When looking for an apartment in San Francisco today, artificial intelligence can seem inescapable; and that’s not just because every rental building seems to have an AI bot answering calls. 

In San Francisco, the technology’s ascendency—and the subsequent skyrocketing job growth— has helped make the apartment market one of the tightest in the nation, with the fastest growing rent in the U.S.

Lisa McCarrel, Managing Partner of Move Bay Area, a relocation and rental housing service, has seen the rental market become frenzied in recent months due in part to the increase in AI and AI-adjacent jobs. With units harder to come by, she’s seen some potential tenants offer a year’s rent in cash upfront.  

“I just had a meeting with my team because spring time is typically when the rental market here starts to get crazy,” says McCarrel. “But it’s already crazy. I’ve been running this business for 11 years, and this is the first time I’ve had to hold a meeting to prepare staff for what will be a hyper-competitive market.”

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Between 2024 and 2025, job postings for AI roles in the Bay Area, many extremely high-paying, grew 72%, from roughly 57,000 to 99,000, according to an analysis by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. That influx of new, highly paid workers—who may be renting until a post-IPO windfall—has helped rents in the city of San Francisco jump 13% year-over-year, according to data from Apartment List. 

The market currently has a 3.5% vacancy rate, roughly half the national average (nearly even with the city’s pre-Covid 2019 vacancy rate of 3.4%). Jackie Tom, founder and broker of the agency Rentals in SF, said the market is now very busy and well past pre-pandemic pricing. 

A different kind of tech boom

But not all tech booms are created equal. AI’s outsized impact on San Francisco differs today significantly from the impact of the 2010s tech expansion, when it felt like tech hiring had a wider impact on other economic sectors. In part, that’s because of both where AI firms are located and their workforce cultures, as well as the overall state of the economy. That same job posting analysis found non-AI jobs in the region declined 1% over the same period.

© Fast Company