AI Millionaires Are Dropping Mega Bucks on San Francisco Houses—Comically Free From Tech

They made their fortunes in artificial intelligence. But that doesn’t mean they want a mansion filled with smart gadgets.

San Francisco’s newly minted AI millionaires are seeking warm woods, handmade furniture and wellness amenities, brokers and designers told The Post — with some even forgoing smart-home features in a stunning about-face.

Their vision of a dream home puts natural materials, calm interiors and room to unplug high on the list.

Think saunas, cold plunges, red-light therapy, private gyms and libraries.

“Ten years ago, everybody wanted a wine cellar or a wine room,” Annie Williams, a veteran San Francisco broker with Sotheby’s International Realty, told The Post. “Everybody’s asking for, ‘Where can I put my sauna?’”

A ‘tsunami’ of AI money

The frenzy is unfolding amid what Williams, who has worked in San Francisco real estate for 25 years, called the hottest market she has ever seen.

“We took off in January and nobody seemed to see it coming,” she said.

Williams said the phenomenon stretches beyond founders and employees at companies such as OpenAI. Surging technology stocks have created a much broader “wealth effect” among investors, longtime tech workers and families whose portfolios are heavily exposed to AI-related companies.

Lisa Smith, a founding agent at Serhant in San Francisco, said she began feeling the surge particularly strongly around May. Smith said AI buyers have also toured a $20 million off-market property she is marketing in Mill Valley, about 10 minutes from San Francisco. The remodeled historic home has five bedrooms and four bathrooms across roughly 3,800 square feet and sits on a half-acre lot within walking distance of downtown Mill Valley.

“Right now, I’m feeling a little bit like I’m in a tsunami,” Smith told The Post. “The request of what they want right now is just outpacing what we can get them.”

The problem is that San Francisco has only so many mansions to go around.

Goodbye wine cellar. Hello cold plunge!

Once they find one, the new generation of tech wealth is putting its own stamp on luxury.

Smith said wellness features — particularly saunas, cold plunges and red-light therapy — have become increasingly common requests.

Just before speaking to The Post, she had toured a home where red-light therapy had been installed directly on the wall of the primary bedroom.

Jennifer Jones, principal designer at Niche Interiors, who is currently working with several AI-industry clients, said she is seeing the same shift from the other side of the transaction.

Clients who buy homes with wine rooms are increasingly asking her team to turn them into spas or saunas, she said. Others want full gyms, plunge pools and even dedicated rooms for at-home massages.

Those amenities are increasingly showing up in homes drawing interest from the AI crowd, too.

One such property they can consider is att 827 North Point St. in Russian Hill — a three-bedroom condo asking $2.95 million, listed by Neill Bassi of Sotheby’s International Realty. The 1,643-square-foot home has its own private wellness setup, with a sauna and cold plunge opening onto a private deck.

Another penthouse, at 18 Lansing St. in Rincon Hill, takes the idea to the roof. The $2.39 million, roughly 1,940-square-foot home, listed by Justin Goldberg of Compass, has more than 1,000 square feet of private outdoor space, including a rooftop sauna and hot tub, along with a fire pit and an upper observation deck with panoramic views of downtown San Francisco and the Bay.

“Most buyers touring our penthouse work in AI or tech, with offices just a few blocks away,” Goldberg told The Post. “With a significant IPO market anticipated in the coming months, buyers are looking to get ahead of the potential liquidity expected to enter the neighborhood in 2027.”

Daniel Kavanagh, principal of Rogue Sauna, said he has installed high-end saunas for a number of Bay Area clients working in AI and tech. Residential projects can run from around $40,000 to $100,000, he said, with cold plunges often part of the setup.

For clients who spend their working lives immersed in technology, Kavanagh said the appeal is often getting away from it.

“The irony is that they want something to decompress from tech,” he said. “They want a break from technology.”

A sauna, he added, is “one of the few places in the house that nobody checks email.”

The aesthetic beyond the sauna — and into the general design of the homes — has changed, too.

Where previous generations of Silicon Valley wealth often gravitated toward shiny metals, crystal chandeliers, dark wallpapers and other conspicuous displays of luxury, many of today’s younger clients are asking for something softer.

“Quiet” and “calm” are words Jones said she hears repeatedly.

The look is heavy on warm woods, handmade pieces, organic shapes, textured fabrics, muted palettes and sculptural furniture — a kind of California modernism meets “quiet luxury.”

“They want light. They want airy,” Jones said. “They do not want dark, moody rooms.”

And quiet luxury doesn’t mean quiet spending.

Jones said AI clients have shelled out $150,000 for a custom glass-and-bronze chandelier and more than $100,000 for a hand-knotted silk-and-cashmere rug.

The six-figure purchases reflect a particular appetite for custom craftsmanship, she said, even when the finished room is deliberately designed not to scream wealth.

When ChatGPT becomes the mood board

Of course, AI itself is also increasingly shaping what those homes look like.

Jones said clients now arrive at the beginning of projects armed with their own ChatGPT-generated renderings — something designers would traditionally create much later in the process.

“They’re like, ‘Here’s an idea. Here’s an idea,’” she said, describing clients rapidly generating different versions of rooms in their new homes.

That has accelerated expectations for the rest of the process, too.

“They want these projects done fast,” Jones said.

The trouble is that the physical world doesn’t always move at AI speed.

“We can’t make a hand-knotted rug in Nepal any faster,” she said.

Jones said “speed is something that’s become a new currency” among this generation of clients.

In one particular request, an AI client challenged her team to compete against artificial intelligence to design a custom piece of furniture. Both sides received essentially the same brief, and the client compared the results.

“We won that challenge,” Jones said. “I’m not worried that AI is taking over a job as an interior designer anytime soon.”

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