Antoniu Panait, Vastint Romania: “I don’t think anybody should be afraid of AI”

Petre Barac Posted On May 27, 2026

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“We see governments slowing down with expectations regarding CO2 values, but not companies. So, the good sign and the good news is that the bigger companies, and not only, they are continuously asking about CO2 level, way of reporting in the future, how we will give them figures because they need figures already, some of them. And I see that as an opportunity for Romania because the Romanian office portfolio it’s relatively new compared with, let’s say, Paris, London, where they still have very old buildings,” said Antoniu Panait, Managing Partner, Vastint Romania during Romanian Business Services Forum organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest and Outsourcing Today.

Key statements:

Yes, it’s London. Yes, it’s Paris. But they still have buildings with highly polluting materials, as asbestos. Of course, there are techniques now to clean it very well. But the Romanian portfolio is new. And companies are asking for buildings prepared for carbon footprint as low as possible.

We have Timpuri Noi Square project which has reached the last floor. So, we are growing very quickly this project. It’s over 105,000 square meters total build volume, which means it’s an extraordinary figure as a volume in one stage, but it’s totally fuel-free.

So, we eliminated the gas burner heating, which is, I think, it’s a fantastic news for the market. We are targeting over 100 points of LEED platinum, which the maximum is 105. And that means it might be that we’ll be in top three buildings in the world when we complete it.

And we already have a tenant which entered the market. Our first tenant in Timpuri Noi it’s a totally new tenant entering the market. Large player worldwide. Now we are discussing with others the same, several other new entries in the market, and they are targeting directly our buildings. And for me, that’s good news.

And it’s rewarding. Because it’s very hard to build in these times. It’s very hard to follow a business plan, to make it profitable. And luckily, we have a very good team of professionals that are pushing the project in the right direction.

I always say that we don’t reinvent the wheel. And whatever we do in Romania, it’s the work also of other teams around Europe. Because, yeah, we learn. We permanently learn. We permanently improve the next project. So, we learn from everywhere.

And I think this is the most important part. Yes, we have feedback and consultants and friends already that are working for so many years from different countries, England, Germany, Sweden, that they are giving the input to create these amazing buildings. But I can say that we succeeded in Romania to push the things to the next level.

Romanians are competitive. And you can see many interesting projects in Bucharest that they are following the same path of reaching the highest quality.

AI is a tool. I believe it’s a tool. I believe it’s a turning point. I believe it depends on how we adopt it, how we develop it.

It’s all about how we use it. I’m not afraid. I don’t think anybody should be afraid of AI. I think maybe we should be afraid of how people are using it.

AI is a tool that we are studying also. We are implementing it at different levels. We must be very sure that it’s a correct decision. We already have buildings with so-called BMS for many years, which is basically a computer which gathers all the information from the building. We now go to the next level. We add more sensors.

And AI, I think, will help us in the future to come up with more solutions in optimizing the consumption and the management of the buildings. So yes, I believe AI is a game changer.