Predictions For The Future of Interior Design & AI from a Business Consultant
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The topic everyone is talking about or thinking about: AI and its impact on business. There is endless information you can find on the topic, and it changes daily, because the technology and tools are improving and expanding so quickly. We’re finding out in real time the effects AI has on our work, our clients, our brains, the world, etc.
When I think about the interior design industry specifically, not just what I’m seeing as a business consultant to interior designers but also as a homeowner who hires interior designers (we are currently working with a designer on a massive renovation + addition + furnishing project), there are a LOT of thoughts flying around.
Creativity can't be replicated.
Relationships are king.
Human touch is where the value is.
And I agree with this. The results I’ve gotten in my own homes from working with interior designers could never have been achieved by AI. It is night and day.
But there are also large parts of business that are changing or going away, in part because the client base is changing (interior design clients are now ones who grew up with access to the internet so they have very different expectations than the older client base who grew up in an analog world with fax machines and magazines or mail order catalogs) and also in part because AI has removed the ‘elusiveness’ of some parts of the process.
So, here are some predictions I’m exploring about the future of interior design.
NOTE: I say ‘exploring’ because I’m not a research analyst or futures strategist or economist or political know-it-all. These are loose ideas based on my specific experiences and what I’m seeing in my tiny corner of the world.
AI is not going to destroy interior design. Far from it in fact. But it is going to eliminate a specific tier of interior design, and that tier is where a significant portion of working designers currently live.
😩
The middle.
The generalist who does good work for a reasonable fee, who sources from the same vendors everyone else has access to, who relies mostly on non-custom trade items or retail, who bills hourly for research and procurement, and who focuses on furnishings only projects.
That designer is in real trouble. Not eventually. But likely they are already seeing it/feeling it in their pipelines.
The designers who come out on top over the next decade are going to look very different from the average successful designer of the last one. And the gap between those two business types is going to be wider than it is now.
As you’ve surely heard the phrase, “AI has lowered the floor but raised the bar.”
Meaning, anyone can get into interior design now (heck, even some of your clients think they’re designers because they know how to get ChatGPT to make them a moodboard 🫠🫠🫠) but this means the bar for what is valuable has gone way up.
The Interior Design Services & Business Models That Will Go Away
01 | RETAIL ONLY FURNISHINGS DESIGN GOES TO AI & RETAILERS
Retail-only furnishings design is the most obvious casualty. If your value proposition is helping someone pick pieces from Pottery Barn and arrange a room, AI can do that now, and it will do it better and cheaper by the month. Imagine in a few years. So if you charge a design fee to source retail, it’s time to learn how to sell custom.
02 | HOURLY BILLING FOR RESEARCH & SOURCING GOES AWAY
Hourly billing for research and sourcing will get even more scrutiny from clients and will likely go away entirely. Here's my thinking:
This billing model was built on information asymmetry. You as an interior designer knew things your client didn't. The vendors, the lead times, what was available at trade and what wasn't. That knowledge gap was real, and it justified the billable hours. You were charging for access to information clients could not get anywhere else.
But that gap is closing.
A client can now go to ChatGPT, describe exactly what they want, and get a reasonable starting list in about 45 seconds. They can search Houzz, online showrooms that sell a variety of vendor lines, and 1stDibs in ways that used to require industry access and insider knowledge. So this “new client type” is arriving at your first meeting having already done a version of the research. Not an experienced interior designer’s version, but a version, nonetheless.
So when they then get your invoice and there are multiple hours billed for sourcing and they know it only took them 10 minutes to find something, even if your work is better and more specific, there’s friction because the math will feel wrong to them.
And when there’s friction, there’s pushback and loss of trust which can quickly derail an entire project.
03 | PRODUCT MARKUP AS THE ONLY REVENUE SOURCE IS EVEN MORE OUT THAN NORMAL
If you’ve been here more than a minute, you know I do not recommend markup as your only revenue source. But there are still some designers who will give away their expertise for free in the hopes of making the sale.
😮💨😮💨😮💨
But product markup as a primary revenue model is even LESS sustainable than it was before AI. As procurement becomes more transparent and clients become more sophisticated, the margin-on-furniture model alone becomes harder to defend.
