This kitchen design in a Darlinghurst apartment combines rich burgundy tones, dramatic marble, and sleek black accents, creating a bold and contemporary statement within the space.
For better or for worse, AI is here to stay. It’s making its mark on the design industry, both locally and globally, so we asked three experts in the field to weigh in.
Words Nishi Amaratunga
It doesn’t seem so long ago that artificial intelligence (AI) technology was the stuff of movies and futuristic sci-fi stories. But the future is now, and the rise of AI touches all our lives – though perhaps not how we originally imagined.
It’s hard to escape news of AI technology influencing and seeping into myriad industries globally. Some are excited about AI’s capabilities and the new doors it’s opening to solving the world’s problems, while others are concerned about how it will impact their profession. Either way, AI is likely here to stay.
But what role is AI playing in the design landscape locally? We spoke to three design creatives based in Australia to learn how they are integrating AI into their day-to-day workflow, and whether they are excited or worried about the role it’s playing in the industry.
AI meets interior design
Nicholas Kaiko, director and design principal at Kaiko Design Interiors, has been working on high-end residential projects, as well as luxury hotel projects, for more than a decade now. He has witnessed a lot of change in the industry first-hand during this time, including the rise of AI tech used in design. While some find learning how to navigate this brave new world daunting, Nicholas’s sentiments on the topic are very much the opposite. He’s excited that AI is becoming a powerful design tool, revolutionising interior design in real time. In his view, AI can help designers enhance creativity, improve efficiency and create personalised design solutions.
This striking kitchen concept, generated with AI tools, showcases bold contrasts and sculptural forms, pushing the boundaries of materiality and design innovation
“AI has become an invaluable tool in the world of interior design, enabling us as designers to ideate options based on the brief for our clients at speeds like never before. The cost benefits to the client are massive, but what I find most fascinating is the unlocked potential in pure creativity – based on a prompt,” Nicholas says.
He shares that in his experience, AI has facilitated transformative creative ideation through simple text prompts. And now, thanks to plugins available for popular design software like Revit, massing models traditionally used to showcase an interior’s layout can be transformed to help his clients visualise their home’s new interior.
“Sometimes these outputs can surprise you – combining materials or adding features that perhaps may never have been considered,” he reveals, when touching on the value of leaning on AI during the initial stages of the design process. “As designers, we approach a problem through our lens of past experiences and sources of inspiration – but the key here is time. AI is fast and it can be as constrained and analytical or as playful and creative as you prompt it to be. The prompt is key to your relative success with AI, and just like any skill, it can be learned.”
When asked whether he’s concerned AI will eventually replace the role of designers, Nicholas is optimistic. “While AI has undoubtedly changed the interior design landscape, I believe that it will not replace interior designers. Instead, AI will continue to enhance the designer’s role, enabling a more collaborative and people-centric approach to design,” he says. “I am proud to embrace AI as a tool for business and design, and I am personally excited about the possibilities it offers for the future of interior design.”
Adding value through renos … and AI
Kristen Jackson has a unique understanding of the benefits of AI in the design space. Kristen is the founder, project manager and designer at Wealth House, which specialises in renovating homes with the intention of maximising their value prior to sale. The Sydney property market has been hot for years, so Kristen knows the value of sprucing up a home before it hits the market.
“AI is particularly helpful in the early planning stages,” she shares, when describing how she leans on AI for her design work. “For example, I can upload a floor plan and ask ChatGPT to give me recommendations on ways to improve it, or if I have a specific challenge like adding in an ensuite or an extension. It helps expand the possibilities very quickly, and I can make changes based on local council and building codes.
“I’ve also used AI to help estimate renovation costs, even going so far as to upload a PDF of council fees, and it was able to calculate how much a DA approval would cost. What would take me a long time to calculate is done in seconds,” she explains.
Kristen has gone one step further recently, giving her savvy clients the chance to use AI when planning how to renovate to increase their home’s value. She’s built a custom AI chatbot, which is now live on her website. This invaluable tool is a hit with her would-be clients based in Sydney. Why? It lets them instantly calculate their home’s current value, and it also offers renovation recommendations to help increase the home’s value.
“This has been a great first step in the design process as potential clients can explore options on their own before they contact me to determine that, yes, renovations will add value, and which ones they should focus on,” she adds.
Whimsical walls and AI
Designer Damian Corney is no stranger to working closely with clients to help them design their dream space. He’s the founder and creative director of Grafico – you may know them from their wallpapers featured in The Block. He and his team specialise in custom print wallpapers, art prints and tiles for residential and commercial interiors and exteriors. Grafico has an in-house design team and manufacturing and printing facilities in Melbourne, meaning their designs are created by locals, for locals. As Damian explains, AI technology has begun to play an important role in their workflow. “We’ve integrated AI into our design process to ‘aid’, not ‘replace’, our design team consisting of graphic designers and an interior-focused sales team.”
He says the Grafico sales team lean on AI to produce quick mock-ups of their products against walls to give clients a fast yet effective visual of how the product will transform their home. At this point, the client can easily decide whether the tile or wallpaper’s print or pattern suits their home and its existing decor. And if not, they can decide whether to go ahead with the wallpaper or tile purchase and tweak the home’s interior styling to suit, or keep searching for a more suitable design – well before they commit to the purchase and bring it home for application.
Damian shares a recent anecdote of how this way of integrating AI into their way of working helped solve a client problem via speedy new mock-ups. “For example, a client I was dealing with recently wanted a particular pattern of gingham wallpaper on their walls. The bedspread and furniture clashed with the wallpaper choice, so we used AI to quickly replace all the bedroom furniture with more suitable pieces which complemented the wallpaper. Of course, the client loved this and proceeded with purchasing the wallpaper (and a new bedspread from someone else).”
When asked if he feels AI has or will replace traditional design methods or processes, Damian’s response aligns with the thoughts of many leaders in the design space. He believes that while AI is useful to integrate into the design process where possible, it is not yet quite capable of doing things like creating large-scale prints for his business.
“Our team might utilise AI to assist with small elements in a design. For example, if we’re trying to design a small flower pattern and need a particular small leaf or flower in the pattern, we might use AI to assist. However, the rest of the pattern and design would still be completed by our design team in-house,” Damian shares. What AI does contribute to in his line of work is fast mock-ups to help his clients with their decision process.
If AI can be used creatively to help improve client satisfaction, then leaning into it in an ethical and responsible way will no doubt become an obvious next step for many creatives in the design space.
Change is the only constant in this world, and the introduction of AI is certainly accelerating it. But these designers are proving that embracing change and finding creative solutions to integrate new technology into their work not only benefits their businesses, but their clients too, thanks to this out-of-box thinking.
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