The Future Of Work Survey 2026

Today, an overwhelming 78% of business and CRE leaders recognize that AI will significantly impact their portfolio strategies and CRE function over the next 3-5 years. Yet only 15% have progressed beyond exploration and initial deployment to actively optimize AI in their CRE operations and prepare for AI-driven organizational change. This gap reflects the complexity of assessing the impact of a technology still in the early stages of enterprise adoption, where the effects on the workforce are unclear and most companies remain in evaluation mode.

Capturing perspectives from over 2,200 C-suite executives and CRE leaders across 21 countries, our research reveals three critical challenges.

• First, portfolio decisions await clearer enterprise workforce strategies. Real estate transformation depends on CEO and CHRO decisions around which roles AI will transform, how collaboration patterns will evolve and where talent will concentrate.
• Second, skills gaps now exceed budget constraints. For the first time in 15 years of this research, the primary barrier to CRE value creation is not money; it’s a shortage of future-ready talent.
• Third, an aspiration-affordability disconnect. Organizations aspire to AI-enabled, premium-quality portfolios but face dual investment pressures—rising baseline costs (rental, energy, OpEx) layered with new AI infrastructure and technology demands.
  

The 15% of organizations that are successfully navigating these challenges are focusing on systematically resolving constraints within their control, while building adaptive capacity – at a portfolio and structural level – for forces they cannot predict.

Building for a different world of work

There is a pattern to how organizations approach AI transformation for their CRE operations. Most leaders are watching closely: 46% actively monitor AI trends and 40% are analyzing implications for their CRE function. But when moving from analysis to action, only 33% are actively modeling the potential effects on their portfolios across locations and asset types.

Those organizations further ahead in their transformation journey don’t have greater certainty about their organizational future. They develop agile planning to bridge AI’s rapid cycles with CRE’s longer-term commitments. This is important in a context where real estate transformation depends on enterprise workforce decisions that happen at the CEO and CHRO level: Which roles will AI fundamentally transform? How will collaboration needs shift when certain tasks become automated?

The path forward requires dual capability building: developing organizational readiness and portfolio elasticity for rapid execution when direction emerges, while simultaneously building the market intelligence infrastructure to track labor transformation trends and forecast workforce needs – shifting CRE from reactive executor to strategic advisor.

A broadly positive outlook

Despite an environment where workforce composition continues to evolve, most organizations are anticipating net headcount expansion and prioritizing full-time employment, with AI redesigning roles and increasing talent accessibility by shifting the workforce toward higher-value activities.

This reflects the complex nature of AI-driven workforce transformation: targeted reductions in some areas, strategic expansion in others, with overall growth for organizations successfully navigating the transition.

Other critical decisions show no clear trend and reflect that different organizations and industries will have varied talent location strategies and business requirements. They will therefore develop distinct approaches to talent distribution, reliance on entry-level hiring and emphasis on in-person collaboration.

Read the full report here.