04 | HOURLY BILLING AS THE ONLY SOURCE OF REVENUE & “SHARING YOUR DISCOUNT”
Now, this is not a very common billing methodology (I’ve spoken to two accounting firms that work specifically with interior designers to confirm this) but there are some designers who either ONLY charge hourly OR charge a higher hourly rate and then charge zero product markup. This way, their client gets their trade pricing on products and the designer gets the higher hourly rate. The thought here is the designer can get more clients because they’re giving their trade pricing away.
→If this is your billing model, expect lower income.
The future of AI + an increasingly more discerning & tech savvy client base = fewer hours to bill.
Example: let’s say designers in your market charge $200/hour plus product markup. An average room is $35k to fully furnish and takes you 30 hours. Your markup is 100% (you only source custom, more on that here).
scenario one: hourly billing + markup
Design Fees: $6,000 (30x$200)
Furnishing Sales PROFIT: $17,500 (50% of $35k)
TOTAL REVENUE: $23,500
But, let’s say you decide to ‘share your discount’ or ‘split the discount’ (what the….) and just increase your hourly rate so you can offset. So you set your hourly rate to $400/hour.
scenario two: hourly billing only, no markup
Design Fees: $12,000 (30x$400)
Furnishing Sales PROFIT: $0
TOTAL REVENUE: $12,000
Now, imagine it’s 10 years from now and AI has shaved 50% of the time off your process and products have stayed the same price. You’ll make even LESS because there will be fewer billable hours in a design project.
05 | JUNIOR DESIGNERS & DESIGN ASSISTANTS HAVE A DIFFERENT PATH
The original path for a junior designer or design assistant has them finishing school then spending a few years at a firm doing research, sourcing, preliminary drawings, and admin. With AI tools taking over those tasks, that traditional path becomes more compressed which changes hiring, training, and the number of people working at firms.
I think this will impact what is being taught in design school - almost a specific course teaching designers how to utilize AI throughout certain parts of the process. Or perhaps there is an opening for a new business → post design school, pre-client facing AI training. Almost creating AI experts out of up and coming designers. Something to explore more with Gloria (a tenured professor) from my team in this article.
06 | THE GENERALIST GETS SQUEEZED OUT
And the generalist … oh, the generalist. The interior designer who does anything for anyone, residential and commercial, new builds and pillow fluffs, high-end and middle market, full service or only floor plans. This interior designer gets squeezed from both sides. If you fit here, you’re likely already seeing this in your pipeline.
This interior designer isn’t distinct enough to command premium fees from clients who want a specialist but they’re also not cheap enough to compete against AI-assisted firms working with a high volume of clients at a low price.
This has never been a good place to be in business, but it’s especially tough right now and we’re seeing the impacts as lots of these firms close their doors.
So what business models will stay? What new business models and niches will emerge?
So many. And again, I say this not just thinking about how AI will shape our future, but also how people, human behavior, and expectations are changing overall. Some due to what’s happening in the world right now, some due to money, some due to the new generations of homeowners who have had internet access since the day they were born.
My Future Predictions for Interior Design Niches and Business Models
01 | DESIGN EXPERTISE AND LOCAL RELATIONSHIPS WILL SEPARATE FROM PROJECT EXECUTION
The interior designer who can think, advise, and specify without needing to manage every vendor call and site visit becomes extremely valuable. The one whose entire business model depends on execution starts competing with contractors, AI tools, contractors who use AI tools, and procurement firms. Advisory-only models, once considered niche or only for the highest-end designers, will become a legitimate and lucrative practice structure. We’re seeing this with sites like The Expert and TALD.
02 | CLIENTS WILL SPEND MORE TIME AT HOME THAN EVER AND HAVE MORE SPECIFIC NEEDS
The cultural shift is here and it’s real. People are spending more time at home than ever. They’re not treating their homes as launch pads or a place to look good and host occasionally. They’re treating them as the primary place where life happens, where they recover, regulate, retreat, recharge. This changes the scope (and skill set) in just about every project. Clients will want to know how a space will feel and function at 6am and 10pm, how it will grow with a family through every season of life, adolescence, empty nesting, grandkids, etc.
