At this year’s EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum — we invited a panel of real estate and investment experts to put their futurist hats on and imagine how we will live and work 10 years from now. Marakez’s Executive Vice Chairman Dasha Badrawi, Sawari Ventures’ Founder and Chairman Ahmed El Alfi and Founder and CEO of Kamelizer and Angel Investment Studio Hanan Abdel Meguid, discussed and debated the impact of AI on jobs and how technological and lifestyle shifts are going to affect our communities and cities. The panelists drew on their experiences as the masterminds behind landmark mixed-use developments such as District 5 and the Greek Campus and innovative co-working spaces like Consoleya and Kamelizer.

Setting the stage: the trends that are likely to propel us forward. “We’ve seen the trend of the flight from the cities to the suburbs. It started with residential, then it moved to commercial — covering offices, retail and everything else,” Badrawi said. A lot of changes in the laws governing residential and commercial areas have also taken place. However, the trend we’re seeing very clearly now is the rise of mixed-use environments, Badrawi added, noting that District 5 has been at the forefront of combining the residential with retail and commercial spaces. This creates destinations where people can interact, walk and dwell. “I think people will be looking for places where they can live, work, and collaborate, discounting the play part of it a little bit,” El Alfi also agreed.

Egyptians migrating back to their homeland as a viable option. Some of the highest quality talent are migrating from overseas back to Egypt, as it has become a “very viable option, competitive to the West and even the GCC,” El Alfi said. “The depth of what we have here has become very attractive, and I think that’s one of the things that we need to leverage”.

New generations are prioritizing quality of life and wellness in the workspace. Post-Covid, a very big societal shift has taken place, Abdel Meguid said. Wellness, health and work life balance became priorities. “This changed the way we look at work and living spaces,” she said. “I think the young generation are not just motivated by climbing a corporate ladder or money, it is about the quality of life and the quality of people that they interact with,” Badrawi confirmed. “That’s what informs our decisions now on creating future workspaces” he added.

Building on these priorities: “That’s what informs our decisions now on creating future workspaces,” Badrawi added. An aesthetic shift is also transforming spaces, as we now want to bring the outdoors to indoors, as well as seeking to bring culture into the way we organize, work and live, Abdel Meguid said.

Could AI wipe out jobs in the future? Organizations will flatten out and there will be delayering, Abdel Meguid said. There will be a change in the role of managers, and we’ll learn how to manage AI agents. “It’s a totally different kind of transformation,” she said. “It will be a bit difficult in the short term and hopefully great in the longer term.”

“I think it really is potentially either a threat or an assistant to all jobs, and whether some jobs are eliminated and they’ll be replaced by things [AI] — that we can’t foresee,” Badrawi said. “The keyword is embrace, not resist change,” said Abdel Meguid. For youth, this would be extremely fast, she noted.“Young people will have to be very quick to adapt,” El Alfi doubled-down on this aspect.

As for entry level jobs: “Even the word junior and senior will be redefined because if entry level positions are much faster to adapt and have much higher capabilities to deliver, then the seniors would be the juniors,” Abdel Meguid said. “It’s a total redefinition phase for everything, even for what we call “work” and what we call value creation,” she added.

Egypt’s lag in the adoption of AI could be an advantage when it comes to job losses. “The lag that Egypt will have in implementing AI in the workspace is an opportunity to adjust and to fine tune the response, and to localize it,” El Alfi said.

Will robots replace manual labor? “We’ll need skilled craftsmen and we’ve got a lot of need for that,” Badrawi said. “Where the cost of labor in the west is extremely high, maybe there is an economic case to have robots take on these tasks. But where the cost of labor is cheap, I can’t see how the technology will be economically viable,” he added. In comparison, El Alfi thinks robots are going to replace low end labor, including skilled craftsmen. “That may be one of the first jobs to go with robotics, which is in three to five years.”

Physical workspaces will remain essential for human interconnection. “As we move forward with AI, I think people still need places to interact and I think that offices in mixed use environments will be the center of that activity,” Badrawi said.

Where are investors looking to pump their money in the coming years? Universities and educational institutions need to focus on deep science — semiconductors, biotech, physical products, El Alfi said, highlighting that degrees in the soft sciences will be less valuable going forward. “As we’re looking for investments, those are kind of the areas where we’re shifting our focus — how do we dig into those fields to find opportunities,” he said.

Critical thinking and creativity as irreplaceable skills. “AI is for speed, and humans are for interpretation and for context. The more that AI adoption takes place, the more value there is in art, creativity, interpretation, storytelling,” Abdel Meguid said. “For all of this to be harnessed, you need workspaces to transform into ecosystems where different needs are met,” she added.

Multipurpose workspaces are the future. Spaces with neurodiversity, where you can have a quiet space, a collaborative space, a meeting space, as well as multi-generational spaces, are what developers need to focus on, Abdel Meguid said. Destination workspaces are in demand. “I totally imagine that the workspace formulation will have all these concepts, and I call it “design for choice.”

Flexibility is key. “I think the hardest challenge in real estate is your ability to shift and change”, El Alfi said. “It is really very difficult because you’re working on a project that takes you three to seven years from start to delivery”.

Downtowns will remain attractive destinations for both buyers and investors. “Downtown Cairo has lots of amazing remnant spaces that you can redesign and repurpose,” El Alfi said, highlighting the Greek Campus and Consoleya. It gives you more flexibility because in the suburbs, whoever’s just built something recently is already married to that image and that business plan,” he added.

The more the world goes digital, the more humans crave culture and human interactions. “Our Downtown Cairo is so precious,” said Abdel Meguid. “Once you taste this kind of vibe you create more, and people come with different kinds of experiences, and that’s something from my perspective that will grow massively in the coming few years,” she added.

An exciting future for Downtown Cairo. “We’ve seen downtowns degenerate and gentrify, and change from commercial to residential,” Badrawi noted. “I see downtown Cairo going through that process and becoming a destination for tourism and attracting more young couples or individuals rather than the suburbs,” he said.

What’s next? “I see myself continuously architecting and designing new types of workspaces that are blending work, life, culture, music, entertainment, and food,” Abdel Meguid said. El Alfi hopes to be building cool places, as well as creating and supporting innovation in Cairo and in Egypt. “There are definitely exciting times ahead and I’m encouraged by the rate of transformation that is being fueled by this AI revolution,” said Badrawi, “however, the 10 year question is a difficult one.”

The key message that came across from the panel: the only thing that is certain is that adaptability will be key in a world that may not be recognizable in 2035.

Tap or click here to read the panel’s full transcript.

Tags: