Buildings including the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and One Vanderbilt are seen in midtown Manhattan, New York, on January 11, 2024.
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It’s no surprise that the number of tech workers specializing in artificial intelligence is growing rapidly, and the impact this growth has on local office markets is significant. New York’s office market is home to the most tech workers for the first time, thanks in large part to AI, according to a new report. CBRE.
According to CBRE, New York had 394,300 tech jobs, compared to 375,730 in the San Francisco Bay Area. This report analyzes the technology workforce in 75 metropolitan markets in the United States and Canada. This is the first time in the past 13 years that New York state has topped the rankings.
“The story is that with layoffs in the Bay Area, the tech industry downsized its workforce of tech talent, and the financial sector (in New York) hired a lot of tech talent and a lot of AI talent,” said Colin Jascoch, executive director of CBRE’s Tech Insight Center in San Francisco.
Both the U.S. and Canada have seen a 45% increase in AI technology jobs over the past year, with San Francisco and New York each adding more than 20,000 AI-specific jobs since mid-2025, according to CBRE.
According to the report, there were 751,000 AI workers in both countries as of June. These include both new jobs and transitions from existing jobs. According to the survey, AI-related jobs now account for nearly one-third of U.S. technology job postings.
By market, 37% of U.S. AI jobs are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Seattle, and Washington. While New York leads in overall technology talent, San Francisco remains the leader in AI in particular.
AI jobs are more concentrated in Canada, with 60% of jobs based in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Markets with the highest demand for AI workers are also seeing a corresponding increase in office leasing.
In San Francisco, AI companies accounted for 58% of all leasing activity in the first half of this year and will account for 30% of leasing activity (totaling about 10 million square feet) starting in 2023, according to CBRE.
While technology in general has driven the Bay Area office market for the past few decades, the pandemic has forced many employees to work remotely. However, AI has a more office-centric culture and is currently driving the market recovery.
“This is close to the kind of startup innovation culture we’ve seen in the past, where people are in the office (a) minimum of four people, typically five or six days a week,” Yasukochi said. “It’s much more efficient and innovative to be together and work directly throughout this innovation process.”
In addition to San Francisco, AI leasing activity is most concentrated in Manhattan, Boston and Seattle, according to CBRE.
There were concerns that AI would reduce the number of employees and therefore the need for office space, but that has not been the case, at least in the short term.
“It’s basically changing jobs and creating new jobs, rather than eliminating them,” Yasukochi said, citing the financial sector in particular.
