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On a sunny day in San Francisco, along the city’s waterfront, the family plunged into the eccentric world of artificial intelligence within the Exploration Museum.
Visitors created Shadow Puppets for AI to identify, used AI to generate songs, asked chatbot questions, and confronted the AI in a game in which players tried to draw images that only humans could recognize. The giant robot’s hands moved around, and people peered into the video game chips.
They wrote down their hopes and concerns about AI on cards displayed in the museum. Hope: AI cures cancer. Worry: People rely on AI to the point where they can’t think for themselves.
Visitors will listen to the audio components of the “False AI” exhibition of “Ai in AI In AI” at Exploratorium in downtown San Francisco on Thursday.
The AI Company Fin Line Interstate 80 sign as the highway enters San Francisco’s financial district on Wednesday.
“It breaks down these guardrails, which breaks down the big walls people are putting up with around AI and allows them to have conversations with someone else,” said Doug Thistlewolf, who manages exhibition development at Exploratorium.
art. Office space. signboard. protest. The AI epidemic has intensified in San Francisco, spreading through work and social life into what some describe as a new gold rush. Coupled with Daniel Lurie’s new mayoral election, the AI boom injected the cities with uneasy optimism. Some worry about whether AI will replace workers as cities’ high cost of living and technology layoffs continue.
For many years, Silicon Valley has been at the heart of innovation, with some of the world’s valuable high-tech companies, including Meta, Google, Apple and Nvidia, located at a large headquarters south of San Francisco. But the rise in AI has sparked a bright spotlight in San Francisco, home to multi-billion dollar businesses such as Openai, Scale AI, Humanity, Confusion and Databilick.
AI has long played a major role in consumer technology, recognizing social media posts, translating languages, and powering Virtual Assistant. However, the popularity of Openai’s ChatGpt (a chatbot that can generate text, images and code) has launched a fierce race to drive technology that touches the industry, from media to healthcare.
While investment in AI companies is surged, companies are fighting it for talent and offer lucrative compensation to recruit top researchers and leaders.
In the first half of 2025, AI companies in the San Francisco Metro area exceeded $29 billion in venture capital funding. This exceeds more than double the amount in the same period in 2022. As of August 5th, VC transactions for AI startups in the region, including San Francisco, Oakland and Fremont, account for 46.6% of US AI companies’ funds this year.
The headquarters of Openai, the manufacturer of the popular chatbot ChatGpt in Mission Bay, San Francisco.
It remains to be seen how this frenzy will shape the future of San Francisco, home to cable cars and Robotaxis. Ask ChatGpt what sci-fi will look like in 10 years and generate images of the city’s skyline with futuristic architecture and flying saucers next to the Golden Gate Bridge.
AI is a “bright place” in the city’s economy, helping San Francisco recover after some companies such as retailers, office workers and X (formerly Twitter) left the downtown area during the pandemic as remote work recovered.
“The economic impact is [AI companies] “We’re looking forward to seeing you in the city and county of San Francisco,” said Ted Egan, chief economist for San Francisco.
Over the past five years, AI-related companies have leased more than 5 million square feet of San Francisco office space, and the amount is expected to grow, according to CBRE, a real estate services and investment company. If these companies occupy 16 million square feet of office space by 2030, the city’s office vacancy rate would be reduced by 35.8% in the first quarter.
San Francisco resident Vijay Karunamurthy has been in the city’s boom and bust cycle over the past 25 years while working for tech giants such as Startups, Google and Apple.
In 2000, when he moved from Chicago to San Francisco for an engineering job at a data startup, he saw major businesses such as the collapse of Pets.com during the DOT-COM crash. The city’s tech sector, backed by the popularity of social media, roaed just to become a hit during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Now the city is rising again. Ambitious entrepreneurs are advancing old, new and powerful artificial intelligence tools that can change their lives.
“The amount of energy concentrated in San Francisco was huge for the city,” said Karunamurthy, 46, former field chief technology director at AI, a data-signing startup. “That means there’s an AI event every night. If you go to the coffee shop, you’ll come across people working on AI.”
