Ep 3: This Interior Designer Isn't Afraid of AI, and Here's Why

Hey interior designers! We’re living in an exciting era, watching AI technology unfold before our eyes. Of course, just like when the printing press, the telephone, or even TV emerged, people are scared AI is going end life as we know it. Are they right? Is AI going to take our interior design jobs? 

🔍 In this episode, we explore:

• Why AI isn't as threatening to interior designers as it seems.
• The current limitations of AI in design, from wonky fingers to impractical build concepts.
• The irreplaceable human elements of interior design: creativity, client communication, and problem-solving.
• How to leverage AI as a tool to enhance, not replace, your design process.
• Practical tips on using AI efficiently while mastering the human touch in your projects.

From creative idea generation to managing client expectations and navigating project hurdles, this episode covers why AI can't replicate the nuanced, empathetic role of an interior designer. Learn how to ride the wave of AI innovation without fear and use it to your advantage.

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Transcript

0:00

Hey interior designers, we're living in an exciting time watching AI technology unfold right in front of our eyes. And just like anytime new technology has come into general use, people are worried it's going to end life as we know it and not in a good way. People were just as scared of the printing press, the telephone, bicycles, automobiles, airplanes, radio, television, and cell phones as they now are of AI. Are they right to be afraid? Is AI going to take our interior design jobs? Let's talk about it. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Stuff Interior Designers Need to Know, the podcast where you can learn how to nail your niche, establish clear client expectations, and empower your clients to make the kinds of quick, confident design decisions that keep your projects on time and on track. If you're determined to do whatever it takes to build a remarkable residential interior design firm, then And join me on my mission to stop letting celebrity housewives, discount design, and HGTV define our industry. Then roll up your sleeves and let's dive in. When I was growing up, I always thought it would be super cool to be alive in the 1920s or maybe the turn of the century. A time when the industrial revolution was completely taking over and you just didn't know what was going to be coming out of the factories next. It was a crazy time, everything was new and exciting. And you could feel that literal electricity in the air since electricity was being developed and widely spread at the same time, too. It was chaos and everybody was worried about the effect that all this new technology was going to have on our lives. Now you can have your own opinions about whether technology has made things better or worse, but I'd say it's almost always both. There are pros and cons, two sides of the coin to every single advancement that we make. The thing is we're not going to stop advancing. Humans are built for experimenting and changing and trying new things. It's how we survive. So the question is can we ride the wave of excitement instead of living in fear? I'm personally not afraid of AI. Yes. I know that it's going to have a lot of cons but I also think that it's a tool like any tool. Electricity can help us stay up way past our bedtime and really get in the way of us getting a good night of sleep, but I certainly wouldn't want to give up electricity. The way I see any new technology is it's my responsibility to figure out how I'm going to let it be part of my life and how I'm going to use it so that I'm not blindsided by it or allowing it to control my decisions instead of me being very intentional with how I use it. Same thing with AI, it's a tool and we need to learn how to use it, and we need to make sure that we're using it rather than it using us. Right now, I'm definitely not afraid of AI because it's got so many limitations. If you've played with anything like ChatGPT, or MidJourney, you know that you can tell a lot of times when it was made by AI. With chat GPT, just the way it writes there's a lot of tells that make it quite obvious, if you're paying attention at all, that it wasn't written by a human. That means that if you're going to use it, just consider whatever it gives you to be a rough draft. Then you need to put your human fingerprint on it so that it actually reflects your voice and your brand, especially if you're using it as a business tool. And if you're playing around with mid journey, you know, that it can get things very wrong. And not just obvious things like how many fingers a human should have. But within our work as interior designers, it has a lot of trouble getting things like where faucets and fixtures should go. How many lamps should be in a certain area, whether or not you can just glue a clock onto a tile back splash. And it has things like staircases dead ending into walls in ways that just aren't going to be built in real life. Now, obviously AI is still very new. This is the wild wild west of AI. So it's going to get better at all of these things. But it still doesn't matter because at the end of the day, the real job of an interior designer goes so far beyond what AI can do. Quite frankly, if AI replaces some of the more menial jobs that I have as an interior designer, the more rote things that I have to do, that's just going to free up my time to do the things that AI cannot do. I mean, let's think about what our job really is. At the most fundamental level, we have to come up with a creative idea. Now, if I'm thinking about mid journey, it can give me some very creative ideas from some easy prompts. But we can't just have a creative idea. That creative idea. It has to align with our client's vision. It has to align with their budget and it has to align with their timeline. Now, some of that AI could probably figure out. But the first part, their vision is something that it's sort of like that garbage in, garbage out, kind of a thing. A client can't just go to AI and say, design me this thing I have in my mind if they're not able to articulate in the first place, what they have in mind. And that's the very first place where an interior designer becomes so good at their job. We are drawing out information from clients who don't actually know how to articulate what they want in the first place. So first we have to generate a creative idea that is founded on the vision of a client who probably can't articulate that idea very well in the first place. Then we have to come up with creative solutions that align with their vision, their budget and their timeline. The second thing we have to do is resolve disputes and help people navigate compromises because no interior design project, no construction project is ever going to give somebody everything they want because of the