Ep 41: How Interior Designers Are Using AI Today

Written By Jenna Gaidusek

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How Interior Designers Are Using AI Today | AI for Interior Designers™
AI for Interior Designers™ Podcast

How Interior Designers Are Using AI Today

A practical survey of the seven areas where AI is already making a measurable difference in design workflows — from client onboarding to procurement — with the specific tools designers are using in each one.

Ep. 41 Solo Episode ✦ Jenna Gaidusek Tools Mentioned February 2025
This blog was written using AI as a recap from the recording, then edited by the author for accuracy and details.
Key Takeaways
  • AI is proving most valuable in the parts of design work that are not design — client documentation, scheduling, procurement tracking, email drafting, and project setup. These are the tasks that consume designer hours without producing design value.
  • Notetakers (Fathom, Lindy, Plaud) combined with LLMs (ChatGPT, Perplexity) form the backbone of the most effective AI workflows — capturing what was said, then turning it into something usable.
  • AI for ideation and visualization is genuinely useful as a starting point — not a finished product. Generative tools like Midjourney and Visual Electric accelerate concept development and client communication; they do not replace the design decisions that follow.
  • Procurement automation is one of the highest-value, lowest-profile AI applications in design. Meti AI's ability to scan inboxes and track shipments without manual follow-up addresses one of the most time-consuming administrative burdens in the profession.
  • The full tool stack for a designer integrating AI is smaller than most people expect. A notetaker, a large language model, an image generation tool, a project management platform, and a scheduling tool covers the majority of high-impact use cases.

Seven Areas Where AI Is Actually Working in Design Workflows

This episode is a practical survey — not a theoretical overview of what AI might eventually do, but what designers are using right now. The seven categories below cover the full arc of a design project, from the first client conversation through procurement and delivery.

01 Client Onboarding & Project Kickoff
AI-powered notetakers record and transcribe client meetings — virtual and in-person — so designers can be fully present in the conversation rather than managing notes simultaneously. The transcript then feeds directly into proposal drafting, project briefs, and client preference documentation. What used to take hours of post-meeting write-up now takes minutes of AI-assisted processing.
Fathom Lindy Plaud ChatGPT
02 Project Management & Administration
AI-driven project management tools extract client details from meeting transcripts and automatically populate project templates — creating schedules, organizing material selections, and setting up project structure without manual data entry. MyDoma's AI assistant Max is the most integrated example of this in design-specific software.
MyDoma (Max) Motion Calendar
03 Ideation & Concept Development
Generative AI tools produce custom visual concepts from text descriptions — making it possible to explore design aesthetics that do not yet exist in photographs. Rather than scrolling Pinterest for another designer's work to reference, designers can prompt for exactly the direction they have in mind and use the output as a starting point for their own creative development.
Midjourney Visual Electric
04 Design Presentations & Renderings
Stable diffusion-based tools refine 2D mood boards, sketches, and concept images into high-resolution, photorealistic renders — elevating presentation quality without traditional rendering timelines. These AI enhancements are particularly useful for improving the realism of early-stage imagery before committing to full rendering.
Stable Diffusion tools Visual Electric MyArchitect
05 Floor Planning & 3D Visualization
MyDoma Visualizer enables quick floor plan generation and interactive layout development. Emerging AI tools can also convert 2D product images into interactive 3D models for AR applications — making immersive client presentations more accessible without requiring complex modeling software expertise.
MyDoma Visualizer MyArchitect
06 Procurement & Order Tracking
Meti AI scans inboxes for purchase orders, shipping updates, and tracking information — then automatically follows up on delayed shipments and provides real-time project timeline updates. For designers managing multiple client projects with dozens of product orders simultaneously, this level of procurement automation addresses one of the profession's most persistent time drains.
Meti AI
07 Business Operations & Communication
AI handles drafting and refining emails, contracts, and client updates — tasks that require professional language but not design expertise. Perplexity AI assists with research and writing. Motion Calendar automates scheduling and task prioritization. Together these tools handle the administrative layer of running a design business without requiring a dedicated office manager.
ChatGPT Perplexity AI Motion Calendar

The Bigger Point — What This Actually Frees Up

The seven areas above have something in common: none of them are the reason someone becomes an interior designer. They are the infrastructure that keeps a design business running. They are necessary. They are not the work.

