Corporate real estate teams are spending less time debating whether data matters and more time trying to fix it.
According to JLLโs Global Occupancy Planning Benchmark Report, organizations are increasingly treating workplace data accuracy as a core business priority as AI, hybrid work, and utilization pressures continue changing how office portfolios are managed.
The report found that improving space data accuracy has risen to the second-highest priority for corporate real estate teams, behind only portfolio optimization.
AI Interest Grows Even as Adoption Remains Limited
Despite growing attention around AI in workplace management, most organizations are still early in the process.
JLL found that more than 70% of organizations are either still researching AI or have not started exploring it at all within occupancy planning. Only a small percentage have moved beyond pilot programs into active implementation or scaling.
Privacy concerns emerged as the largest barrier to adoption, cited by 70% of respondents. Cost and system compatibility followed closely behind.
At the same time, many companies appear to be quietly preparing for more advanced analytics capabilities. Power BI overtook Tableau as the most widely used analytics platform, while platforms like Databricks, commonly associated with machine learning and large-scale data processing, are gaining traction.
Hybrid Work Policies Become More Structured
The data also points to hybrid work policies becoming significantly less flexible.
Sixty-two percent of organizations now require fixed in-office days, up sharply from previous years, while fully flexible arrangements continue declining. Globally, 70% of employees now spend between three and five days per week in the office.
Office mandates also appeared to have the strongest impact on utilization increases, with many organizations reporting improved occupancy levels after implementing stricter attendance requirements.
Global office utilization reached 56% in 2026, continuing a gradual recovery toward pre-pandemic levels. More notably, the gap between actual utilization and company targets narrowed for the first time since JLL began tracking the data.
Rather than employees dramatically increasing attendance, the report suggests many organizations are simply setting more realistic expectations for how offices are used in hybrid environments.
Companies Reduce Assigned Space in Favor of Shared Environments
The report also highlights ongoing changes in office design strategy.
Traditional assigned offices continue shrinking while organizations invest more heavily in shared and flexible environments such as focus rooms, phone booths, and small meeting areas.
This creates new pressure on companies to gather more detailed space-level utilization data rather than relying solely on badge swipe information or overall building occupancy numbers.
For many organizations, the question is no longer whether employees enter the office, but how different spaces inside the office are actually being used.
Technical Workspaces Present New Challenges
Beyond traditional offices, technical environments are becoming a larger focus for workplace planning teams.
Laboratories, manufacturing facilities, warehouses, data centers, and other specialized environments now represent nearly a quarter of managed portfolios in JLLโs dataset. Yet those spaces continue operating below utilization targets.
Unlike office environments, these facilities require equipment-focused metrics and more specialized planning models because the operational demands are significantly different from traditional desk-based workplaces.
Participation in utilization tracking for technical spaces increased sharply over the past year, signaling that companies are beginning to apply the same data-driven scrutiny to specialized environments that they previously reserved for offices.
Data Governance Moves to the Center of Workplace Strategy
One of the clearest themes running through the report is that workplace planning is increasingly becoming a data infrastructure problem as much as a real estate problem.
Organizations with formal data governance programs already in place appear to hold a significant advantage as AI capabilities expand and hybrid work patterns become more complex to manage.
The report suggests the future competitive divide may come from building cleaner, more reliable workplace data systems before competitors do.
As companies continue balancing utilization goals, employee experience, portfolio costs, and workplace flexibility, occupancy planning is becoming less reactive and more predictive โ driven increasingly by data rather than assumptions.
