Impact of AI on Interior Designers

Pros, Cons, and How To Deal With It

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a disruptive force across numerous industries, and interior design is no exception. Gone are the days when designing a space relied solely on human creativity and expertise. AI is revolutionizing the way interior designers conceptualize, visualize, and execute their ideas. For an interior designer, AI poses, powerfully, as both an asset and a threat. Key to one’s success is in knowing what the differences are.

First, to be very clear, I don’t think interior designers are going the way of the buggy whip during the rise of automobiles, but there are some things designers should seriously consider before either writing the whole subject off as hype or succumbing to a sense of doom. There is opportunity here to still do what you love—design, just somewhat differently. Let’s dig into it.

Who will hire an interior designer when an algorithm from a big online marketplace can spin up options for very little charge within a few seconds…

First, let’s take a look at what we’ll call ‘inspiration assistance or replacement.’

This gets to the heart of both AI’s contribution and threat to interior designers. AI-powered tools can analyze vast amounts of data, including design trends, color schemes, furniture styles, and spatial arrangements, to, on the helpful side, provide designers with valuable insights and inspiration. These tools can help designers generate mood boards, suggest complementary color palettes, and recommend furniture layouts, streamlining the initial stages of the design process and sparking creativity. It can help solve the ‘blank page’ problem any creative person sometimes faces.

On the other hand, this ability also seems like it has the potential to replace interior designers altogether. By now most of us have seen social media posts from AI companies, or firms using their tools, showing complete rooms or even whole homes designed and populated solely by AI. And they sometimes look great, as if a real person had designed them. This is frightening if you’re an established designer who has a lot to lose and even more frightening if you’re a designer just starting a career and worried about getting traction and clients—or having a career at all. Who will hire an interior designer when an algorithm from a big online marketplace can spin up options for very little charge within a few seconds, based on client-inputted preferences, and then directly sell the items in the results to that client?

We’ll take a look at how to deal with that in a minute.

First let’s explore a more obvious and practical benefit of AI that shouldn’t keep one up at night in a clammy sweat of panic. Let’s call it ‘design assistance.’

These ‘design assistance’ tools can enable, enhance, and empower interior designers to do what they already do—come up with an original vision, present it to a client, and then implement it to completion.

AI-enabled rendering and visualization tools have taken a lot of the confusion inherent in dealing with clients who might not be able to, themselves, accurately visualize a designer’s proposals. Advanced rendering algorithms can now generate photorealistic 3D models of interior spaces, allowing clients to visualize the final design with unprecedented accuracy—no imagination of their own required because they can look directly at a realistic rendering. This not only helps clients make informed decisions but also minimizes misunderstandings and revisions, ultimately speeding up the design process and reducing costs. Anything that cuts down on client confusion is a boon for designers.

AI has also revolutionized the way interior designers approach space planning and layout optimization. Machine learning algorithms can analyze floor plans, identify optimal furniture arrangements, and even predict how different design elements will affect the flow and functionality of a space. By leveraging these kinds of AI tools, designers can more quickly create layouts that maximize usability, comfort, and appeal while adhering to budgetary and spatial constraints specific to each project. This is the ‘frame’ a designer works their aesthetic magic within, and AI can help them more quickly create that frame.

These ‘design assistance’ tools can enable, enhance, and empower interior designers to do what they already do—come up with an original vision, present it to a client, and then implement it to completion. ‘Design assistance’ is mostly a win for interior designers, and most often will be used piecemeal as needed and not for the entirety of a project (we’ll have another post on the challenges these tools also can create and how to deal with them, it’s not all wine and roses by a long shot).

What then about the frightening reality AI poses to the viability of interior design as a career? How does a designer mitigate the risk of AI tools deployed by large industry players that seek to replace them with their own products and automated services?

By focusing on and highlighting the obvious, and key difference between AI and an interior designer—the human difference.

A project will always need to be managed. A project will always have many, many moving parts and different people and vendors involved.

For example, the most important thing a good interior designer brings to the table that a trend-analyzing AI algorithm cannot is an eye that sees outside trends and creates its own aesthetic. Often, the most interesting—and breathtaking—spaces are created by designers that defy the primacy of trends at all. What might seem to an algorithm as a mismatch of trends (like using 19th century antiques along with Mid-Century furniture, art deco as well as modern Asian accessories, and a paint color palette that defies categorization—all chosen to create an indefinable ‘vibe’) could, in the right designer’s hands, become a superlative and unique space. If one took all those elements minus the designer’s expertise and vision, the space would most likely be a nightmare.

Some things also cannot be replaced by software, like human relationships. An interior designer builds lasting relationships over time with vendors, contractors, and of course their own clients. Knowing who to call and what to say to find unique pieces and get very specific tasks done becomes second nature to a good designer and, for truly unique work, isn’t something easily replicable by software.

For example, a fine accessory dealer may know from a previous conversation that a designer client of theirs is going in the direction of 1930’s French architectural lamps on a specific project, and when they hear of someone interested in consigning a rare one, they contact that designer about the lamp before it hits the shelves or catalogue. Or the electrician who is able to move their schedule around to suit an emergency install on a project because the designer has worked with them many times in a mutually beneficial way. There are many examples of person-to-person relationships that we don’t even think of, but we should.

Another key advantage an interior designer has is simply that they are a human being and their clients, at least for now, are human beings as well. This cannot be overstated. Really good interior designers are, along with their creative faculties, listeners and interpreters. It may sound obvious but there is great value in spending time talking with, and seeing, a client in their own space. A designer often performs a kind of ‘aesthetic therapy’ for a client, hearing and validating their feelings, aspirations, even their life’s history and meaningfulness, and then creating a unique space to nurture, shelter, and celebrate those qualities. An interior designer will know a client in a way no filled-out survey or algorithm ever will. And a client will trust their interior designer to create something for them that they never would have even thought to ask for.

Lastly, we’ll look at something that seems so mundane as to not matter but is actually really important: project management by people and not websites. It’s true, no one hires a designer because of their amazing office or management technique but they will fire them and put negative word out if their project spirals out of control, doesn’t get finished on time or satisfactorily, or is so aggravating to deal with that it draws into question whether the whole thing was worth it at all. A project will always need to be managed. A project will always have many, many moving parts and different people and vendors involved. Projects need central, competent coordination, the head of an octopus for the very busy, multitasking arms. Big companies using AI to spec, sell, and install their products are not going to deal with the countless things that have to be done outside their own ecosystem. But an interior designer running the project can and will—and that can be the hook to using their design services as well.

So to sum it up with basic advice for an interior designer dealing with the new AI reality, should you be asking: a) only use AI tools for the busy work and leave the key parts for your own signature; b) develop an eye that creates unique aesthetics beyond trends; c) nurture relationships with vendors and contractors; d) learn to listen to and reflect a client’s (often unstated in a literal way) needs and desires and lastly; e) have in place the ability to manage complex projects with grace and efficiency. And most importantly overall for your career—make sure all the above is widely known.

We’ll soon do another post about what the industry overall might do to protect individual designers and vendors from AI and the companies that want to use it to scale interior design services at the expense of human flourishing. Stay tuned!

Looking for interior design project management software? Check out DesignerLogic.