Still, there are a lot of AI skeptics. In late July, outside Openai’s headquarters in Mission Bay, a small group of protesters, including those who dressed the robot, held signs that “AI will kill us” and “AI will steal work and steal work.”
Children will interact with the “Giant Mirror” at the Exploratorium’s “Adventure” exhibition in downtown San Francisco on Thursday.
The spread of generative AI has forced educators to rethink what they teach students in the classroom.
Arno Puder, professor and chairman of Computer Science at San Francisco State University, said that the generated AI represents a historic “paradigm shift.”
Longtime San Francisco residents are equally excited, but I’m a little scared about how it will affect labor. Over the past two years he has seen students enroll in computer science with university drops amid rising tech layoffs and generation AI. As coding assistants restructured their computer science work, the university launched a new undergraduate certificate with generated AI in the fall of 2026.
“The Generation AI is another beast,” Puder said. “That makes me a little worried, but when I ask me what kind of service and what the world will look like in a few years, I don’t know.”
The rise in AI has influenced the creation of new spaces throughout San Francisco. There, people can now discuss the benefits and risks of technology.
A note written by visitors to the Exploratorium’s “Adventures in AI” exhibition lists the biggest concerns and hopes associated with artificial intelligence in downtown San Francisco on Thursday.
Thistle Wolf said creating an AI exhibit at Exploratorium involves talking to workers and researchers at high-tech companies and universities. The exhibition, which will be held by mid-September, took about a year and a half to develop.
Supported by Anthropic, a San Francisco company that developed the AI Chatbot Claude, the exhibit aims to educate people about AI, but does not steer away from the discussion surrounding technology.
Martha Chesley, 77, of San Francisco, came to the exhibition with her grandson. After living in San Francisco for 50 years, Chesley sees the potential benefits that AI companies have come to the city.
“If that brings people and money, that’s good for the city because we have a lot of closed storefronts now,” she said. “Maybe there’s more money to build the house.”
Throughout the city, AI startups are spoofing missions with signs and advertisements on display at bus and train stations. The messages include “Stop hiring humans. To write cold emails” and “Droids Ship Software while touching the grass.”
The bus stop promotes AI Software Company, an AI Software Company located in San Francisco’s mission district.
(Florence Middleton/Due to the era)
AI ads could also be discovered in Mission District, a neighbourhood that is deeply rooted in Latino culture and history. Filled with popular taqueria, colorful murals and parks with views of the downtown skyline, this area suffers from homelessness like the rest of the city.
At the bus stop on 16th Avenue, the first ad for the AI startup took on a positive tone.
Founded in downtown San Francisco in 2022, the first opening was created by AI interviewers, allowing researchers to quickly gather feedback from more people to better understand customer needs and improve their products.
Aaron Cannon, the company’s 36-year-old CEO, said before the rise of ChatGpt, he and his co-founders experimented with AI systems that generated, understood, and saw the potential of human language.
“Neither of us thought it was going to take over the world at all,” he said. San Francisco residents said the city’s talent pool has also become an attractive place for startups. He refused to disclose its finances, but said the company that employs 15 and counts Microsoft among its clients is “growing rapidly.”
Throughout San Francisco, founders and real estate companies refer to certain areas as AI hubs.
AI company Billboard Advertising Cluely will be heading to Mission Street in downtown San Francisco.
(Florence Middleton/Due to the era)
Nearby Hayes Valley, home to Victorian homes, boutique shops and trendy restaurants, has the nickname “Cerebral Valley,” which nods to the hacker houses and AI communities that have appeared in the area.
Real estate and investment company Jamestown sells AI hubs across Northern Waterfront after leasing more than 43,000 square feet of office space to an AI company. Some startups are working on AI loan services or lip-sync technology with AI powered.
Jamestown principal and chairman Michael Phillips said the fresh air and calm nature, near public transport, water and greenery, attracted AI entrepreneurs who wanted to work directly with them.
“If you’re working on these fast markets, it’s a very competitive product,” he said, “You really need to be together.”
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