When AI handles client transcript processing, proposal drafting, procurement follow-up, scheduling coordination, and email management, what does the designer get back? The hours that were previously spent on those tasks. Hours that can go toward site visits, material sourcing, creative development, client relationship building — the parts of design work that require a designer and that clients actually pay for.

"AI enhances efficiency, improves workflow, and saves designers time — without replacing the creative expertise that makes each project unique."

— Jenna Gaidusek

The common thread across all seven categories: AI excels at tasks that are repetitive, structured, and language-based. It is not yet capable of replacing spatial judgment, material expertise, client empathy, or the creative decisions that define good design. The best workflow is one that deploys AI against the former so the designer has more capacity for the latter.

For designers just getting started: pick one category from the seven above — ideally the one that is currently taking the most time — and implement one tool. Do not try to overhaul the entire workflow at once. One tool, used consistently, compounds over time.

Frequently Asked Questions
Meti AI is a procurement assistant that connects to your email inbox and automatically tracks purchase orders, shipping confirmations, and delivery updates across all your active client projects. When a shipment is delayed or a confirmation is missing, Meti follows up automatically — without you having to monitor each order individually. For designers managing multiple client projects simultaneously, this eliminates one of the most time-consuming administrative tasks in the profession: checking on where orders are and following up with vendors when they are not. It is particularly valuable during install phases when timing across multiple deliveries is critical.
Motion Calendar is an AI-powered scheduling and task management tool that does more than block time — it actively prioritizes and reschedules your tasks based on deadlines, meeting commitments, and available time. When a meeting is added or a deadline changes, Motion automatically reorganizes your schedule to accommodate it. For designers who manage multiple simultaneous projects with overlapping timelines, the automatic rescheduling function reduces the cognitive load of keeping everything in sync. It connects to Google Calendar and integrates with task management workflows.
These three tools address slightly different contexts. Fathom is a Zoom-native notetaker that joins virtual meetings, records them, and generates timestamped summaries and action items — excellent for online client calls. Lindy is a broader AI assistant that can handle note-taking and also automate follow-up workflows based on what happened in the meeting. Plaud is a physical device for in-person meetings — a recorder you hold or attach to your phone that captures two-way conversations and generates transcripts via its app. For most designers, Fathom or Loom handles virtual meetings and Plaud handles in-person work. Lindy is worth exploring if you want more automation built on top of the meeting notes.
MyArchitect is an AI-powered visualization tool designed for architects and designers that helps with conceptualization and 3D space visualization. It is particularly useful for the early ideation phase when you want to quickly generate spatial concepts or evaluate how different layouts feel before committing to detailed drawings. It is not a replacement for professional design software like AutoCAD or Chief Architect for construction documentation — it is an ideation and communication tool. Designers who work frequently on new construction or significant renovation projects may find it most relevant; it is less central for designers whose work is primarily furnishing and decorating existing spaces.
The primary distinction is source citation. Perplexity AI is designed as a research tool — it retrieves information from the web in real time and cites the specific sources for every answer it provides. This makes it significantly more useful for factual research (material specifications, manufacturer details, code requirements, industry news) because you can verify the information directly rather than trusting a model that may be working from outdated training data. ChatGPT is stronger for drafting, ideation, and conversation-based workflows. For research-heavy tasks — sourcing sustainable materials, comparing product specifications, learning about a certification standard — Perplexity is Jenna's recommended starting point.
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Disclaimer: This blog was written using AI as a recap from the recording then edited by the author for accuracy and details.

 
 
Jenna Gaidusek
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