Is the Interior Designer Doomed by 3D Generative AI?
Who hasn’t thought about losing their job to AI?
Many jobs are threatened by AI, including technical writers, software engineers, and graphic designers but the interior designer is definitely one to add to that list. While the average homeowner isn’t hiring a professional designer, even affordable-for-some human-involved design services like Spacejoy might soon be a thing of the past.
From idea to execution, soon AI will make designing and implementing a room excessively easier, even beyond what it’s done today. So, are you excited or terrified? Or… skeptical? Let’s break this down into 5 steps.
1) 2D Generative AI
First, we’re already seeing tools like Midjourney and Dalle3 being able to make fantastic renderings of rooms from text, from highly specific restaurants to everyday homes and in diverse cultures, from Swahili to Tibetian. This is providing inspiration for many, but we can take this further.
So, while these images might look 3D, it’s just the same tricks that painters have long used, this is still a 2D image. Flat as can be. It’s still impressive and can be very useful for interior design planning and inspiration.
2) AI Image Search
The next technology that interior designers should be on the lookout for is AI Image Search; it’s already here but getting better. Amazon or Pinterest or whatever company with the inventory and resources to implement this would do and has in many cases already has been done, is to integrate reverse image search into these renderings.
Like that chandelier in the generated image? Let’s find one that looks close enough like it. While this technology has a ways to go, it is getting better. Even with this, we’re still not at the whole story yet but it’s great for matching even hardware handles and getting pieces that won’t be generated as we’ll see later.
3) “Alexa, make me a shopping list”
Now that we have our first two steps, any reasonable company would make it easy to click on all the items in the image and make it easy to shop for as many of them as they can sell for you as they can. While shopping for something as visual as your interior design might not be practical to do from voice, it’s completely possible to imagine an Amazon wishlist of a whole room put together. Everything from the clock to the color of paint on the wall.
If it doesn’t exist? Well, that would feed into the algorithm for product designers to make. Amazon has taken over creators and vendors for items that already exist, why not for those that aren’t even in the market yet?
4) Print-on-Demand
But what if that product is close to something but just with a different pattern? Bring in print-on-demand. While this business model has existed for years, it’s taking off even more and will continue to do so with generative AI.
The art on your walls no longer has to be made by a human being, if you don’t want it to. A unique piece can be customized to your room and printed-on-demand to a canvas to be delivered to your door. This could soon extend to printed patterns for couches and pillows, even wallpaper.
5) But wait… where’s the 3D?
While many of these pieces are already in place, the next frontier is close. Even OpenAI is working on a project called Point-E that is far from complete but has key advancements.
While it seems like 2D already provides us enough, imagine being able to use your phone to scan your room, then the AI gets a 3D floor plan and figures out the existing style of your room to make suggestions, including considering the current lighting and features. You can use text prompts to make suggestions and changes, then go into the 3D model to make even more specific changes. You’ll get floor plans, renderings, a shopping list, custom art, custom fabric patterns, etc. all in a few clicks.
Consequences
This world sounds pretty amazing for the average consumer, as custom art and interior design have often been reserved for the elite. Artists and interior designers aren’t likely to be as thrilled, as work is likely to fade besides making more custom changes and sculptures for the even more elite. They might survive if they can figure out the algorithm and make pieces that match what consumers are reverse image searching for, but this will largely be pottery, crochet, and whatever they can find to make without mass production.
Maybe one of the biggest losers in this whole ordeal is the environment. Automatic systems aren’t made to accommodate thrift shops and reused goods. The ability to order the “perfect” space for your place makes it a lot harder to fit in that upcycled piece on Facebook marketplace or your great grandma’s grandfather clock. In addition, creativity might die in this as well. As AI recycles old concepts, it might combine some but ultimately it plays off the same old tropes.
So, dear reader, are you excited?
I… I’m conflicted.