A storefront spanning just under 4,000 square feet next to Macy’s in downtown San Francisco was just one of many vacant shops in the city’s iconic but struggling central shopping district. But now it's reopened — as a showroom demonstrating the latest in identity security for the age of artificial intelligence.
The tiny but sleek store on Geary Street in Union Square is the flagship demonstration venue for World, a new digital identity system being rolled out in the artificial intelligence era by Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT parent company OpenAI. Six storefronts across the country opened in the past week, promoting the technology that includes a melon-sized white orb equipped with a camera that scans your eye's iris to verify that you’re a human being.
The system is based on the idea that the AI age increasingly requires a way to distinguish people from robots in a variety of virtual locations, from dating apps to government agencies, to block potential identity thieves. The orb takes a picture of a person’s face and then compares the eye scan to a selfie taken via the World app, producing a “World ID” encrypted with an anonymized, cryptographic key that its creators say is accessible only on the person’s phone.
The store represents the latest way that AI is filling commercial real estate. San Francisco's office leasing activity has been incrementally rising in the past six months, according to CoStar data, hitting its highest volume since 2022. AI Bay Area office leasing reached about 2.4 million square feet in 2024, more than doubling some companies' footprints. Last year, OpenAI leased an entire building in the city’s Mission Bay neighborhood.
In the retail space, the World orbs are tied to a cryptocurrency called Worldcoin that’s made by the San Francisco-based start-up Tools for Humanity, which was founded by Altman and Alex Blania in 2019. Members of the public who sign up to have their irises scanned are rewarded with digital Worldcoin tokens. The Apple store-like showrooms are also in Austin, Texas; Atlanta; Los Angeles; Miami; and Nashville, Tennessee.
The technology has raised concerns about whether it will keep people’s sensitive information secure. But Tools for Humanity says the identity data is instantly deleted from the orb after the process is complete. Users can use the app and their World ID with compatible services to verify that they’re not an algorithm or a bot.
Union Square recovery
The flagship San Francisco showroom, owned by Macy's, at 281 Geary St. is barely 4,000 square feet, but it’s the kind of experiential retail that real estate professionals say is needed in Union Square as the city’s premier shopping district struggles to regain retailers and foot traffic in the post-pandemic era, said broker Kazuko Morgan of Cushman & Wakefield, who facilitated the lease to Tools for Humanity.
“This is the unique kind of retail that brings people in,” Morgan said. “This is great for San Francisco.”
Retail momentum seems to be starting to pick up in Union Square, an area that has struggled to fill empty storefronts following a string of pandemic-related departures. In the past few months, big chains including Zara, Shoe Palace, Nintendo and luxury menswear brand John Varvatos all announced openings, and brokers trumpeted new interest among retailers wanting to return to the city's once-humming downtown retail center.
Then the city got a blow with the news last month that another major department store is closing. Saks Fifth Avenue announced in April — just a year after the luxury retailer switched to an appointment-only model — that it plans to close its store at a prime corner of Union Square by May 10. The store’s parent company said the closure was part of downsizing following a major merger.
On the other hand, the spread of AI companies such as Altman’s in the city is helping push a sense of optimism that San Francisco’s embattled office market may be rounding a corner. In March, Tools for Humanity leased the 600 Townsend East building in the city's Showplace Square area, growing the company's real estate footprint from 10,000 to more than 87,400 square feet.