And what clients want inside their homes is getting more specific and more complex. Safe rooms. Backup systems. Home spas and studios. Privacy architecture. Bunkers. Dedicated food storage that's way more stocked than the everyday pantry.
Look at what the ultra rich are doing in their homes and think about how those features will be made available at a lower price or adapted for the average consumer.
With technology advances and ‘smart devices’, people will also expect that their homes will respond and become smarter. In the future this might mean materials and lighting systems that shift with temperature, time of day, and mood.
Interior designers who understand behavioral psychology and these new smart materials will be in a different category entirely.
03 | A DEMAND FOR ANALOG ROOMS
We’re already seeing this, but I think it will be even more in demand as people actively work to unplug to reduce and reverse the negative implications of AI tools and all.that.screen.time.
In-home libraries with real books (REAL BOOKS!!) will be more popular than ever. I think people will start treating ‘reading paper pages’ the way they currently treat ‘taking 10,000 steps a day’.
And as clients are staying in place due to interest rates and the crazy cost of eVeRYthINg, they’ll rethink their current home layouts and get rid of formal rooms that aren’t being used (dining rooms, living rooms) and instead turn them into spaces where they can unplug.
I think interior designers will get more requests for screen-free spaces built around low-tech activities like board games, record players, instruments, puzzles, books, conversation without a TV as the focal point.
If you start talking about analog spaces in your marketing, you can be the one who verbalizes the demand for what people are already starting to crave.
04 | THE MODERN FAMILY WILL SHIFT AND IMPACT FLOOR PLANS
The typical nuclear family model (two married adults + kids = one primary suite + smaller kid rooms) is changing.
I’m seeing lots of things:
People who choose not to get married at all
People who choose not to have children
People who choose to have children without a partner
Women who choose not to remarry after divorce
Adult children who live at home
Adults who choose to cohabit but are not romantically involved
Adults with children who choose to cohabit but are not romantically involved
And of course, interior designers have always had to account for aging parents moving in.
What does this mean for interior designers or home trends?
There will be (or already is) an increased demand for two primary suites in a home which means designers need to excel at spatial planning to accommodate these requests and understand them. If designers claim they provide “timeless designs” then designing spaces with dual primary suites is certainly a timeless element to include in your current designs knowing how a family may age and grow over time.
05 | CHILDREN’S SPACES WILL BECOME A PRIORITY
As a mom of three school-aged children, this one is a sad reality. I will never forget watching the news coverage of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, sobbing for those children and their families and that community, while nursing my first born.
Our kids have been doing active shooter drills since preschool. They are the most anxious generation ever documented, thanks to social media, school shootings, cyberbullying, and academic pressure that never even existed twenty years ago (I mean, we just registered our first born for high school and it was more complex than when I registered for out of state college 25 years ago!!).
Parents will start investing more seriously in their kids' spaces so they support emotional regulation and provide a safe space of calm.
And a growing number of those parents are also pulling their kids out of school entirely. There was a huge jump during COVID and those numbers have stayed, and continue to climb.
The most common reason parents give for homeschooling is concern about the school environment, cited by 83% of homeschooling parents (Pew Research Center). Add that to the fact that AI tools have made homeschooling far more accessible for families who previously felt unqualified or like it would be too expensive.
And when you factor in that homeschooled student numbers are rising while the total U.S. student population is declining due to falling birth rates (Johns Hopkins University), these families are choosing this with real intention and dedication.
For interior designers, this means a dedicated at home learning space moves from a nice-to-have into a standalone room category. Not a desk in the corner of a bedroom or tucked under a loft bed, but a fully designed room with good lighting, functional work surfaces, smart storage, and enough flexibility to support different ages and learning styles as kids grow.
Interior designers who understand child development and homeschooling needs and how a space supports focus, calm, and creativity can own an entire niche.
And don’t forget, more kids are staying at home as adults, so having these spaces designed with durable, quality, lasting materials is of even more importance. No more cheap crap!
06 | NATURAL IMPERFECTIONS & HUMAN MADE WILL BECOME THE ULTIMATE LUXURY SIGNAL
We’re seeing this in social media and in photo shoots - people don’t want perfect. They want real and authentic. They want pets in scenes. They want messy. They want behind-the-scenes.
