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Artificial Intelligence Is Impacting Office Leasing in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal

May 20, 2026 4 Minute Read

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An illustration of an office with four cubicles, where one worker is depicted with a vintage computer monitor for a head, symbolizing a person consumed by their work and technology.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be a major growth driver for the tech industry and office space demand over the next decade as AI adoption scales across industries and transforms businesses.

That’s according to CBRE’s 2026 Tech Gateway Office Markets report, which provides an in-depth analysis of how AI sectors are influencing office market fundamentals. The report focuses on 12 markets across the U.S., two in Europe and three in Canada: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

“AI investment has moved from research and experimentation to large-scale development,” CBRE’s Colin Yasukochi, Executive Director, CBRE Tech Insights Center, said in a release. “That shift is translating into meaningful office space demand in markets with deep tech talent and established innovation ecosystems.”

Tech Leasing On The Rise

In Canada, tech industry leasing accounted for 32.2% of total leasing in Q1 2026, up from 14.7% in 2025 and higher than any annual share in the last 10 years.

Across Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, the three Canadian markets covered in the report, all recorded increases in tech leasing in 2025 relative to 2023. Toronto saw 2.4 times more tech leasing in 2025 compared to 2023 and was one of only five markets covered in the report that saw its vacancy rate decrease over the last two years. It also has the fifth lowest office market vacancy among the 17 tech markets profiled in the study behind London, Paris, Vancouver and Manhattan.

And while tech job growth has been slowing across the U.S. and Europe since 2022, it has remained the highest in Canada. Tech industry jobs are expected to grow nearly 2% in 2026, compared to U.S. and European growth at less than 1%.

“With continued robust AI investment and companies adding more talent, we expect more U.S. and Canadian office markets to benefit from the ongoing expansion of the tech growth cycle,” Yasukochi said.

Waterloo Region, while not cited in the report, has been garnering a greater share of the tech spotlight.

CBRE’s 2025 Scoring Tech Talent report saw Waterloo rise an impressive 11 spots over its 2024 ranking, moving up to #7 in the list of North America’s top tech talent markets. It now supports over 5,200 startups and 15,000 tech companies, making it the second largest technology cluster in North America.

CBRE’s Waterloo Region-based Senior Vice President Todd Cooney says there are no signs of slowing down in 2026 as not just software companies, but “robotics, AI quantum computing, medical technology and other verticals expand […] thanks to increased funding.”

More Infrastructure to Support AI Adoption

Canadian firms are making unprecedented capital investments to build the infrastructure that powers AI.

Telus recently announced it will develop two new data centres in Vancouver and expand an existing facility in Kamloops to handle AI workloads, all of which will require a combined 150-plus megawatts (MW) of electricity by 2032.  

And Canada’s leading data centre provider, eStruxture Data Centres, is opening its largest facility in Alberta this year, a $750 million, 90 MW operation.

“The data centre industry is expanding at an unprecedented pace, powered by the explosive growth of the digital economy and rapid growth in the application of AI,” CBRE Global Energy & Sustainability Director Martin Reed told Advantage Insights earlier this year.

“Effective planning for utilities is critical in today’s market due to the scale of power and water that a data centre requires.”

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