Global financial services company Alliance Bernstein opened a new office in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards area in September 2024. The lobby features a 4th floor space to please luxury clients with AI’s “dream walls” that show their commitment to the future of technology.
The new office was the culmination of a decade-old plan that saw the mobile offices of investment giants in London and Hong Kong in the US.
Alliance Bernstein, headquartered in New York at another office in White Plains, New York, opened its new seven-floor headquarters in Nashville in 2022. Currently, COO Karlspurless holds legal, audit, audit, capital and risk employees at the Hudson Yard offices of Design Genzrengers and Design Yadyard Yards.
“this [New York City] Offices are primarily for investors and private wealth,” Spres highlights the importance of mentorship and collaboration in the company’s culture and its three-day office attendance policy per week. “The core office is Nashville.”
More than a decade ago, the company decided to develop office office layouts around the world, ranging from nearly two-thirds of space consisting of private offices to zero private offices. The company’s leadership also decided to move the location from the top-end metro area to emerging regions.
“All of our offices are different everywhere. They provide similar quality amenities and an overall workplace, but they are all different because the aesthetic architecture is trying to attach it to the local culture, local history,” Gordon told Newsweek.
The fourth floor of New York’s New York office features a dream wall in the lobby, representing a major reduction from the 1 million square feet of presence in the company’s old Sixth Avenue and White Plains offices, which are scheduled to close this year.
The new space is located at Spiral Tower at Hudson Yard. This is an area that was redeveloped as part of New York City’s bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics on the former Railway Yard site. Gordon pointed out that he appreciated the building’s architecture, including previous overpasses and nods to trains.
“This office doesn’t look like Nashville,” Gordon said. “We tried to make it more New York.”
There is a first floor lobby area with a cafe and an AI dream wall, as well as plenty of casual seating. There is a first floor lobby area with a cafe and an AI dream wall, as well as plenty of casual seating. Alliance Bernstein
Attractive AI decorated entrance
Ab Hudson Yards’ office has a reception desk and concierge on the left and a cafe-like area on the right, with a wall of dreams. Employees can use the central flight of the spiral stairs to walk up and down between the four floors of the office. On the top 3rd floor, stairs and elevator banks open to the kitchen area, from which the hallway leads to a “neighborhood style” work area.
“We wanted to bring as many people as possible back without pushing,” Gordon said from a gorgeously appointed, fully stocked lobby cafe. “We’re trying to be more hospitality than just an office.”
To create the AI Dream Wall, Gensler and Alliance Bernstein worked together to identify thousands of photos that match the inspirational vibe they intended. The goal was to build a “parent” dataset so that the software generates AI-generated images on a 33-foot x 9-foot LED mesh display. From there, a 240-foot slightly fine LED “wallpaper” adorns the hallway on the first floor.
Employees around the corner. Employees around the corner. Alliance Bernstein
“These are images that fit our team’s artistic intent,” told Newsweek, explaining the process of “teaching” software to create images that are continuously updated on the wall. “Once you get them, you essentially provide them to a model you create with a set of constraints,” he said.
Images are updated every 90 seconds and are not repeated.
“This has a dual purpose: to showcase AB’s commitment to technology and the AI revolution happening around us, and to create an attractive and unique space as an installation statement,” Sharon said.
The led first floor corridor walls change colour dynamically as people pass by, and their way of changing evolves over the course of the day. On another floor, the leather walls slowly wear down, changing as people pass by and touch for years, Gordon said.
The outside area on the first floor includes meeting rooms equipped for entertainment and privacy, depending on the needs of the visiting clients. At the end of the floor, a larger modular space with floor-to-ceiling windows is intended to host training, external programs and larger gatherings. For now, it has an unobstructed view of the Hudson River, but the door next to the new development could hinder future views.
AB has also mostly been abolished. Those who promise to enter the office for four days a week can get a desk, but otherwise the structure consists of department-based neighborhoods and a variety of styles of workspaces that allow for intensive work, full-team collaboration, and everything in between.
“The workplaces are all open… We tried to find the biggest amenities for people, so they don’t feel bad that they left their private office,” Gordon said.
Space amenities include safe cubby, kitchen, coffee, snacks, snacks on each floor and packaging processing services. Dozens of video-equipped bookable rooms sit on each floor. The outside light indicates whether the room is available.
“Technology is a huge lever for us,” Spres said. “We have made a massive investment in technology and operations, which is the largest group of employees in the long road, with the organization’s over 2,000 people.”
A large meeting room at the end of the first floor. A large meeting room at the end of the first floor. Alliance Bernstein
Strategies Behind Space
From his position as COO, the new office’s 10-year plan was aimed at improving the quality of life for employees by shortening commutes and moving to more affordable areas. They were also intended to advance the company’s culture.
“We have a very supportive culture. We want to find people who are intellectually curious. “People are actors. They are curious and want to work as a team. Space is meant to help with that.”
Sprules also felt strongly about the need to bring people to the office. It was a prioritization before and after the pandemic, when AB was one of the first companies to bring employees back to offices in 2021.
Of course, Covid-19 has placed some bumps on the road.
“We designed all of this before we thought the pandemic was a thing,” Spres shared. This complicated the move to Nashville, but today its office houses over 1,200 employees, and the company has 90% compliance with its attendance policy.
AB equips the building with advanced conference and conference room technology, including availability, switch-activated privacy shutters, smart cameras, microphones and external lights showing zoom-enabled call rooms. This technical design is intended to demonstrate the company’s commitment to the future. The dream-like statement section refers to the desire to be comfortable and familiar with AI and emerging technologies.
The stairs connect all four floors of the space. The stairs connect all four floors of the space. Alliance Bernstein
“We think generative AI has this great opportunity, but you have to let people use it, practice it and incorporate it into your daily life. I thought the dream wall was a great way to push its front and center,” Spres said.
On a daily basis, Sprules said the new office space aims to encourage mentorship and help employees develop and learn from one another.
“When you look at how people are trained here, it’s kind of an apprentice model,” he explained. “People sit next to people and learn to trade. We wanted to keep it up and deal with the inequality of having people far away in the office, so we were leaning heavily towards technology with many high quality videos in these zoom rooms and desks.”
Sprules shared that HR helps ensure considerations like the mother’s room, and that he heavily weighs on the business unit leader’s feedback on what the team needed from the new space.
“A lot of the feedback comes directly from the business,” he said. “[Human capital] Our partners are when we are thinking about the demographics of people and what they need, such as their mother’s room or prayer room. ”
The company has come a long way from all executive and secretary offices, from the haunting of old-fashioned financial services that Gordon said “sees like a law firm.” The company also had an old-fashioned way to complete the job. That’s not the case anymore.
“When we saw our office back then, there was very little technology…people met with pens and paper pads,” Spres said. “We want to think of ourselves as a pre-tech asset management wealth management company,” he added. “Ideally, space is supposed to encourage that idea.”
