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As Canadian companies push employees back to the office, a new era of work is redefining what the workplace even means. Beyond the open-concept layouts and hybrid schedules, a new layer of artificial intelligence is beginning to influence how office buildings function and how people experience them.
 
 

At Salesforce, one of the world’s largest software companies, that change is unfolding behind the scenes.

 
 

Relina Bulchandani, the company’s executive vice-president of real estate and workplace services, oversees more than 100 offices in 92 cities worldwide, including Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Her job blends real estate, technology and people operations – and, increasingly, AI.
 
 

“The mantra for us is the right space at the right time for the right folks to be productive,” Ms. Bulchandani says.

 
 

Following the pandemic, Salesforce’s offices, once dominated by individual desks, were redesigned for more diverse uses. Some workers want quiet zones to concentrate, others want social spaces to connect and others need collaborative rooms for meetings. To manage this complexity, Ms. Bulchandani’s team has turned to data and AI.
 
 
 

“We’re not just figuring out when people are badging in, but dwell time – how long they’re staying, how they’re using spaces,” she says. “We use sensors and analytics to understand what’s actually working.”
 
 

By ‘working’, she means create the best possible experience and make sure all spaces are being used often. For example, if Ms. Bulchandani notices that one room has many people enter, but they don’t stay for long, she will consider changing furniture setup or other features to drive more utilization.

 
 

Behind the glossy surfaces of Salesforce’s towers is a network of what the company calls “agents” – intelligent systems that can get work done proactively and autonomously. One example, Workplace Agent, automates maintenance requests and task prioritization by providing maintenance workers with a to-do-list, based on priority and/or job-type for each shift.

 
 

“Work order management has been ripe for disruption for a long time,” Ms. Bulchandani says. “This helps people focus on higher-value work.”
 
 

In some offices, AI is even being paired with robotics. Roaming machines are used to monitor buildings and support facilities teams by spotting security breaches, such as a door left open or submitting a work order for overflowing trash.
 
 

AI is also being used to enhance everyday employee experiences. For example, through an internal Employee Agent, which employees can ‘chat’ with within the communications platform Slack, workers can access common HR documents securely within seconds, without trying to remember what external platform to log in to or reaching out to HR for help.
 
 
 
Salesforce is using AI to enhance everyday employee experiences such as an internal Employee Agent, which employees can ‘chat’ with on Slack. Supplied
 
 

Ms. Bulchandani’s team is also using agents to help match employees with appropriate spaces based on their team, purpose and even travel budgets – shifting away from static seating charts to dynamic, data-informed workplaces.
 
 

They key to successfully implementing this type of AI at scale? Ms. Bulchandani says less is more. “I’m more focused on adoption and efficacy of agents versus having 10 agents,” she says.

 
 

“It’s early days,” she says, “but it’s exciting. I think humans, agents and robots are going to disrupt the workplace. That’s the future.”
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

79 per cent
 
 

That’s how many U.S. workers say they’ve been “catfished” into a job that didn’t match the recruiter’s description, according to Monster’s 2025 Career Catfishing Report.
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

One worker is in an exhausting cycle: They start a new job off with enthusiasm and receive generally positive feedback about their performance. Then, they start taking on more work until they burn out, make mistakes and neglect other aspects of life. They’re wondering if this is common and how to overcome it.

 
 

Experts say this experience is fairly common among high-achieving, purpose-driven professionals. Breaking the cycle will require setting realistic priorities, setting boundaries to ensure sufficient recovery time and monitoring personal energy as closely as they monitor their work deliverables.

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

“These kids, they’re doing everything. They’re going above and beyond what anybody’s ever done before. It’s a brutal situation for everyone,” says an anonymous computer science PhD candidate in Toronto, who is worried for the mental health of increasingly “high strung” undergraduate students in the program who are panicking in the current job market.
 
 

This Toronto Star article looks at how entry-level positions in computer science are drying up because of AI, an uncertain economy and a surplus of new grads.