AI job growth is redrawing office demand in just seven cities

CBRE's 13th annual Scoring Tech Talent report, first covered by Connect CRE, shows AI-related tech jobs across the U.S. and Canada grew 45 percent in the past year. AI roles now account for roughly a third of U.S. tech-talent job listings. The broader tech-talent category grew 1.8 percent, while tech firms cut non-AI jobs. That is the underwriting gap: 45 versus 1.8.

The growth is not evenly spread. Thirty-seven percent of U.S. AI jobs sit in four metros: the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Canada is tighter still: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver hold 60 percent of AI jobs. CBRE expects the momentum to keep favoring office markets exactly in those hubs. Leasing follows the same map.

The mix shift inside the job listings matters as much as the totals. A third of U.S. tech openings now carry an AI label. That means a tenant touring space in a hub city is increasingly an AI company rather than a general-purpose software firm. The layoffs that hit the sector landed on non-AI roles. Hub landlords can point to an AI-weighted roster; owners leasing to legacy tech tenants cannot.

San Francisco is the obvious test. Since 2023, AI companies have taken about 10 million square feet in San Francisco, CBRE says. That is 30 percent of the city's leasing activity. The volume has changed the tone of a market that spent the early 2020s as the national symbol of office distress. Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE's Tech Insights Center, puts it plainly: markets adding AI jobs are 'further cementing their status as tech talent capitals.' That sentence is also a warning, because it says nothing about the markets not on the list.

Two versions of the office market surfaced this week. A judge cleared the sale of Philadelphia's Centre Square, 1.8 million square feet, for $70 million — less than a fifth of its remaining CMBS debt. SitusAMC's survey put investor conviction in office at 11 percent in the second quarter, up from 4 percent in early 2025. The CBRE data explains why both are true. AI is not an antidote to the sector's vacancy problem. It is a selective force, rewarding owners who already hold space in the few cities where AI employers concentrate because the talent already lives there. What separates the distress from the conviction is geography, not time.

The spread to watch over the next four quarters is 45 against 1.8. If AI hiring keeps compounding while the broader tech pool stalls, AI becomes the office market's primary demand engine — and its geography is already mapped: four U.S. metros, three Canadian ones. If the gap narrows, offices outside those hubs keep waiting for a tenant base that has not arrived. CBRE's report makes the wager explicit. AI hiring is moving leases, but only in the cities where the jobs exist. Everywhere else is a bet on a spillover the data has not yet delivered.