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As AI is affecting everything, it is no surprise that the demand for AI-specific tech talent in a given city is increasing the demand for office, housing and retail real estate.
According to CBRE analysis in LinkedIn data, the pool of AI-skilled tech workers in the US and Canada has increased by more than 50% from mid-2024 to mid-2025 to 517,000 workers. The talent is most concentrated in the San Francisco Gulf region, New York City, Seattle, Toronto and Washington, DC, accounting for 35% of the national total.
Looking at growth, New York metropolitan areas have added the most AI technology talent in the past year with absolute figures (including 20,000 AI-skilled workers). Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Toronto and Washington, DC saw a 75% year-over-year profit on these workers.
Not all of this growth is a new job, but some growth is a new skill as Tech Workers improves their ability to carry out AI-related tasks and systems development. However, some people joined the workforce with those skills.
“This AI revolution has been a fundamental game changer for the city of San Francisco, as most of these major prominent companies, like the AI ​​revolution and Openai, are actually zero.”
Of course, Silicon Valley was the first centre of the tech sector, but AI appears to have longer limbs, reaching cities and sectors where basic technology is currently retreating. Part of this is because AI Tech talent is currently in high demand by so-called fire groups: financial services, insurance and real estate. As a result, Manhattan has seen much more demand for office and apartment rentals.
Financial services companies have to raise their games as Fintech companies are much more competitive in the market thanks to AI. The entire tech industry has cuts, but financial services has been part of the top hilers of AI talent.
Unlike other types of technology that are more remote, AI is still in its early stages of innovation. It directly affects the behavior of high-tech talent. In the first half of 2025, tech companies accounted for 17% of US office lease activities, starting from 10% in the second half of 2022.
According to CBRE, in the city of San Francisco alone, one animal has been leased by an AI company in four square feet of office space in the last two and a half years alone.
“AI is primarily office work, and they go back to the early days of technological innovation, where they spend five or six days in the office,” Yasukochi said. “It certainly boosts the demand for office space.”
According to a CBRE report, the migration of talent to these high-tech markets has also had a major impact on residential real estate.
Apartments in Manhattan from 2021 to 2024 exceeded 14%, over 12% in DC, over 7% in Seattle and nearly 6% in San Francisco.
Part of this is because AI technical salaries can cover rent costs in most of the market where the cost of AI is the highest.
In Manhattan, where apartment rents are the highest, tech workers’ salary is like workers paying just 29% of their wages. The San Francisco Bay Area and DC are as low as 19%.
“AI is clearly a future for technology, and it’s just like it’s just beginning, and it’s still relatively early. It’s another potential tech boom, and it’s driving people to come to the city where this is happening, and it’s affecting the real estate market,” Yasukochi said.