When AI can generate perfect images, when every photo shoot is polished and copy-able, the thing that signals real wealth and real taste is the piece that’s handmade, irregular, one-of-a-kind. The pieces that can be found nowhere else and can’t be reverse image google searched.
And this is only going to become more explicit. We're already moving toward a world where things are labeled “This is AI generated.” vs “This is made by a human.” (people truly can’t tell the difference anymore) and people will choose the human-made item and place more value on it because it will become more rare. Now this won’t always be true and sometimes people just want what’s cheap and fast, but when it comes to the discerning client, they will prioritize the human made thing. And the discerning client is the ideal client for most interior designers.
This is where the interior-designer-as-taste-maker-and-curator positioning becomes invaluable.
Not "I have access to trade". Every designer has that. But "I know makers and artisans you cannot find on your own, and I have relationships with them that took years to build."
Your network. The human touch. THAT becomes your value.
07 | MEN EMERGE AS A SIGNIFICANT AND UNDERSERVED MARKET
Divorced men in their 40s and 50s who are starting over. Single men in their 30s who have money yet no idea what to do with a space. Men who watched their partners drive every design decision for twenty years and want a different outcome this time.
This market is large, it is underserved, and it responds very differently to the way most design services are currently marketed and delivered.
Over my years of working with interior designers I only worked with TWO design firms that specifically marketed to men. And guess what? Those businesses were (and still are) BOOMING.
And, sorry to make such a generalization, but with men come game rooms. 76% of American adults now identify as gamers, and Millennials alone make up 25% of that population (Gamblespot) meaning the man in his late 30s or early 40s who grew up gaming hasn't stopped.
He just has more money now and a whole house to work with. The aesthetic he wants has also matured. Think warm wood tones, sophisticated lighting, masculine materials not neon arcade chaos and trashy signs.
Most interior designers aren't positioning themselves anywhere near this conversation and it is one to focus on if you tend to have a more masculine style or prefer to work with men.
08 | HEALTH WILL BECOME A BASELINE DESIGN REQUIREMENT
Air quality. Light quality. Acoustic design. Material toxicity. Circadian rhythm support. Feng shui. Your cycle. Your star sign. (lol)
These are becoming baseline expectations for high-end clients, and it’s happening quickly as people are more focused on health and wellness and as there is more information available about healthy lifestyle choices and the toxicities in our homes and how they’re impacting our bodies.
The interior designer who can speak fluently and proactively about the health implications of materials will be speaking the language of health minded, high end clients.
Again, you can verbalize this to bring attention to it for the clients who want this but don’t realize they can get it by working with an interior designer.
The Interior Design Business Models that Stay & Go
Those are some trends and niches I think will explode over the next ten years or so. But that’s just one part of it. Your niche has to be within a business model that’s not going away.
Here are the ones I think will stay and the ones I think will disappear.
Interior Design Business Models that Survive:
High-end custom full-service firms built around deep human understanding
Design advisory practices with no project management at all
Firms that specialize in biophilic design, multigenerational homes, safe rooms and privacy architecture, children's spaces, health-forward design, men’s designs
Maker-designer firms where the designer either creates their own pieces or works with local artisans to produce one-of-a-kind work
Designer-plus-AI-tools firms that use technology to work at a scale and volume solo designers couldn't previously reach
Owner's representation and construction expertise
Procurement-only firms serving other designers
New construction and remodeling specialists
Interior Design Business Models that Don't Survive:
Retail-only furnishings
Hourly billing for research and sourcing
Billing for design services only and giving clients your trade pricing
Generalists without a distinct positioning
Product markup as the primary revenue model
The traditional junior designer role as currently structured
The designers who thrive in the next decade are going to be the ones who understood, earlier than everyone else, that their value was always about how they think, how good they are at ‘diagnosing’ their clients’ style and turning it into a real live space, what they know about people and human behavior, and the relationships they've spent years building with makers and vendors who trust them.
AI is hollowing out the middle of the interior design industry right now, and it’s happening fast (in fact, you’re likely seeing it happen right in front of you as fellow interior designers begin offering coaching services to other designers). But the interior designers who are differentiating, specializing, and building business models are the ones who will come out on top once AI becomes a normal, regulated part of everyday life.
