Interior Design & Artificial Intelligence: How AI may transform the creative process.

Written By Wren Loucks

Will interior designers be replaced by AI? This question is rippling across the industry. I decided to research it for my MBA Dissertation at Univeristy College London. Here are my key findings.

Introduction

“I believe AI is going to change the world more than anything in the history of humanity. More than electricity.” Kai-Fu Lee, Author and Computer Scientist

Artificial Intelligence is the zeitgeist of our time. Incredible amounts of financial and human resources are being directed towards developing AI’ capabilities, often with the hopes of it being able to outrun human cognition. In the past 10 years, the number of AI companies in the UK has increased by 688%. The industry is currently worth £16.9 billion and is expected to grow to £803.7 billion by 2035 (Forbes, 2023). In 2022, the UK government published a ‘National AI Strategy’ which is set to make Britain a ‘global AI superpower’ by 2032 (National AI Strategy, 2022). Part of this plan includes boosting funding for the development of AI-related skills through scholarships and research centres (Britain to be made AI match-fit with £118 million skills package, 2023). Without a doubt, the focus and funding being directed towards the development of AI will accelerate its widespread use in businesses.

At the same time, there is an increasing awareness and concern about the addictive nature of AI-generated tools like Pinterest and Instagram, and the way they are negatively impacting our wellbeing (Harvard Business Review, 2022). How this is addressed, alongside the government backed incentives for businesses to incorporate AI into their business operations, has yet to be clearly reconciled. Alongside this, social values of wellness and environmental sustainability are also demanding businesses to provide ethical services that act in the best interest of humanity. Some of these drivers appear to be at odds with one another, placing pressure on business leaders to clearly define their business values and provide tangible evidence, like ESG reports, showing how they are embodied in their business operations, staff, and customer welfare.

How businesses incorporate AI, and the speed at which they do, will vary industry-to-industry, and within each industry, certain business functions will adapt more readily. For my final Master’s in Business Administration Dissertation at University College London, I decided to explore and examine the use of AI in the residential interior design industry in the UK, focusing on how it may be used in generating creative ideas. Here is a summary of my findings.

 Key Findings:

  • AI will not replace interior designers, but it is highly likely that it will transform the tools used by designers and the industry landscape over the next 10 years.

  • AI-creativity is different from human creativity: AI breaks things into parts and reconfigures them to create novel combinations. Human creativity can transcend this to evaluate an idea as a whole and within its context. AI-generated creativity should not be considered the same as human creativity.

  • The interior design industry should prepare for the future, by educating, experimenting, and researching on and how AI can be used in a productive way, that minimises existing risks such as creating deceptive 3D images, the addictive quality of the technology and algorithmic bias.

  • Interior designers should continue to develop existing creative skills, including hand drawing, collecting material samples, attending site visits to test materials in-situ, and visiting supplier showrooms and workshops. These skills will continue to be required, even as AI technology develops and improves.

Interior Design studios should prepare for the Future

With the development of AI-tools on the rise, studios should start preparing themselves. A variety of options are available:·      

  • Researching and monitoring how AI is being used by designers (in your studio and outside), and the tools becoming available direct to consumers. This is a low-risk and low-cost option for studios to maintain awareness of the market and how it is changing.

  • Studios that would like to take a more dynamic approach, can start strategically experimenting with the technology and creating internal processes for evaluating its outcomes.

  • All studios should educate themselves on the risks of AI-powered tools.

  • All studios should continue to use and develop other design tools like hand-sketching, supplier visits and building their material sample library.  As Chapter 2 & 3 illustrate, interior design requires senses beyond those that can be captured on the screen. Studios should not get overly distracted by AI and only focus on developing skills related to this technology.

Final Conclusions & Reflections

In October 2022, I attended a UCL MBA Immersion, where the global cohort of students gathered in London for a weekend of lectures and activities. The theme was ‘Artificial Intelligence & Digital Innovation’ and as part of the welcome pack, I was given a copy of Nobel-Prize winning author Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, Klara and the Sun.

Klara and the Sun tells the story of Klara, an ‘artificial friend’ or robot, who befriends a girl named Josie. Through the novel, Ishiguro explores through their interactions what it means to be human, and ‘not-quite-human’:

“Do you believe in the human heart? [asks Klara, the bot] I don’t mean simply the organ, obviously. I’m speaking in the poetic sense. The human heart. Do you think there is such a thing? Something that makes each of us special and individual?” (Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021).

Klara is unable to grasp and experience for herself as an AI-bot, the concept of a heart, beyond its function as an organ. Klara and the Sun elegantly illustrates AI’s inability to grasp that which is intangible—the heart as a vessel beyond its material form—as a symbol for the intangible qualities of love, empathy and human connection—these qualities which make us human.

And it’s these qualities which drew me into the profession of interior design in the first place. I wanted to help people create homes where they felt safe and secure. To do this, regardless of what tool you have at hand, you need to be able to listen to your clients and empathise with them—to do so you must build trust through human connection. Artificial intelligence cannot do this.

And this is what I would like to leave you with. As our tools become AI-powered, and more digital—and as businesses focus on how they can innovate through new technology, it’s important that we don’t forget the immense power of the oldest technology gifted to us at birth—that of the human heart.

Wren Loucks