Why AI Can’t Replace the Heart of Interior Design

In April, I joined Opus Vitae Construction for an insightful podcast episode. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can check it out here: Season 1, Episode 2: Through the eyes of an Interior Designer. We delved into a topic I haven’t taken the time to address, which is what effect AI will have in my field. So let's tackle the million-dollar question: Can AI take the place of interior designers?

My response: Nope, not a chance.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for AI and its incredible potential. No need for any fear there. But when it comes down to what we do—crafting spaces that truly feel like home—it's all about the human touch.

What we do is deeply intertwined with human interaction, understanding the layers of each individual and how they interact with space, color, and texture. It's not something a robot or AI can replicate. Period. End of story. It can’t replicate it. 

Here’s the deal. AI is great for inspiring ideas. It’s fun. It’s a tool. But even the best AI has weird elements to it and a lot of them create things that just cannot be built. It's fantastical. And I know you’ve seen the laughable AI where things are just flat out bad. The most common thread that runs through all of the AI generated interior design spaces that I have seen is that they are too perfect. They don’t feel right. And there it is…how it feels.

We have been using 3D at Lord Design for 14 years and it has been a great tool for helping to show our clients how their space or their entire home is going to look. We can walk you through it. We can change colors and textures and even show you your actual art in your virtual room but it never, no matter how hard we try, it never conveys how it’s going to feel. 

(Below: 3D Mockup & Outcome, Project done with Opus Vitae)

The best thing in the world is when our clients finally get to walk into the home that we have designed for them. That our build team has painstakingly and beautifully built for them and that our various vendors and crafts people have created installed items for. It is then and only then that they experience how it feels.

There is something about the energy that behind the human hand that designed, crafted, fussed over, worried about, collaborated on, delighted in, got pissed off about, rallied together for that one common goal which is to make the plans and the 3D images come to actual life so that our clients can feel at home. FEEL AT HOME. AI can’t do that. It’s what we do and what we are honored to do.

All of this is perfectly summed up in this quote—

AI doesn’t get it done…It doesn’t know how nor does it care, but we do. So, am I afraid of AI? 

Nope.

Til next time,
Arlene