AI.
It’s coming for your job. It’s making you dumber.
It can also have its place in society, streamlining tedious tasks and making technological advancements in fields such as healthcare and transportation.
Whatever your thoughts (and believe me, as a journalist, I certainly have thoughts!), it’s here to stay. And Williamsburg appears to be emerging as a new hub.
Several tech firms recently signed leases at 25 Kent Avenue, a mixed-use office space that first opened in 2019. Much of the building sat tenantless as the COVID-19 pandemic upended work culture and dampened enthusiasm about returning to the office.
Amazon Music signed a lease for a 40,000-square-foot space in September 2020. Other tech firms have since followed suit. Altana AI, specializing in supply-chain management, moved in 2022 (most recently, they signed a two-year federal contract with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, to help enforce national tariffs on steel, aluminium, and other products).
AI-research lab Autonomous Technologies and Queen One, an e-commerce platform with an emphasis on AI, both opened offices at 25 Kent last year. Queen One earned support from both the city and state government, with Governor Kathy Hochul attending its grand opening.
This past week, RILLAVOICE, an AI-powered software firm that records and transcribes conversations for sales teams, nabbed the building’s entire eighth floor penthouse. Real estate outlet CoStar described the lease as “Williamsburg’s largest since early last year.”
But 25 Kent is not the only building courting those firms.
The Refinery at Domino boasts more than 30 AI and fintech firms at its office space. Over the past year, the building has played host to monthly demo events for those in the field.
The mall-ification of Williamsburg has long since cemented itself, so it makes sense that the tech scene would follow. Now if any of these people can help me figure out how turn off Google AI, maybe we’ll call it even.