For more than a decade, Salesforce was the #1 office tenant in San Francisco. The city’s tallest tower has its name on it. You can’t miss it. The brand and the city were intertwined in a way few tech companies and cities have ever been.
Per new data from Cushman & Wakefield (via the SF Chronicle), the new top 4 looks like this:
- Google (1.6M sq ft)
- OpenAI (1.2M sq ft)
- Salesforce (1.0M sq ft)
- Anthropic (950K sq ft)
Salesforce is #3 now. OpenAI is #2. And Anthropic, which barely existed as an employer 5 years ago, is #4.
That single list maps where the next decade of B2B + AI is being built.
A few things in the data really worth pulling out:
#1. Salesforce shed 55% of its SF footprint
Salesforce went from 2.2M sq ft in 2019 to 1.0M sq ft in 2026. A loss of 1.2 million square feet. More than half of its peak.
Some of that is remote work. Some is a leaner Salesforce after multiple rounds of headcount adjustments. Some is the post-Slack, post-Tableau integration story where redundant footprint got cut.
But it’s not just Salesforce. Look at the contraction across the rest of the 2019 top 10:
- Wells Fargo: 2.1M to 758K, down 64%
- Uber: 1.7M to 598K, down 65%
- WeWork: 1.4M to off the list entirely
- Meta: 1.2M to 791K, down 34%
- PG&E: 1.2M to off the list
- Gap: 1.0M to 545K, down 46%
- Pinterest: 799K to off the list
- Airbnb: 751K to off the list
Six of the 2019 top 10 cut their SF footprint by 30%+ or vacated entirely. The only company that held essentially flat was Google, going from 1.7M to 1.6M.
#2. OpenAI + Anthropic Combined Now Exceed Salesforce’s Current Footprint by 2x
OpenAI: 1.2M sq ft.
Anthropic: 950K sq ft.
Combined: 2.15M sq ft.
That’s more than 2x Salesforce’s current SF footprint of 1.0M.
It’s also basically equal to Salesforce’s all-time peak of 2.2M.
Two companies that were not on anyone’s office leasing radar in 2019 have collectively replicated the entire footprint of the company that defined SF tech for 15 years. In about 4 years.
#3. The Top 10 List Contracted ~39% Even With AI Labs Added
This is the part that doesn’t get enough attention.
Total SF office occupied by the top 10 tenants:
- 2019: ~14.0M sq ft
- 2026: ~8.6M sq ft
That’s a 39% contraction. And that’s after adding OpenAI’s 1.2M and Anthropic’s 950K of net-new demand.
Back out the AI labs and the rest of the top 10 contracted by closer to 50%. The traditional enterprise, B2B, and Web 2.0 cohort in SF is half the physical size it was 7 years ago.
#4. Office Leases Are Decade-Long Bets. They Tell You Where the Next Decade Is Going
Office leases are the most committed bet a company makes. They’re 10 to 15 year decisions. Hiring plans, real estate, infrastructure, all priced in.
When the largest companies in SF in 2019 collectively unwind 5+ million square feet of office space, that’s a structural call. They don’t expect to need that headcount back.
When OpenAI signs a 1.2M sq ft lease, that’s also a structural call. They expect to keep adding researchers and engineers in SF for the next decade plus. Same for Anthropic at 950K.
So a few takeaways for B2B + AI founders:
1. The Bay Area engineering talent flow has shifted. If you’re recruiting senior eng in SF, you’re now competing with two AI labs that have explicit, physical, multi-million-square-foot commitments to growing here. Salesforce, Uber, and Meta are not the gravitational pull they were in 2019.
2. The legacy enterprise contraction is durable. Salesforce isn’t going to suddenly need 2.2M sq ft again. Neither is Wells Fargo. Neither is Uber. The “smaller HQ + remote + regional hubs” pattern has set as the new baseline for B2B at scale.
3. AI is the only category that’s expanding physically. Of the 2026 top 10, the only true new entrants by raw demand are OpenAI and Anthropic. Everyone else is flat or contracting. AI is doing 100% of the absorbing.
4. Salesforce at #3 with 1M sq ft is still huge. Don’t read this as a Salesforce-is-dying story. They’re still one of the largest tenants in the city, still building, still hiring. The symbolism is what matters: the company most associated with B2B in SF is now physically smaller in its home city than two AI labs that barely existed a decade ago.
A Quiet Changing of the Guard
The Salesforce Tower still says Salesforce. The skyline looks the same.
The center of value creation behind it has moved.
In 2019, if you walked through the Top 10 office buildings in SF, you were walking through B2B SaaS, ride-sharing, retail, and finance. In 2026, you’re walking through AI labs and the small group of Big Tech firms that survived the contraction.
Source: Cushman & Wakefield data via the San Francisco Chronicle
