
Sharing platforms like Airbnb began serving their customers, Airbnb in 2008, and Uber and Lyft, in 2009 and 2012 respectively, in ways that completely disrupted their more traditional counterparts. Airbnb’s home-rental platform and Uber/Lyft’s ride-sharing platforms are giving hospitality and transportation consumers more options – options that are often cheaper and more accommodating, exclusive, and intimate – like having their own local friend driving them around or hosting them in a new city.

The past 10 years have seen the widespread escalation of coworking spaces and a market shift toward shorter, shape-shifting real estate leasing cycles. These movements are shaking up the way commercial real estate, architecture and interior design operate in the contract space.
In case you’re wondering, Airbnb for the office and other non-residential spaces does exist – in a company called Splacer. But, where Airbnb lacks in quality control, Splacer does not; the tech and design theory behind Splacer’s platform make it a much savvier kind of sharing platform we than we’ve seen before. Splacer’s new partnership with an artificial intelligence firm has the potential to change the way we look and understand the space around us.


Splacer is a marketplace where people can list, discover and book spaces for any number of creative, entertainment or business pursuits.
For instance, a Splacer space could be booked by:
>A retailer bringing a pop-up store to life
>A movie producer scouting their next location
>A photographer on the search for the most unique backdrop
>A corporation spicing up their holiday event or team meeting


Splacer customers (usually companies, not individuals) can read up on everything to do with a space, including capacity, cost, types of activities it supports, amenities, location, reviews and more. The platform currently serves five major city markets: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago.
Splacer got its start with photographers and production crews – scouting out their next photo and film shoot locations. The platform expanded to begin offering spaces coveted by brands of all kinds seeking brand interaction events – a physical touchpoint – with their customers.
“The origins and learning do come from Airbnb, as they were the first company to lay down the understanding that we can share our space,” says Adi Biran, cofounder and CEO of Splacer. “And Airbnb focuses on sharing our homes and our bedrooms, which are our most intimate spaces. Splacer takes that mentality one step further. If we share our most intimate spaces, why not share everything else?”

Listings include spaces like a coworking office’s extra conference room, immaculate private homes converted to commercial use, empty or furnished office spaces – there’s even a jail cell.
“As architects, we believe we can improve the way we use and share space in order to foster creativity, build community and promote a more sustainable model of urban life,” notes the Splacer website. “Our marketplace gives access to undiscovered and underutilized spaces, offering extraordinary arenas for events, experiences and activations of all shapes and sizes.”

Splacer’s online platform is strikingly similar to Airbnb’s, with a friendly, easy interface and online payment system that makes booking a space a breeze.
But unlike Airbnb, Splacer curates its spaces with a screening process; all potential spaces are reviewed by Splacer’s team with an eye for great design, and for market demand.

“We have a marketplace and a platform of 1000s of spaces,” said Ms. Biran. “And we believe there is value in curation. We look at quality very carefully. We are architects ourselves, and we feel it’s important to be associated with the most beautiful spaces, so we’re searching for the highest quality spaces. And we also look for need – we address the supply and demand of our spaces in each region and the screening process includes that.”
In short, Splacer does not use an open system, as Airbnb does. Splacer’s platform and its curators balance its service by vetting each specific location – for high quality and for the demand of that particular space in the region it’s located.

Looking specifically at Splacer’s more traditional workspace offerings, what can we gather about their impact? Workspace options on Splacer can include anything from an enclosed conference room up to a fully equipped office with multiple conference rooms, pantry, workstations, breakout and lounge areas.
Those working in workplace design and furnishings must look beyond coworking to consider the implications of newer forms of workspace relationships.
Do services like Splacer have the power to allow people to operate their businesses on an as-needed basis for space requirements? Who are the people on both sides of the equation – who is listing and renting out these spaces, and who is booking them for use? Can (and should) furniture dealerships develop a line into these types of projects? If so, what would it look like?
“Splacer is always looking for new and innovative ways to provide the best experience for our users,” said Ms. Biran, in a recent company press announcement. “This starts with the ability to search for any space imaginable in a more intuitive way, beyond the basics of locations and price.”
Splacer just announced a new partnership with Syte, the visual artificial intelligence company known for “powering leading retail tech solutions, including visual search, product recommendation and image tagging for Kohls, Marks & Spencer and Kim Kardashian’s wildly successful Screenshop app.”
“The partnership will provide users with groundbreaking technology to better match their search results with customizable preferences by using Image Recognition Technology,” notes the partnership press announcement. “Syte provides retailers with visual search AI technology to power eCommerce solutions such as visual search, automated textual tags and product recommendations. Syte’s solutions guide shoppers through an enhanced online experience proven to drive conversion and increasing product discovery. Some of the world’s largest retailers are using Syte’s solutions to automate internal processes and create a more accurate and interactive user journey.”
“Splacer and Syte are among the first to offer ground breaking technology that will allow AI to be applied to space image recognition rather than to a specific object. Through this partnership, Splacer plans to integrate Syte’s deep learning and image recognition technologies into its platform, to create a more personalized space search experience for the event organizer, by giving them a comprehensive tool that understands their needs and preferences.”
The upcoming launch of Splacer’s new AI-enhanced platform, scheduled sometime in the next few weeks, will be the first of a couple of different ways Splacer plans to incorporate Syte’s technology.
First, if a space you like is unavailable to you, whether it’s too expensive, already booked, not big enough or not quite the right location, Splacer will be able to take the things you liked about that space, and apply it to their available options to show you alternatives.
Eventually, Splacer’s goal is to use Syte tech to develop a tool that would allow someone to take a photo of something they like, and then immediately see similar space options that are available to book through Splacer.
“The algorithms Syte uses are the same in the way they apply them to space for Splacer,” said Ms. Biran. “It asks you questions about what attracts you to a space, why you like something you see, what about it – the light, proportion, materials, and so on.
“Using AI to study space specifically, and how and why we feel good when we look at particular spaces, is incredibly valuable. And we think we’re one of the first to begin doing this.”
Indeed, AI’s ability to connect a visual to an emotion – how someone feels about what they see – is a force to be reckoned with. Splacer’s plans to gather and present innovative, personalized solutions based on our innate understanding of space, is truly innovative.