AI workers are boosting rents across the US

The newest wave of tech workers isn’t just filling office towers — it’s bidding up apartments in cities already notorious for high housing costs.

Across the US and Canada, the number of workers with artificial intelligence skills has surged by more than 50% in the past year, topping 517,000, according to CBRE. 

Much of that growth is clustered in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Seattle, Toronto and the District of Columbia — areas where rents were straining households even before the AI boom.

The result: a fresh wave of demand that has helped push Manhattan rents up more than 14% between 2021 and 2024, Washington more than 12% in that same span, Seattle more than 7% and San Francisco nearly 6%.

New York gained about 20,000 AI-skilled workers over the past year alone, while other hubs including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Toronto and Washington each logged increases of 75% or more. 

High salaries in AI allow workers to shoulder those rents — CBRE found Manhattan’s AI professionals spend about 29% of their income on housing, while in San Francisco and DC the share drops closer to 19%.

That affordability for one group is adding to the squeeze on everyone else.

Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Center, said San Francisco illustrates the trend. 

“With this AI revolution, it’s been a fundamental game changer for the city of San Francisco, because that’s really ground zero for the AI revolution and where most of these major high-profile firms like OpenAI are located,” he told CNBC.

Unlike other parts of the tech sector that turned to remote work, AI firms are filling office towers. In San Francisco, 1 out of every 4 square feet leased over the past two and a half years went to an AI tenant. 

“AI is predominantly in-office work, and they’re sort of back to the earlier days of tech innovation, where they’re in the office five, six days a week and for long hours,” Yasukochi said.