SEE ALSO: 25 Kent Offers Companies A Cutting-Edge Office Experience Along The Williamsburg Waterfront<\/a><\/p>\n Megan Abraham, CEO of the Goldie Initiative<\/a>, a nonprofit aimed at advancing women in commercial real estate, opened things with a keynote.\u00a0<\/p>\n She was followed by Empire State Realty Trust<\/a> CEO Anthony Malkin and Newmark<\/a>\u2019s New York tri-state president, David Falk, who discussed how the real estate investment trust is using AI to sift through its tenant roster and hedge itself against its exposure to AI, ultimately in an attempt to sidestep the potential technological matriphagy.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at what jobs are most suspect to be replaced by AI, these are the things where rote actions are required,\u201d Malkin said. \u201cThere\u2019s the underlying issue of what AI will mean in the future as far as investment. I think we have to look at it from the perspective of the buildout of the railroads and fiberoptics. Huge land grabs, massive destruction of capital investment and a few winners.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing you have to know about AI is that things change overnight,\u201d Malkin added. \u201cSo the company you think has a killer app, there\u2019s a competitor who designs a better version of it two months later.\u201d<\/p>\n But the office leasing market across sectors may be strong enough that any setbacks with AI and tech leasing could be easily absorbed, he added.<\/p>\n The first panel of the day, called \u201cMarket Forces Defining the Road Ahead,\u201d was moderated by law firm HSF Kramer\u2019s Josh Winefsky with owner RFR Holding<\/a>\u2019s AJ Camhi, the Real Estate Board of New York\u2019s Keith DeCoster, JLL<\/a>\u2019s David Giancola and WeWork<\/a>\u2019s Peter Greenspan.<\/p>\n \u201cAlong with the robust traditional leasing growth that everyone is talking about, we\u2019re seeing \u2014 historic for us \u2014 strength in all the markets in Manhattan,\u201d Greenspan said. \u201cThere are still a lot of questions about how long [tech tenants] want to stay at a particular [WeWork] location. There are a lot of question marks about the future of headcount, of how people want to work. Even if the headcount goes up, based on this AI boom, it\u2019s a question of where they want [to go] and how often they\u2019re going to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n The second panel, called \u201cTenant Trends: The Flight to Quality or Value Play \u2014 the Driving Factors Behind Office Leasing,\u201d was moderated by M.G. Engineering<\/a>\u2019s Michael Gerazounis with Convene Hospitality Group<\/a>\u2019s Ryan Simonetti, software company Cove<\/a>\u2019s Adam Segal, owner the Durst Organization<\/a>\u2019s David Neil, owner Marx Realty<\/a>\u2019s Craig Deitelzweig and corporate buildout specialist Unispace<\/a>\u2019s Zachary Davis.<\/p>\n The supply of choicer Class A and trophy space is tapped out<\/a>. To catch residual demand, Class B and C office owners can use the surrounding businesses in Manhattan to act as amenities, and craft an atmosphere that brings people to the office, panelists said.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of our tenants on the coworking side of our business grow out of us and don\u2019t go to a trophy office building,\u201d Convene\u2019s Simonetti said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing there are well-located spaces. \u2026 I do think that you can still do the intentional things like design a great pre-built experience, it\u2019s amazing what an extra $15 per square foot will get you if you have actual taste \u2014 very few people have actual taste. \u2026 As someone who designs things for a living, you can have taste without having to spend a ton of money.\u201d<\/p>\n Law firm Greenspoon Marder\u2019s Jonathan Weiss moderated the panel called \u201cBehind the Headlines: Conversations With the Owners and Occupiers Driving Leading Workplace Trends\u201d with ServiceNow<\/a>\u2019s Nishar Fatema, owner Sage<\/a>\u2019s Jonathan Iger and architect firm Kohn Pedersen Fox<\/a>\u2019s Andrew Werner.<\/p>\n Iger drew an audience reaction with one hot take: Utilization rates are a pastiche metric. But hear him out.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody buys a Porsche and says, \u2018I need to use this 42 days a year to get my value out of it,\u2019\u201d Iger said. \u201cBut that\u2019s what real estate is becoming. It\u2019s becoming more of a differentiated luxury product as opposed to a commodity product. So I don\u2019t think utilization matters. It\u2019s a flight to experience. The office itself provides services, it treats you as a customer \u2014 not just a tenant, but as a customer.\u201d<\/p>\n Law firm Fried Frank<\/a>\u2019s Michael Werner moderated the keynote session one-on-one with BXP<\/a>\u2019s Hilary Spann, in which they discussed the construction of the owner\u2019s 343 Madison Avenue, a 930,000-square-foot office tower anticipated to cost about $2 billion, and 3 Hudson Boulevard, its project that will be roughly twice the size and cost about $3.5 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n With AI powering leasing momentum in Manhattan, Spann, who runs BXP\u2019s New York-area business, doesn\u2019t see a reason to shy away from seeking tech tenants.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re starting to see an acceleration of demand from AI companies for leasing great products in Midtown South and spreading around the rest of the market,\u201d Spann said. \u201cYou make the argument that AI is going to eliminate jobs for some young people, but you have to have very, very good programmers and data analysts to run AI. \u2026 You put the best talent in New York and the lowly paid people in secondary markets. I don\u2019t see it as a big threat for us, I see it as an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n Commercial Observer Editor-in-Chief Max Gross moderated the final panel of the day, called \u201cDemand Drivers: Shrinking Class A and B Space and the Future of NYC Office Inventory,\u201d with owner Elecor Properties<\/a>\u2019 Peter Brindley, owner GFP Real Estate<\/a>\u2019s Jeffrey Gural, WiredScore<\/a>\u2019s John Meko and Alchemy-ABR Investment Partners<\/a>\u2019 Brian Ray.<\/p>\n While there are concerns about where AI is headed and how staffing cuts could impact office footprints, Meko made the case that if there is a machine learning bubble, it will be harder to predict than previous tech meltdowns.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at the advent of the Internet, it took seven years to get to 100 million users, it took smartphones four years to get to 100 million users, and it took ChatGPT two months to get to 100 million users,\u201d Meko said. \u201cThe scale and the speed of the adoption of this technology and the productivity gains it\u2019s enabling is unprecedented, so, as a landlord, I would be trying to find your Amazon. Who will survive the dot-com crash and avoid the Pets.com<\/a> to ultimately stay relevant?\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Gural said he believes the tenant roster in his office portfolio is designed to hedge against the destruction of any single sector, as his portfolio is mainly a mix of smaller tenants whose space can be backfilled without significantly impacting GFP\u2019s balance sheet with any vacancies.<\/p>\n![\"Newmark\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/David-Falk-ANthony-Malkin-CommObsStateOffice2Park14May2026GMorris_117_2160-WEB.jpg\" "\\"AI")
Newmark\u2019s David Falk (left) and Empire State Realty Trust CEO Anthony Malkin. PHOTO: Greg Morris<\/p>\n![\"Sage](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jonathan-Iger-CommObsStateOffice2Park14May2026GMorris_361_2314-WEB.jpg\" "\\"AI")
Sage Realty\u2019s Jonathan Kaufman Iger. PHOTO: Greg Morris<\/p>\n