The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of AI in Interior Design
It isn't lost on us as designers that using AI will soon become a part of everyday life — if it hasn't already. While it feels like we are moving towards AI being the next internet, or the computers of this generation, it is important to look at the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to designers using it in everyday work.
Transparently, here at M. Swabb, we have seen more good come from the ways we use AI in our practice than not. It has quickly become more than just a hot topic in the design world — it is now a part of designers' everyday habits. So let's get into it.
THE GOOD: What's actually working for us
Renderings
Our process before implementing AI rendering software was pretty seamless and worked well for us. Building 3D models started in SketchUp and were rendered through the V-Ray extension. We had success with this workflow for years. Our renderings came out incredibly well, and most importantly, our clients were able to visualize what their transformed homes would look like. We were happy with the output.
Then came the ads. Platform after platform promising even more realistic renderings. We ignored them for a while, but eventually decided to put it to the test. We tasked both of our senior designers with trying a new AI rendering platform each and seeing which performed best.
We were blown away, for the most part... we will get to that later.
The biggest difference we saw immediately was depth. The images had a quality that our V-Ray renderings weren't quite capturing. Veining in the stone, grout lines, the way color shifts in different light, the shadows that make a space feel lived in and real. It was the kind of detail that makes a client lean in during a presentation instead of just nodding along.
Note Taking
Another way AI has transformed our workflow actually came from observing our client using an AI note-taking app during one of our meetings. Before we could even write up our own summary to send over, we received a comprehensive meeting recap straight to our inboxes. We all looked at each other and immediately said, "Whatever that is, we need it."
While M. Swabb is still tried and true pen and paper note takers at heart, implementing an AI note taker during meetings has changed the game for us. Nothing falls through the cracks, every decision is documented, and we never miss a beat.
Emails
Don't get it twisted here, you can still count on us (not AI) being the ones writing our emails back to clients, contractors, and everyone in between. However, AI has quickly turned wordy, misspelled, and unorganized emails into clear, polished, and professional communication that actually says what we mean, the first time.
When the math isnt mathing
Over on M. Swabb coordination island, our team is in a constant state of running numbers, and sometimes those numbers don't add up. For our coordinators, the ability to copy a proposal, invoice, or PO over to AI and ask why things aren't matching up has saved an incredible amount of time and headaches. Instead of pulling someone away from their work to get a second pair of eyes, they can efficiently find exactly where things went sideways, on their own, in a fraction of the time. The math is mathing a lot more these days.
THE BAD: What's not working so well
Recommendations aren't always reliable
We have all been there. You ask ChatGPT a quick question about a specific finish, a compatible bulb for a sconce, or which fabric will hold up in a high-traffic space, and boom, it gives you an answer that sounds completely confident and turns out to be completely wrong, or just close enough to be confusing.
AI doesn't know it all, and without specific, detailed prompting, it is very easy to get back a response that is generic, outdated, or just off the mark entirely. The more niche the question, the higher the chances that AI is filling in the gaps with its best guess rather than a real answer. And in this industry, a best guess can mean ordering the wrong material, specifying the wrong product, or sending a client down a path that costs everyone time and money to course correct.
The lesson we have learned is that AI is only as good as the question you ask it. Vague in, vague out. It rewards specificity and punishes assumptions. Until you learn how to speak its language and ask the right way, it can send you in circles faster than it solves your problem. We have all wasted more time fact-checking a confident AI answer than we would have spent just picking up the phone and calling our rep.
Client misconceptions
We have seen this in our studio a few times. We meet for an initial consultation with a client, and when we ask about style preferences, they quickly tell us they have just the thing. A very clearly AI-generated photo of a stunning kitchen is before us, with a budget well under what it would take to get us remotely close to the image.
Everyone's a designer now
AI design tools have made it very easy for people to generate a room concept in minutes, which is great for accessibility, but has also created a wave of people who underestimate how much expertise goes into real design work.
THE UGLY: What AI will never touch
Human-centered design
What AI has not mastered, and never will, is the human-centered approach we at M. Swabb bring to each project we touch. There is a humanistic element to design that cannot be replicated through AI, and that will forever be the driving force behind why we believe interior design will not fall to the rise of AI.
We are in the business of people. We sit across from our clients and listen, not just to what they say they want, but to what they light up about. We walk through their homes and feel the energy of the space. We notice the family photos on the wall, the worn spot on the sofa where someone clearly spends every evening, and the way the afternoon light pours through a specific window. Those details inform every decision we make, and no AI prompt in the world can capture them.
Design is also deeply emotional. A home is where life happens, where families grow, where people retreat after hard days and celebrate the good ones. Getting that right requires empathy, intuition, and a genuine relationship with the people we are designing for. It requires us to sometimes push back on what a client thinks they want and guide them toward what we know they will love. That kind of trust is built between humans, over conversations and time, not generated by an algorithm.
AI is a remarkable tool, and we are grateful for what it has added to our process. But the heart of what we do at M. Swabb has always been, and will always be, deeply human. That is something worth protecting, and something we have no intention of letting go of.