AI Startup Clay inks 163K sf lease at SL Green’s 11 Madison

An artificial intelligence startup is taking a big bite of office space at SL Green and Prudential Financial’s 11 Madison Avenue, as the sector continues to snap up prime Manhattan office space.

AI company Clay signed a 10-year lease for 163,000 square feet at the 2.3 million-square-foot tower, the landlord announced. The deal brings the building to 100 percent occupancy.

The nine-year-old company will occupy the entire 14th and 16th floors and part of the 15th floor of the 30-story building, which sits on a full block between Park Avenue South and Madison Avenue and East 24th and 25th streets. The asking rent was not disclosed.

The news comes as SL Green reaches full occupancy at another property on Madison Avenue. Harvey AI added more than 90,000 square feet at the landlord’s One Madison Avenue, bringing the 1.4 million-square-foot Class A office tower to full occupancy less than three years after it opened.

A Newmark team of Aaron Ellison, Derek Feinman and Adam Spector represented Clay in Clay’s deal, while Newmark’s Brian Waterman, Brent Ozarowski and Eric Harris represented the landlord.

The AI sales platform will relocate from Kaufman Organization’s 111 West 19th Street. Clay CEO Kareem Amin said the new location reflects the firm’s rapid expansion. The company announced in August that it had raised $100 million at a $3.1 billion valuation.

The lease is the latest large office commitment from an AI company.

AI leasing in Manhattan has ramped up sharply in recent years. In 2024, AI companies signed roughly 325,000 square feet of office space, with most deals falling in the 5,000 to 25,000-square-foot range, said Franklin Wallach, executive managing director of research and business development at Colliers.

By 2025, leasing had more than doubled to about 810,000 square feet, with several larger deals entering the mix, including Harvey AI’s 93,000-square-foot lease at One Madison Avenue (where the company is now doubling its footprint, per Commercial Observer) and Scale AI’s 80,000-square-foot sublease at 1 World Trade Center.

The momentum has carried into 2026. In just the first few months of the year, AI firms have already leased more than 500,000 square feet, according to Wallach.

Midtown South remains the epicenter of the AI leasing boom, but it is spreading to other submarkets. SL Green acquired 11 Madison from the Sapir Organization and CIM Group in 2015 for $2.6 billion. A year after the acquisition, SL Green offloaded a 40 percent stake to Prudential’s PGIM Real Estate for $480 million.