How Interior Designers Can Use AI to Streamline Their Business Operations
Are you an interior design professional looking to stay at the forefront of the industry? It seems like every day there's a new AI tool or technological advancement that can make it feel overwhelming to keep up with. But instead of getting lost in the complexity, let’s simplify.
We’re not talking about automating the creative process of design itself. Instead, we’re focusing on the numerous tasks we manage as business owners. How can we leverage AI to streamline office tasks, boost productivity, and make more time for the work we love—both inside and outside the office?
AI Assistants: The Ultimate Time-Saving "Buddies"
Incorporating AI into your workflow doesn’t have to be complicated. I’m talking about AI assistants, custom GPTs, AI agents, or whatever term you prefer. Personally, I refer to them as my “Buddies.” These tools help me handle various tasks, optimizing my workflow and allowing me to focus on the design work that matters most.
What Are AI Assistants for Interior Designers?
AI assistants are custom bots built inside large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT (and others). GPT, or Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, is designed to understand human language and provide you with helpful responses. Think of it as a smart, digital assistant that can handle tasks based on specific instructions.
Because these AI tools have been trained on a massive amount of human-generated content, they’re able to understand your questions, predict the best possible answers, and provide you with human-like responses. Everything is done through a simple chat interface, much like sending a text.
How Do They Work?
Setting up a custom GPT for your interior design business takes just a few minutes. It’s similar to how you’d onboard a new team member or design assistant. You provide instructions, training documents, and examples of how you want tasks handled. Then, the AI assistant starts helping you immediately, though the more you interact with it, the better it becomes at understanding and fulfilling your needs.
One of the best parts? Your team, like interns or design assistants, can also use your custom GPTs to perform their jobs even more efficiently. AI isn’t here to replace your team, but to optimize workflows and increase the quality and speed of work.
How to Get Started with AI in Interior Design?
To start creating your own custom GPTs in ChatGPT, you’ll need at least the Plus account, which costs $20 per month. It’s a small investment that can pay for itself quickly, given the time it saves. If you have a team, consider the Team account to share GPTs with everyone across your company.
Examples of AI "Buddies" in Action
Here are some examples of how I use my custom GPTs to streamline my design business:
#Guru GPT: This AI assistant helps me keep up with daily Instagram posts by generating relevant hashtags, ALT text, and captions based on uploaded images. It’s a massive time-saver for social media management.
Budget Buddy GPT: For budgeting projects, this GPT generates itemized good-better-best spreadsheets. It provides detailed breakdowns of costs for each design element, which you can further customize as needed.
Service and Event GPT: These GPT’s assist with a specific product/ program/ service development, pricing strategies, copywriting, and event planning. It helps ensure consistency across all aspects of business and marketing.
Design Assistant GPT: One of my personal favorites, this GPT helps organize project information from client calls and questionnaires into a detailed project profile. It can even assist in creating prompts for AI image generators—perfect for those of us who want to create quick visual ideas without spending hours sketching.
An Introduction to the Future of Design, where we explored the transformative role of AI in the interior design industry. This webinar provided valuable insights for design professionals aiming to stay ahead of industry trends and leverage AI to enhance their creativity and workflow.
Why AI is a Game-Changer for Interior Designers
With nearly 20 custom GPTs running various tasks in my business, the real magic of AI is how it handles repetitive tasks, allowing me to focus on the creative, client-facing side of design. Remember, these AI tools aren’t here to replace your creativity—they’re here to give you more time to exercise it.
Using AI assistants is like building a virtual team that’s always ready to brainstorm, manage projects, and provide insights, freeing up your time to bring those ideas to life in the real world. The chat interface becomes your virtual meeting room, where all of your AI “buddies” work together to optimize your daily workflow.
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Ready to transform your interior design business with AI and learn how to build your own GPT’s? Check out The DAIly. Your Daily Dose of Actionable AI Education.
Written by Jenna Gaidusek, Designer/ founder AI for Interior Designers ™ Revised by Chat GPT.
