“The notion of remote work, which was such a prevalent concept five years ago, six years ago, has completely gone away, at least in this market… that insistence on being in person and together, because of the pace of innovation, it's a necessity. It's not a luxury.”
The Weekly Take from CBRE · October 2026
Office developer Cyrus Sanandaji on what is driving San Francisco's office recovery: AI founders and their investors insisting on in-person work. He said he hopes the attitude spreads to the rest of the country, "for the benefit of office owners."
Transcript
And they want those people to be in a cool, creative workplace that is something they get excited to come in. They
want to be there.
It is a philosophy that from the investors all the way through the founders has just permeated this segment, this new chapter of innovation and innovators. And I'm seeing it from friends who are founders. I'm seeing it from friends that are in AI companies or otherwise. The notion of remote work, which was such a prevalent concept five years ago, six years ago, has completely gone away, at least in this market. And I'd hope that that's sort of something that's going to permeate through the rest of the country and the rest of the world for the benefit of office owners. But that insistence on being in person and together, because of the pace of innovation, it's a necessity. It's not a luxury.
We're seeing a lot of growth also with the professional services groups for another reason, I think, is that they're all benefiting off of the AI industry. And the lawyers are doing business with them. The real estate brokers are doing business with them. The accountants, the bankers are taking…
We talk about the hierarchy of needs that these tenants have. And when we defined our office resort concept, we actually said that the most important aspect of what we need to deliver in terms of service and amenity and hospitality and so on is to facilitate human interaction. Events, in person…
So, Cyrus, I know you got a new acquisition. I don't know if you were able to talk about it, but it's on battery. Tell us about it.
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