UKREiiF 2026: Inside AI’s Expanding Footprint on UK Real Estate

UKREiiF, the UK’s flagship gathering for the built environment, brings more than 16,000 investors, developers, lawyers, local authorities and advisers to Leeds each May for three days of discussion about the future of real estate and infrastructure.

And this year, we’re delighted to help shape the conversation around UK real estate. AI isn’t just changing how the industry operates; it is becoming one of real estate’s most powerful new occupiers, reshaping land use, leasing and legal practice in the process. Orbital CEO and Co-Founder, Will Pearce, will join leading property voices on UKREiiF’s Newsroom Stage to explore what AI’s growing demand for space means for the future of real estate (and for the people, capital and infrastructure behind it).

Join us in the newsroom

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The panel will explore how AI is emerging as a powerful new driver of demand, pressure, and complexity across commercial real estate. From government-backed data centres and land use to shifting office demand, the session will examine how AI is reshaping the built environment and redefining the future of the property sector.

• Where: Newsroom, Royal Armouries, Floor 4
• When: Wednesday 20 May, 12:30–13:30 BST

Moderated by Susan Freeman, Partner at Mishcon de Reya, the panel brings together Will Pearce, CEO & Co-Founder at Orbital; Barry Gross, Partner & Co-Lead of the Data Centres Sector at Simmons & Simmons; and Chris Rae, Partner & Co-Head of Real Estate Sector at CMS to interrogate four pressure points already shaping the market:

• The UK data centre challenge: why delivery is lagging behind other parts of Europe
• AI growth zones: what new policy could unlock for development
• The office paradox: why AI firms are still major occupiers
• Powered land: how grid-ready sites are reshaping UK development strategies

For us at Orbital, the connection is practical. AI’s impact will be visible in land values, infrastructure demand and occupier behaviour, but it will also be felt in the day-to-day pressure on real estate teams to execute transactions in a faster, more complex market. That is where real estate AI continues to prove itself: inside the work that moves deals forward.

AI purpose-built to accelerate real estate transactions

Leading real estate businesses and law firms are already using Orbital to accelerate the work behind complex transactions, including Grosvenor, M&S, Macfarlanes, WBD, BCLP, and others. Across the market, Orbital supports more than 5,000 real estate experts working on over 200,000 transactions each year.

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Visit us at Stand M1 in the Hall of Steel, or get ahead of the conference rush and book a meeting with the team ahead of time.

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