The AI-Interior Design Hype: Human Touch vs. Homogenization

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Interior design is inherently human. Perhaps more than any other art, this discipline is rooted in storytelling, intuition, and emotional resonance. It relates us to other people, encouraging us to understand and advocate for them in a way that few creative pursuits do.

Over the last few decades, advancements in technology have made design faster, easier, and more precise. Programs like SketchUp, AutoCAD, and Revit have enhanced our work, not threatened it. But artificial intelligence (AI) feels different. What happens when creativity meets computation? Does AI liberate or constrain our craft?

We are not posing the question of whether AI can generate the “perfect” color palette or layout. We are making a deeper inquiry into the soul of interior design: How do we evolve without losing what makes design human?

This article was originally published in the Winter 2025 issue of DesignDash Magazine.

But isn’t design about problem-solving?

Design is about problem-solving, yes—but it’s also about serendipity, intuition, and emotional connection. Can AI, grounded in data and patterns, replicate the unplanned sparks that lead to groundbreaking ideas?

Philosopher Herbert Simon described creativity as a “process of problem-solving within constraints.” AI excels at constraints—budget, dimensions, sustainability—but where does it find its heart? And, when we are all using the same problems, can it actually create unique solutions?

“Visual generative AI tools can’t yet think like a designer…they lack a sophisticated understanding of the meaning, context, and aesthetic desires that underpin them.”

—Tim Nelson, in Architectural Digest

Exploring the Current Landscape

AI has rapidly become a part of the interior design landscape by offering both creative and operational support. Of course, AI’s role varies widely depending on how designers integrate it into their work. Some use AI as an assistant for inspiration and iterative prototyping, while others rely on its efficiency to streamline processes like client communication and content creation.

Interviewed by Aidan Taylor last Spring for Business of Home, Lisette Fernandez-Hilson and Chelsea Lembi Murawski of Together Home highlight AI’s creative potential in their firm. “We’ve been using it mostly to edit the color and texture of things like tile, walls, and furnishings in client presentations and during our inspiration and design process,” they shared with Taylor in his article, “Are You Using AI?” This has allowed Fernandez-Hilson and Murawski to experiment and refine quickly while maintaining creative control.

AI also supports designers beyond visual work. Cheryl Luckett of Dwell by Cheryl Interiors uses it as a practical tool for day-to-day operations: “AI serves as a valuable resource for sparking inspiration in content creation,” she said in the same Business of Home feature. Whether drafting social media posts or brainstorming blog topics, Luckett’s team leverages AI to save time while engaging their audience.

For some designers, AI’s true value lies in its ability to bridge the gap between creative vision and client understanding. Shelley Cekirge of Shelley Cekirge Interiors explained, “AI has made my job infinitely easier… Being able to show clients a rendering ensures that it is clear for them too.”

Speaking to Business of Home, Cekirge emphasized how AI-generated renderings help convey concepts more effectively so that clients align with the vision before moving forward.

Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

Initially, many AI tools were too amateurish, producing renderings with obvious flaws and incredibly awkward design elements. But one has only to explore Midjourney’s newest edition to see that AI is rapidly evolving. Fred Nicolaus of Business of Home describes its latest update as “a definite leap forward,” with outputs that rival professional renderings.

This progress raises deeper questions about the role of human designers.

AI can now generate polished visualizations in seconds, but interior design is about so much more than aesthetic precision. As noted in the first lines of this article, interior design is about storytelling and creating spaces that evoke emotion and meaning.

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AI may produce a flawless rendering of a “minimalist coastal living room,” but it doesn’t understand why that space matters to a client or the personal narratives it should embody.

MidJourney’s advancements highlight AI’s growing capabilities, but speed and sophistication aren’t substitutes for human intuition. The designer’s role remains rooted in empathy and storytelling—qualities that transform abstract ideas into deeply personal spaces. As designers, we are challenged not to compete with AI’s efficiency but to leverage what sets us apart: the ability to imbue designs with soul and connection.

What we stand to lose…

Design is inherently diverse: we all have different client bases, personal backgrounds, thought processes, and sources of inspiration. A primary issue with AI adoption in interior design is homogenization.

Could AI standardize design? When tools are trained on similar datasets, they tend to produce outputs that feel eerily familiar.

Again writing for Business of Home, Fred Nicolaus, warns, “Tools trained on the same datasets can produce eerily similar outputs.” If using programs like Midjourney to generate renderings or flesh out ideas, we encourage designers to use AI only as a jumping-off point for inspiration rather than as a crutch for final solutions.

AI’s reliance on existing data raises deeper questions about originality, intellectual property, and creative ethics. Programs like MidJourney scrape vast amounts of art and design from the internet—often without the creators’ permission—to train their algorithms. We’ve all read about backlash from artists and designers. Some of us have loudly registered our own protest online—concerned that our work is being used without consent or credit.

“Tools trained on the same datasets can produce eerily similar outputs.”

—Fred Nicolaus, Business of Home

Illustrator Jackie Ferrentino described this process vividly, saying, “A.I. programs scrape human artists’ work to Frankenstein them into a new creation,” as cited in Justin Kim’s New York Times op-ed “A Letter to MidJourney.”

This raises a thorny ethical question: Does the way AI amalgamates existing work amount to theft, or is it merely an extension of how humans take inspiration? After all, designers and artists throughout history have drawn from the work of others—consciously or unconsciously—in their own creative processes.

The difference lies in agency and intentionality. When humans take inspiration, it’s often filtered through their unique perspective, context, and emotional intent, whereas AI indiscriminately pulls from a vast repository.

It combines fragments of other artists’ and designers’ work without understanding or acknowledgment of their origins. Even when users craft highly detailed prompts and refine images through iterations, they are inadvertently drawing from the collective labor of countless creators. For example, the image above is an interior created by Laura U Design Collective. The image below is one created by AI using the above image and a series of other photos as inspiration. When you use AI to generate design ideas, how do you know you’re not plagiarizing someone else?

This blurring of boundaries challenges traditional notions of authorship and originality. Designers leveraging AI must grapple with these ethical dilemmas—asking themselves how to use these tools responsibly while respecting the labor and intellectual property of their peers.

We’re not asking you to refrain from using AI—quite the opposite.

Like other technologies, AI has the power to expand our work. Without appropriate guardrails from regulatory agencies, the responsibility falls on us to wield it responsibly and use AI as an extension of—not a replacement for—the human spirit. Design is a profoundly human act—one that interprets emotion, tells stories, and shapes spaces that resonate. We’re not asking you to refrain from using AI—quite the opposite. Explore, innovate, and advance your design work, but do so thoughtfully.

• Start small—stay curious.
• Collaborate intentionally.
• Use it to curate—not create.
• Preserve the narrative.
• Give credit where credit is due.

“Perhaps you are also merely a new medium for artistic creation. But if so, you must be bound by the same code as us. Therefore, we artists declare: if you are here to stay, you will be leashed.”

—Justin Kim of Seoul Foreign School in Seoul, The New York Times

Have More Questions About AI in Interior Design?

Learn more about how AI interior design enhances the process through data analysis, mood and style recognition, virtual consultations, and AR visualizations in this DesignDash article, but be sure to focus on how irreplaceable people truly are. Join the DesignDash Community to continue this conversation.

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