In Mexico, artificial intelligence still moves between the incipient and the inevitable. Today, most companies limit it to replying to emails or translating documents, but on factory floors, it already anticipates equipment failures, and in corporate offices, it filters candidates before a recruiter sees them. That contrast is no small matter, as it marks the beginning of a shift that is redefining offices and production lines simultaneously.

According to the 2025 Digital Maturity Report (IMD), Mexican companies have reached only 41.7% digital transformation. In other words, they are not even halfway there yet, but the gaps between what seems routine and what is already strategic reveal where the economy’s future is being decided.

This way, while companies like Hewlett-Packard Mexico claim that 72% of their office staff already use AI solutions in their daily work, national statistics paint a different picture, showing that only 4% of jobs incorporate AI in more than 75% of their tasks. The asymmetry reveals that large conglomerates—the 1% of Mexican businesses—manage to integrate it into their day-to-day operations; most, by contrast, stumble over cost barriers, a lack of talent, and cultural resistance. Hence, in Mexico—and much of Latin America—companies allocate just 5% to 10% of their IT budgets to AI initiatives, compared with 20%–30% in the United States.

That lag is not uniform. In offices, AI is gaining ground, particularly in support areas such as design, automated marketing campaigns, human resources, and contract analysis. In the industrial sector, by contrast, its strength lies in manufacturing and the supply chain, including prototype design, risk management on production lines, inventory optimization, and real-time predictive maintenance.

The key is that, according to SiiLA, two out of ten office tenants in Mexico belong to the business services, advertising, marketing, and legal sectors, while six out of ten industrial tenants are in manufacturing and logistics. These are precisely the sectors where AI is gaining the most traction and, at the same time, those that support a large share (13%) of the commercial real estate market and the national economy. It is no coincidence that, over the past year, their real estate footprint grew by 7% in offices and 4% in industrial, outpacing the overall market average.

This data cross makes it clear that artificial intelligence is not a technological accessory, but a catalyst that can amplify the strength of every industry.

In Mexico, its impact depends as much on the level of adoption as on the existing weight of services, manufacturing, and logistics in the economy and in the real estate market. In this context, the fact that the sectors integrating AI the fastest are also those expanding their real estate footprint shows that the effect does not stem from technology itself, but from the way it reinforces dynamics already in motion.

What is at stake, then, is not just the efficiency of a single company, but the very configuration of the cities and industrial hubs where the country’s future is decided. Because AI operates as a strategic enabler on three fronts—customer experience, productivity, and competitiveness—and those who integrate it first, with solid data, a culture of innovation, and talent, will not only gain an advantage: they will have the capacity to reconfigure entire value chains.

The change is not hypothetical. Today, the IMD reveals that 60% of employers worldwide expect digital transformation to redefine their businesses by 2030, with artificial intelligence and data processing at the forefront, followed by robotics and automation, as well as the energy revolution. However, to reach that scenario, Mexico must close the investment and talent gap that still keeps it halfway there, activating three fronts: allocating a larger budget to technological innovation, developing human capital with advanced digital skills, and building data infrastructures that allow isolated pilots to become large-scale systems. Otherwise, the promise of AI risks remaining rhetoric while other countries translate technology into tangible productivity and dominant positions in global markets.

For more analysis and historical series on the commercial real estate market, visit SiiLA Market Analytics or write to us at contacto@siila.com.mx.