Neil Murray does not talk like an executive preparing to automate a workforce.
As the head of Real Estate Management Services at commercial property giant JLL, Murray oversees an organization of more than 88,000 people responsible for keeping the nearly 6 billion square feet of buildings in his purview functioning daily. Yet when conversation turns to artificial intelligence, he recoils from corporate jargon.
“I happen to despise the term ‘headcount’ in the world of AI,” Murray told Fortune. “I think it sort of dehumanizes what we’re talking about.”
While Murray dismisses the idea that AI will shrink the workforce, JLL’s own internal staffing tells a more measured story. Asked whether headcount in Murray’s 88,000-person division has actually grown over the past three years, the company declined to provide figures ahead of earnings, describing headcount as merely “stable” and projecting it to hold flat or grow only modestly in 2027.
Instead, the company offered a candid redefinition of corporate growth: “Stability does not equate to stagnation,” a JLL spokesperson told Fortune. “In an environment where AI is genuinely improving individual productivity, holding headcount flat while increasing output is actually a meaningful result.”
Instead, Murray offers an article of faith increasingly rare among corporate leadership: Automation will not shrink his division. “This is my profound belief,” he said. “I say that as a leader and as a parent—a profound belief that we will create better jobs, more impactful jobs, more human-centric jobs—and automate some of the jobs that people didn’t enjoy doing anyway. The notion that AI will somehow reduce the number of people we have serving this industry is just not right.” (JLL does not typically report year-over-year changes in headcount for Murray’s division.)
Murray offers an earnest, deeply appealing defense of physical work. But a few pages into JLL’s own research, provided exclusively to Fortune ahead of release, the arithmetic pushes back a bit.
The cold logic of procurement
The tension sits squarely inside JLL’s 2026 Global State of Facilities Management Report, a survey of 1,321 organizations across 15 countries. While Murray called technology an unalloyed amplifier of human talent, the organizations surveyed are planning an explicit shift away from payroll.
Eighty-nine percent of survey respondents agreed that facility management budgets will shift from labor toward technology and automation. More critically, 87% expect outsourcing contracts to abandon labor-based models in favor of outcome-based pricing by 2030.
That subtle contractual tweak rewires the financial incentives of commercial property. Under traditional facilities contracts, providers bill clients for hours and bodies on-site; more staff translates directly into more revenue. Under outcome-based agreements, clients pay fixed fees for performance metrics—unbroken uptime, completed work orders, or reduced energy consumption. In that structure, every hour of human labor ceases to be a revenue stream and becomes a direct cost against the provider’s profit margin.
The wrong kind of robot
Murray dismissed fears of job replacement by leaning on the limits of current robotics. “Humanoid robots doing engineering work are a long way off,” he said, adding that it was his own opinion, to be sure.
He is almost certainly right that an android will not diagnose a complex commercial boiler system anytime soon. But corporate real estate does not need humanoid robots to reduce staffing levels.
JLL’s report notes that client adoption of robotics is poised to nearly double, jumping from 37% today to 71% by 2030. The company concedes that this surge will come from “purpose-built technologies, not humanoids”—specifically autonomous scrubbers, robotic lawn care, and remote security systems. These machines do not displace licensed HVAC engineers; they displace cleaners, security personnel, and access-control staff.
Murray’s confidence rests heavily on demographic scarcity. In key markets, he pointed out, JLL cannot find enough bodies to fill open roles, with 68% of organizations reporting that skilled-trades shortages disrupted operations over the past year. Across the broader economy, employers require an estimated 1.7 million skilled-trades workers annually through 2035, even as nearly a quarter are 55 or older.
“The trades have probably been out of vogue for a generation,” Murray said. “Ironically, with AI, people are seeing the value of those skilled trades now … I do see a golden age for trades.” That is still some way off. Research from the Ad Council and Ford Motor Co. found that only 9% of high school students are actively considering entering a trade.
Murray genuinely wants to believe that technology will elevate the physical workforce rather than discard it. His defense is heartfelt, rooted in community, and delivered with obvious warmth. “I certainly hope,” he added, “those comments don’t age badly.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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