AI companies now occupy about 8.5 million sq ft of office space in San Francisco, about 10% of the city's inventory. That is the one solid data point in an argument, "AI will shrink the office" against "AI will grow it", otherwise run on thin evidence. For Dubai, the measurable story is the growth of AI and digital firms setting up in the city, and the space being designed for them. The early evidence suggests AI changes the type of space wanted before it changes the amount.
What do occupier surveys actually show?
Less than the headlines suggest. JLL's 2025 Global Real Estate Technology Survey, of more than 1,500 senior investors and occupiers in 16 markets, finds that 92% of occupiers are running corporate real estate AI pilots. Only 5% report having achieved all their program goals, and 47% have achieved two to three.
That is a story about trying AI, not about needing less space because of it. The same release says 87% of respondents have raised their real estate technology budgets because of AI, and it gives no finding on office space or headcount.
We saw other figures on AI and headcount in summaries of surveys. We could not open the primary reports, so we do not quote them. A claim that AI will cut office demand by a stated share should come with a method, and we have not seen one we can check.
There is a further limit. A pilot is not a lease decision, and the survey does not link AI adoption to the amount of space firms hold. We would not credit AI with any change in demand without a method that links the two.
Is AI creating office demand anywhere?
Yes, in one city we can measure. Allwork.Space, citing CRE Daily, reports that AI companies now occupy about 8.5 million sq ft of office space in San Francisco, about 10% of the city's total inventory. In 2022, 23 AI companies occupied about 1.1 million sq ft there. Today, the same report says, roughly 413 AI firms occupy the space.
That is a talent-cluster effect. AI firms went where the engineers and the capital were. It shows that an AI wave can fill buildings. It does not show that Dubai will see the same. How much of this demand a Gulf hub can attract is not yet measured.
What is the Dubai signal?
The best public signal we can check comes from the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy. It supported the establishment and expansion of 1,690 digital startups in Dubai during 2025, up 39.7% on 2024. Businesses specialising in AI were around 15% of them, and fintech firms 12%.
Note what the count contains. It covers firms the chamber supported, not every digital firm that came to Dubai, and it counts companies, not square feet. On our arithmetic about 250 of the 1,690 were AI businesses, so the group is large enough to matter and small enough to change quickly.
Planning points the same way. Dubai's financial centre is planning a new Zabeel District with 17.7 million sq ft of gross floor area in total, and more than 1 million sq ft is allocated to an innovation hub and an AI campus. The district is expected to welcome the public in 2030. We found no public figure for AI office demand in Dubai in square feet, so we do not estimate one.
The San Francisco figure also shows how fast a market can change. In four years, AI companies went from about 1.1 million sq ft to about 8.5 million sq ft in one city, on the article's numbers. A change of that scale in one cluster is a reason to watch free-zone data closely, even though it is not a forecast for Dubai.
Does AI change the building as well as the lease?
We expect it to, and the evidence is early. The idea is that AI tenants ask for floors that can be rebuilt quickly, rooms for training and testing, and more power than a desk-based tenant needs. We have not found a public Dubai brief that says so, so this is a hypothesis for the experts.
One related fact shows AI entering the approval process, not the tenancy. Dubai Municipality's AI permit system covers private and investment villas in a 26-week plan. The announcement names villas only and does not mention office towers.
What should a landlord ask an AI tenant?
The questions move from desks to the building.
- How much power and cooling does the floor need, and can the building supply it?
- How deep is the floorplate the tenant needs, and does it suit open or lab-style layouts?
- How long a lease will the tenant sign, when its headcount can change fast?
- Is it choosing Dubai for desks, or for a licence and a small base?
The last question is the one we cannot answer from public data. Our piece on firms entering and expanding in Dubai looks at it from the tenant side.
For an owner, the practical step is to learn the tenant's technical needs before the lease is drafted. A floor that cannot take extra power or cooling is a floor the tenant cannot use, whatever the rent. That is likely to shape which Grade A towers AI firms short-list, and landlords who can answer early will win time.
The short version is that the question is better asked as what AI changes in a lease than how much AI removes from demand. The San Francisco data show new space taken by AI firms. The Dubai data show a fast-growing group of digital and AI startups. Neither shows shrinkage. Both show a shift in who the tenants are, and landlords will need to read that shift before they read any forecast. We will update this view as primary surveys and Dubai-specific demand data become available.
What to watch
- Fit-out briefs and floorplate requests from AI firms in Dubai's free zones, compared with headcount-based requirements.
- Whether the AI share of new digital startups keeps rising in the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy's next annual count.
- Any primary survey that links AI adoption to a stated change in space needs.
- Power and cooling specifications in new Grade A towers and free-zone buildings.
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