Do AI Research Teams and Product Teams Need Different Space?

Space planning usually starts with a headcount and a number of desks. For an AI company it is worth starting one step earlier, with how each group spends its day. Research and product teams often look similar on an organization chart and behave very differently in a building.

The descriptions below are generalizations. Every company draws the line between research and product in its own place, and many people do both. Use them as prompts for a conversation with your own team leads, and adjust for how your company actually works.

Research work is dominated by long periods of concentration: reading papers, writing code, designing experiments and waiting on results. Interruptions are costly, and the space should protect against them.

• Quiet. Enclosed offices, small shared rooms or a clearly separated quiet zone away from sales calls and kitchen noise.
• Room to think out loud. Whiteboards or writable walls, and small rooms where a few people can argue through a problem without disturbing others.
• A place for reading groups and talks. A room large enough for the group, with good presentation equipment.
• Workstations that stay put. Researchers often have powerful machines and multiple displays, which makes desk sharing impractical and raises the power and cooling load at each desk.
• Controlled access. Work on unreleased models, proprietary data or customer data under contractual restrictions may need to happen in a space that not every employee or visitor can enter.
• Lab space, for some. Teams working with robots, sensors, devices or other physical systems need a room that can take equipment, benches and occasional mess.

Research teams also tend to keep irregular hours. If experiments are watched late at night or on weekends, check what building services are available then and what they cost.

Product managers, designers, product engineers, sales and customer success spend more of the day talking to each other and to people outside the company. Their space needs follow from that.

• Meeting rooms in several sizes, all equipped for video, because many meetings include a customer or a remote colleague.
• Open project areas where a cross-functional team can sit together during a launch.
• Phone booths and small call rooms. A sales or support team without them will take over every conference room.
• A demo or briefing area that shows the product well and can host customers, investors and candidates.
• A reception point and a sensible visitor path that does not lead through sensitive areas.
• Social space near the entrance, where it adds energy without disturbing people who need quiet.

These teams usually adapt more easily to shared desks and flexible seating than research teams do, which can matter when you are sizing the office.

Few companies at an early or middle stage lease separate space for research and product, and the daily contact between the two groups is usually worth keeping. The practical answer is to zone a single office so that each group gets the conditions it needs.

A common pattern places the public-facing functions near the entrance: reception, client meeting rooms and the demo area. Collaborative product space sits behind that. The quiet research zone and any restricted rooms sit deepest in the plan, furthest from the front door and behind an additional controlled door if needed. Visitors can then be hosted without passing desks or screens they should not see.

The shape of the floor decides how well this works. A long, narrow floor or one divided by the building core separates zones naturally. A single open square is harder to zone without building walls. Window line matters too, because enclosed rooms placed along the windows block daylight from everyone else. An architect's test fit will show quickly whether a specific suite can be zoned the way you want.

When touring, walk the route a visitor would take from the elevator to a meeting room and note what they would pass.

Restricted areas raise questions that go beyond layout. Some are for your security and compliance leads, and some are for the lease.

• Your own access control. Installing card readers, cameras and separately secured rooms inside the suite generally requires the landlord's approval as an alteration.
• Landlord entry. Leases give the landlord and its cleaners and contractors a right to enter. Companies with restricted rooms often negotiate advance notice, escorted entry or exclusion of specific rooms from routine access.
• Cleaning. If janitorial staff cannot enter a secure room, you need another arrangement for it.
• Use. If a lab involves anything beyond ordinary office activity, confirm the permitted use in the lease covers it.
• Equipment. A lab or a room of dense workstations may need extra power and cooling, which should be raised with the building before the lease is signed.
• Restoration. Secure rooms, lab fit-outs and specialty installations may need to be removed at the end of the term unless the landlord agrees otherwise in writing.

The specific controls your company needs depend on your customers, contracts and any security frameworks you follow. Your security lead should define them, and your attorney should confirm the lease permits them.

• ✓How many people are in each group today, and how is that mix expected to change?
• ✓Which roles need assigned desks or enclosed space, and which can share?
• ✓How many people need access to restricted work, and does it require a physically separate area?
• ✓Do we need lab space, and what equipment goes in it?
• ✓How often do customers, investors or candidates visit, and what should they see?
• ✓What hours does each group keep, and what building services do we need outside normal hours?
• ✓Which groups must sit near each other, and which benefit from distance?
• ✓If the balance between research and product shifts, how easily can the layout change?

When we take a requirement like this to market for a technology client, the answers shape which buildings and floor plates we show, and which lease rights we ask for before the business terms are fixed.