requires close, in-person collaboration.” But this is quite company specific, and not everyone agrees.
A recent Fortune profile quotes AI Scope3 founder Brian O’Kelley saying that “the best companies are going to actually dump their offices,” arguing remote-first firms will win on talent and productivity.
And this turn in the market is unlikely to “raise all the boats” in the previously depressed office sector. “Rapid growth by AI firms is creating increased demand for high-quality, flexible office space,” argue companies like Laiout who suggest AI companies’ fast-changing headcount and intense talent competition push them toward Class A/B urban offices close to major data centres, on short lease terms with expansion options.
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