How AI is Shrinking Biotech Workplaces

Biotech offices may feel emptier these days, as companies continue trimming staff while adopting AI tools and automating lab roles that can take on work once handled by teams of researchers.

The amount of lab space per employee has dropped about 9 percent in the last year, according to commercial real estate firm CBRE, as firms pare back after a period of aggressive expansion.

At the same time, layoffs across biopharma increased 31 percent in the first half of 2025, with 130 companies eliminating more than 13,400 positions, according to BioSpace. Job postings are also falling, even as the number of life sciences graduates remains near record highs, experts from CBRE said during a recent call discussing these trends.

“All things considered, the U.S. Life Sciences workforce, has been relatively resistant, despite the slowdown we've been seeing,” said Taylor Lee, Associate Research Director at CBRE. “We are still seeing a little bit of growth, it's just pretty slow.”

During the pandemic, companies aggressively leased new space, boosting the average footprint per employee by 18 percent. Now, organizations are “right sizing,” Lee said, as they scale back to match slower hiring.

Disruption and Opportunities with AI and Automation

Companies are turning to automation and AI to take on tasks that previously required larger support teams. CBRE’s workforce analysis found that executives are investing in digital tools for regulatory affairs, customer support, supply chain management, and even recruitment and talent management. Ryan Helwig, Principal at TEConomy, said many firms are relying more on contractors and digital platforms in place of full-time hires, a shift that makes leaner operations feasible.

“When we asked about technologies impacting workforce dynamics, these really came forward, both in a disruptive context as well as opportunities,” Helwig said. “Employers are starting to understand some of the productivity gains and opportunities to pair workers with AI and automation.”

Automation Redefines the Lab

Life science companies have new resources to conduct research using free, publicly available data sets and AI tools that can replicate work done in prior years by teams of lab scientists and data analysts.

For example, Boltz-2, developed with Recursion and MIT’s Jameel Clinic, makes binding predictions up to 1,000 times faster than older methods, while Tahoe-100M provides single-cell drug response data at a scale that lets smaller teams test hypotheses without massive labs ( see “How Public Data are Fueling the Next Wave of Drug Innovation.”)

Investors are also rewarding companies employing these tools. In the first half of 2025, AI-enabled startups raised $4 billion, well over half of all U.S. digital health funding, as companies that automate documentation, data analysis, or trial recruitment drew the biggest checks (see “AI-Powered Companies Dominate 2025 Digital Health Funding.”)

But while these tools can help reduce budgets, they still require their own onboarding costs, from acquiring new systems and software and training programs for staff. Helwig said that AI isn’t eliminating the need for broad roles or functions in life sciences – or at least not yet.

“There's been some concern voiced in this report about replacing or the potential to replace certain roles, but we were hearing more emphasis when it comes to AI tools and automation that it is changing the nature of our jobs and roles in our companies,” he said. “Today, at least in the initial adoption sense, it is quite complimentary.”