AI has evolved from a specialist tool into everyday technology, attracting huge investment and driving rapid growth across the sector. Demand from AI firms has boosted leasing levels in several UK office markets in the first four months of 2026.
Leasing of London offices by AI firms has reached record levels, with activity accelerating as the year has progressed. Demand from some of the world’s largest private AI labs drove three-month rolling take-up to more than 450,000 square feet in April 2026, almost twice the volume recorded in March, and far higher than the 2025 average of around 40,000 square feet.
The first large transaction of the year was British AI firm Quantexa’s prelet of 51,000 square feet at developer GPE’s Delft building, on the Southbank close to London Bridge, which is expected to complete in spring 2027. This was quickly followed by Derwent London’s prelet of 136,000 square feet to Databricks at 10 Howland Street, Anthropic’s leasing of 158,000 square feet from British Land and RLAM at 1 Triton Square, where Humanoid has just taken 42,000 square feet, and OpenAI’s deal to occupy 88,500 square feet at Nan Fung’s Regent Quarter scheme.
The area around King’s Cross and Euston stations was the biggest winner by volume, attracting over 300,000 square feet of demand from AI firms since the beginning of last year, accounting for almost half of all deals. King’s Cross has an established tech and AI ecosystem, and is home to DeepMind, Alphabet's AI division, along with Google, Meta and Microsoft. It also sits at the centre of one of the UK’s strongest AI talent corridors. There is a direct rail link to Cambridge, one of Europe’s leading AI research hubs, and University College London, London School of Economics, Imperial and King’s College London are minutes away. Earlier this week, US technology giant Microsoft agreed to lease the entire eight storeys, totalling around 100,000 square feet, at Film House in Soho from Hines for its UK-based artificial intelligence teams
Regional markets have also benefited from increased activity. In March 2026, Graphcore, a developer of microprocessors specifically designed for AI and machine learning, leased 68,500 square feet at 1 Georges Square, Bristol, a significant increase from the 27,000 square feet it occupies at the Prudential Buildings on Wine Street. Graphcore paid £52 per square foot for the space, one of the highest rents ever paid in Bristol. In Cambridge, Nvidia took almost 11,000 square feet at 10 Station Road, close to the offices of Microsoft Research and Samsung AI.
As AI moves from the innovation phase to deployment, more expansion is expected. Analysis from CreditSights projects investment for the top five AI hyperscalers to increase from around $443 billion in 2025 to approximately $602 billion in 2026. Although the take-up of office space by AI firms still only accounts for a relatively small percentage of total office leasing in the UK, its importance is very likely to grow in the coming years.
This CoStar analysis includes only leasing from companies that develop artificial intelligence technologies, rather than those that apply AI to their business model.