What Manhattan Office Leases Tell Us About the Job Market...and AI

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. All right, how many of you stayed up last night to watch the biggest comeback at NBA Finals history after the Knicks were losing by 29 points? Later in the show, we'll play a very viral social media rhyme by a super fan of the Knicks and of the city, and we'll invite you to create a version of it. Have you seen the video of the guy after game three who shouted into a camera in the middle of a crowd, My mayor, Muslim, my bagels, Jewish, my Christian Dior, Knicks in four? Well, they didn't win the series in four games, but they can still win it in five. My mayor, Muslim, my bagels, Jewish, my Christian Dior, Knicks in four, it went so viral. So here's the way you can play, folks, if you're into it. Come up with a rhyme that ends with the words Knicks in five. Again, since the Knicks could win the championship in five games now, come up with a rhyme that ends with the word Knicks in five, and get ready to call in with it at around 11.45 this morning. We'll do this around the last 15 minutes of the show. My mayor is socialist. Here's an example. I made this up. My mayor is socialist. My tech firms are brocialist. My watch party is my hive, Knicks in five. Or maybe my city loves humor, might be souring on Schumer. Brunson and Kat bring us alive, Knicks in five.
Want one more? You're for Zoran and Dario Liza, but today you can even love Sliwa because the city's unified and alive with the hopes of Knicks in five. Something like that. Pretty silly, right? But there are some samples. Now breathe your own creativity into it and get ready to call in with it at the end of the show. A little rhyme, the cheers on the team and the city ending with the words Knicks in five. I know y'all are creative.
You've shown it so many times on this show and you're going to kill it. So go to your notepads and write and come back at around 20 of quarter of 12 o'clock. Now, I wonder these days, how many of you will just ask ChatGPT or Claude or some other AI tool to write this for you? Don't do that. You don't have to strive to rhyme Knicks in five. It just takes a few clicks to rhyme Knicks in six. Here's a recent Wall Street Journal headline kind of to that effect. It says, your work team is now a pod and your coworkers are AI agents.
Your work team is now a pod and your coworkers are AI agents. But here's another headline from the same reporter who's going to join us in a sec. And this is for those of you who assume AI is only going to destroy jobs. This headline is from Tuesday.
Manhattan's red hot office market is poised for its best year since 2000
And the article starts with the hot Manhattan office market is on pace this year for its best leasing performance since 2000 Back then, .com startups helped fuel demand, this time around it's AI. But wait, if AI is supposed to be the alien that will devour everybody's job, why is it causing companies to set up shop and office spaces at the fastest rate since the NICs were led by Patrick Ewing? Let's talk about that and other reporting by our guest, the Wall Street Journal's Isabelle Bousquette. She covers AI and the various ways it is transforming business, culture, and society. Isabelle, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

**Isabelle Bousquette** (3:43)
Thank you so much for having me.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:45)
So how hot is Manhattan's office market? Give us some numbers that give us a clue.

**Isabelle Bousquette** (3:51)
Yeah, you could say it's hotter than the NICs.
AI companies leased a million square feet of Manhattan office space just in the first quarter of this year. That's a huge uptick from last year. That's more than they leased in all of 2025 We're seeing some pretty big leases. OpenAI and Anthropic have, OpenAI has 90,000 square feet, and Soho at the Puck building, Anthropic, we hear is nearing a deal for half a million square feet in the Hudson Square area.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:28)
Which happens to be where WNYC is, by the way. So I guess the cost of lunch out is about to go up. But go ahead.

**Isabelle Bousquette** (4:35)
Yeah, 100 percent. These startups love the trendy downtown vibe.
But yeah, they are rushing into New York City. They want to be close to their customers. They want to sell to the big finance companies and law firms and consultancies that are here. And they're really excited about that in office presence. So we're seeing a huge boom there.