limitations. Those limitations might be something as simple as budget, but it also might be building limitations, structural limitations, city code limitations, HOA limitations. There are so many boundaries around what we do, and we have to be able to navigate all of those boundaries while still giving our clients the end result that they're looking for. AND while making sure that every party involved is also winning, right? Because the two partners or group of people, if it's a commercial project, may all have very different needs and goals and somehow we're supposed to resolve all of them. So again, could you just put all of that into some sort of an AI system and generate answers? Well, first of all, The information would have to be input so well that the AI can then generate an accurate answer, which goes back to the client. Can they actually articulate their needs or are they just trying to vomit all of their feelings onto you as an interior designer, hoping that you can make something out of this mess that this group of people is facing? You can't really vomit on AI the same way and expect to get results out. That is a very deeply human ability. Okay. So we have to come up with creative ideas that are buildable and align with everything. We have to resolve disputes and deal with all the priorities and come up with a compromise that still feels like a win. Then we have to manage people's expectations. Because they're going to have new ideas and they're going to see some shiny new object and want to incorporate that into the design. They're going to want things done faster than is possible. And they're going to expect superhuman abilities out of their contractors that either their contractors may not have, or they may not actually be paying for it because their budget isn't allowing for that level of detail or whatever we're talking about. So our job as interior designers is to manage the emotions and the expectations of our clients so that they understand what is reasonable to expect and don't feel let down at the end simply because they weren't expecting the right thing based on reality. Of course, all of that goes hand in hand with problem solving throughout the design process and if you're helping your clients implement the designs, then you've gotta be ready to problem solve in the moment. How many times have we designed a kitchen and then the contractor opens up the walls and goes:"Huh. There's a thing in the wall that we can't move within your budget, what do you want to do about that?" Not only are we coming up with literal practical problem solving to the problem but we're managing the expectations of our clients at the same time because they're going to be like,"oh no, this is a big problem, and I'm not going to get what I want." We have to help them understand that it's okay, we can solve this. This new solution is just as good as the old solution and things are still on track. It's that emotional problem solving that goes hand in hand with the practical problem-solving. Again, how could AI replace human skills in this way? If it does, I will be very surprised. And really all of that comes under the umbrella of being able to calm our clients down in the midst of a very expensive, very scary experience. And this is true, whether it's their first remodel experience or they've been around this block many times because every single remodel, every single construction project, comes with its own new challenges and surprises. Every single time is going to require new management of new expectations. Pricing changes, availability changes. If they're used to one way of being able to do something based on the climate of where they used to live, or the culture of where they used to live, they may have to be educated in what all that's going to mean and how it's going to translate in this new situation. AI is really good at doing a job. But humans... we don't respond well to being treated like robots. We have so many complicated emotions" and so often at the end of the day, my job is simply to make sure my clients feel listened to and heard, and that they feel encouraged that they're making good decisions, that they can feel confident in spending boatloads of money on things that they hope are all going to work together at the end of the day. AI can say"yes, ma'am, you've made good decisions," but without the compassion that comes by speaking to somebody who's been through it and knows that it's going to be okay? I'm just not sure how AI is actually going to calm the nerves of our clients, the way a human can. So as we think about AI, I encourage you not to be afraid of it. I encourage you to start using it right now so that you understand what it can do and what it can't do. And then you can use it to become very, very efficient at the things it's good at. Let it speed up the work that doesn't have to take as long, like throwing together the draft of an article that you're using to market your work. That's a great way to use AI. Maybe use some of the generative tools to very quickly show a client what a bright pink bathroom might look like. That's a great idea. There's no reason to spend more time doing something that can take less time. But don't try to use AI tools beyond their capability and don't be afraid they can do the things that only a human can do. That means that this stuff has to go hand in hand with getting even better at the things that only humans can do. Improve your interviewing skills, make sure that you're really, really good at drawing information out of your clients and helping them articulate what it is that they want so that you can efficiently and effectively get them from where they are to where they want to be. The more they can trust you to be effective and efficient the more they're going to allow you to help them push those design boundaries and be as creative as you can be. Get even better at helping people navigate choices and get really good at helping many people get on the same page. So often our clients think they mean really different things and they'll start arguing. But in fact, they have very similar goals. They're just using different words. So learn how to translate what your clients are saying, not only into design language, that you can then communicate to the contractors, but also into human language so that they can communicate with each other and realize that they're headed towards the same goal. We're really talking about what they call soft skills and soft skills are hard for AI to learn. I hope this makes you a little bit less afraid of the future and encourages you to start playing with tools like chat GPT, mid journey, and the rest of the AI tools that will continue to come out, so that you can make the best use of the skills and time that you have, stop doing the things that AI can easily do on your behalf, and get really well-known for the things that only a human can do. That's it for today. I'll see you next time.