JLL reinvents itself for the AI era
To counteract that, JLL has targeted commercial segments that are experiencing high growth, such as cloud and data center operators, which require lots of square footage.
“Commercial real estate covers many different things,” Morin says.
To counteract that, JLL has targeted commercial segments that are experiencing high growth, such as cloud and data center operators, which require lots of square footage.
“Commercial real estate covers many different things,” Morin says. “We help data centers, hospitals, science parks, and e-commerce companies that are booming to buy and sell buildings. Data centers like cloud infrastructure are growing; especially in the wake of AI, there’s been a huge demand for data centers.”
Moreover, the demand to outsource facilities management, which increased during the pandemic, remains robust as workplace environment strategies remain in flux, the CTO notes.
“Google and Facebook don’t manage facilities themselves and they outsource us to do [that],” Morin says. “Someone has to change the toilet paper and make sure there are enough snacks and coffee for people in the office.”
One analyst says the commercial real estate industry is adapting and changing its business model to meet post-pandemic demands and emerging technology needs.
“There has been a significant shift in the capital markets over the last 20-plus years from tangible to intangible assets,” says Gartner analyst Janel Everly. “There has been a significant push from manufacturing and heavy tangible asset–intensive corporations to diversify their portfolio to incorporate intangibles.”
JLL is taking that route, Everly says, seeing the commercial real estate giant incorporating more “as-a-service” offerings, along with its move toward facilities management software.
“As it relates to data centers and e-commerce warehouses, it is mostly driven by demand and the macro real estate shifts in space type utilization,” she says.
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