Corporate real estate leaders are navigating a very different environment than 12 months ago.
In a recent conversation during the 2026 Trascent Scholarship Program announcement, Rakesh Kishan, Managing Principal at Trascent; Jeri Ballard, Interim CEO of CoreNet Global; and Sophia Jordan, M.Arch, MBA, Strategic Portfolio Planner at Google and 2024 Trascent Scholarship recipient, discussed the most topical trends reshaping the profession, from changing business priorities and cost pressure to AI, talent, technology, and future CRE capabilities.
Below, we highlight five mid-year trends drawn from the conversation, offering a snapshot of some of the themes shaping corporate real estate in 2026.
Watch the full trends conversation for the broader discussion:
1. CRE must move faster without becoming reactive
“The pace of real estate has accelerated.” That is one of the clearest signals for CRE leaders at the mid-year point. Business requirements are changing faster, and real estate teams are being asked to keep pace with decisions that often have long planning cycles, long financial commitments, and significant operational consequences.
This creates a new leadership challenge. CRE teams need to respond quickly to changing priorities while maintaining the discipline needed to protect long-term value.
For many organizations, the advantage will come from translating business change into portfolio action sooner, from where to invest and consolidate, to where flexibility needs to be preserved.
2. Location is becoming a stronger lever for talent and growth
Location strategy is becoming more closely tied to workforce strategy. Across the profession, “location as a strategic lever for the war for talent” is becoming a more prominent theme. Where an organization chooses to invest, grow, consolidate, or reduce its footprint, now has a direct connection to access to skills, employee experience, and future business growth.
This is giving CRE a more visible role in enterprise planning. Location decisions are increasingly shaped by where the business may need to build capability, support teams, and compete for talent.
3. Portfolios need optionality as well as optimization
Cost, utilization, and efficiency remain critical. Flexibility is becoming just as important. The phrase “balanced optimization” captures the current challenge well. CRE teams need to improve portfolio performance while preserving the ability to adapt as business needs shift.
That is challenging because real estate remains “a pretty slow-moving ship.” Leases, capital investments, and workplace decisions cannot always change at the speed of the business. This makes optionality increasingly important.
For CRE leaders, the priority is to avoid locking the portfolio too tightly around today’s assumptions. That may mean preserving choice in certain markets, rethinking the length and structure of commitments, or using a broader mix of workplace formats to respond as demand changes.
4. AI will put greater pressure on data quality
AI is creating new opportunities for corporate real estate, particularly in planning, reporting, decision-making, and the ability to synthesize large volumes of information.
The opportunity depends on the quality of the data behind it. One of the biggest barriers is that “the legacy data is just not there.” For many organizations, data remains fragmented, inconsistent, or difficult to trust. When AI is applied to weak data, the outputs can quickly lose credibility.
This makes data a leadership issue for CRE. Better governance, clearer ownership, and stronger data discipline will be essential if organizations want to use AI in a meaningful way. As the discussion highlighted, data is “the source.” Leadership priorities may change, portfolios may evolve, and business direction may shift, but reliable data needs to remain constant.
5. The future CRE function will need new capabilities
As technology becomes more central to corporate real estate, the skills required within the function are changing.
The future CRE organization will need people who understand real estate, understand technology, and can connect both to enterprise value. These “unique roles” will become increasingly important as organizations modernize systems, strengthen data governance, and translate portfolio needs into practical technology requirements.
This is also why CRE needs a stronger role in technology transformation. Technology programs need real estate input from the outset, particularly when defining requirements, shaping use cases, and ensuring solutions work for the people and operations they are designed to support.
The future-ready CRE professional will need portfolio expertise, commercial judgement, data fluency, technological understanding, and the ability to work effectively across functions.
