AI Was Supposed to Reduce Office Demand. So Far It Has Done the Opposite.

The capital flowing into artificial intelligence has reached a scale that makes previous technology cycles look modest. CB Insights put US private AI funding at $206 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone, approaching what the entire prior year produced. That money is going into model development, data center capacity, chips, and the engineering talent required to build any of it.

Hiring engineers means putting them somewhere, and the companies doing the hiring have reached a conclusion about where that should be. Nick Romito, co-founder and CEO of VTS, has watched the posture of tech tenants reverse over the past few years. “Post COVID the tech companies were pushing back against the return to the office,” he said. “Now they are driving the return, a lot of companies are even bringing people in on Saturdays because they know they can’t win this race to innovate if they are remote.”...

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RSK: AI is helping reduce office vacancy as well. How long it will last is a question in my mind.