Real connection still matters in London’s office market

Predictions that technology will empty our offices are nothing new. Even before the pandemic, high-speed internet and video technology were accelerating flexible working trends. Then, as they enabled home working to be widely adopted during Covid, some claimed a widespread return to the office would never happen.

Aqeel Sourjah, associate partner at Quadrant

However, with employees freer to choose how they worked than ever before, the best developers responded by creating offices that are far more than places to work, incorporating amenities from high-end gyms and beautifully landscaped terraces to specially designed breakout spaces, meeting areas and onsite services that support modern lifestyles.  

This, coupled with businesses’ desire to bring their employees together in inspiring spaces, has seen workers return – especially to quality offices – in droves. Prime space in London now is acutely undersupplied and this is expected to remain the case, with Knight Frank projecting a shortfall of between 5m sq ft and 7.5m sq ft of Grade A office space by the end of 2028.

Now though, AI is being touted as the latest threat to offices. A Greater London Authority report exploring AI’s impact on the capital found that 46% of its workforce’s jobs could be exposed to AI risk. Share prices of listed commercial property firms were hit earlier this year – most have since recovered – as property became the latest sector caught up in AI disruption amid concerns over how much space occupiers would need if their workforces shrank.  

Yet, in reality – at least for the moment – AI is driving a surge in office uptake in London. In April 2026 alone, AI firms leased over 450,000 sq ft of office space, equivalent to four Gherkins or more than 10 times the monthly average of 40,000 sq ft recorded across 2025, according to CoStar. 

Examples include Anthropic, which has signed for 156,000 sq ft in King’s Cross, while AI and robotics firm Humanoid signed for 42,000 sq ft of new space. Although AI occupier attention has focused on relatively newly emerging clusters in King’s Cross and Euston, areas across central London have benefitted. On the Southbank, UK AI firm Quantexa has signed a pre-let, while in Soho, Microsoft has leased 100,000 sq ft of space for its AI hub. 

But AI occupiers aren’t the only ones gravitating to London’s business clusters – which are ever-evolving ecosystems in their own right. Canary Wharf is now a fully-fledged mixed-use destination with thousands of homes, shops, restaurants and leisure activities from go-karting to open water swimming. It has reinvented itself to attract fast-growing businesses from multiple sectors such as fintech giant Revolut, which has set up its HQ at our YY London building. 

Revolut is a good example: it went from a work-from-anywhere model with single-digit office occupancy to almost 90% once it moved to YY London. Financial services firms are now only part of the occupier base, with over 40 life sciences and healthcare firms located at Canary Wharf, all benefitting from rapid connections to the rest of London via the Elizabeth line.

In retail, anchor stores drive footfall. Offices have their own anchors – major businesses that draw others to settle around them. One London example is Apple, which set up its European HQ at Battersea Power Station. Spurred by this and Battersea Power Station’s redevelopment, ever more businesses have joined the clustering effect in the area with other major occupiers Foster + Partners and Penguin Random House also calling the area home. 

Thousands of employees now descend on Battersea every day, bringing ideas and innovation with them. Innovative companies thrive when talented people are in the same place, sparking collaboration, ideas and knowledge-sharing. Battersea is a shining example of how successful new business clusters can be born; forged out of amenity, connectivity and the right modern workspaces.

Battersea Power Station’s transformation into a lively, well-connected location – helped by the extension of the Northern line – was one of the main reasons we developed OSMO. Our 166,000 sq ft contemporary office building has contributed to this thriving new London business destination. The leases we’ve signed this year with O2 Daisy and flexible workspace provider Industrious, alongside wider enquiries we’re seeing from a breadth of occupiers, show how far the area has come. Net-zero in operation and BREEAM Outstanding, OSMO reflects how occupiers’ expectations of workspace, amenity and sustainability have changed in recent years.

AI will not dent the need to connect in person. Real connection drives business and the growth of clusters, from Silicon Valley to the Cambridge Cluster to Canary Wharf. Coffee houses gave birth to London’s stock exchange and its dominance in insurance. From this developed a concentration of supporting businesses from lawyers to accountants. Today, AI is helping create new clusters from start-ups seeking venture capital to investment firms using technology as a tool to power their decisions. 

AI may change some traditional jobs, but it is just as likely to create entirely new, highly skilled ones – both within the AI sector and as businesses adopt technology to expand in new ways. These jobs will emerge in the best places and spaces where, above all, people can connect and collaborate.