Navigating AI Opportunities, Risks, and Strategies for Interior Design

Understand the Risks and Rewards

Maria Martin, founder of design creation application Design Appy, warned that architects and designers may not be aware of the lack of transparency or privacy of some applications or tools. She is concerned that some of her peers using AI don’t realize that the information they feed into or outputs they receive can be used to train models and left for public use.

“How private is what you’re doing and those platforms that you’re using?” she inquired. “It’s the idea of what’s your creative value, and then what’s the privacy policy of the platform. Do those two things align?”

Platforms aimed at interior design will often have a designer upload their own photography and simply turn it into a 3D or CAD-like rendering, Martin said. These platforms incentivize users to promote the use through referral programs, and “non-existent” privacy policies.

While Martin cautioned users to seek out and understand how their information is used or what creative protection they have, she praised how AI can help architects and designers save time and improve their overall business.

“Designers are running a business, and AI is a beautiful thread that they can use [as] an expert persona to help them along the way,” she said. “When we’re looking at AI and how it works for designers, it’s really just a super powerhouse for them for the business side of things.”

Strategic Exposure is Essential

While industry groups and professionals are in various stages of AI adoption and education, strategic rollouts are important.

At Gensler, that means having a firmwide training strategy in place. “We’re investing in training, tools, and partnerships that align AI with our core values, particularly around design excellence, innovation, and ethical responsibility,” Bischoff said.

Gensler’s Design Technology group offers a baseline level of training on the organization’s proprietary AI tools and two optional advanced training courses. Because of the rapid pace of technology change, every studio across the firm has a design technology leader to gather and share knowledge.

ASID’s Director of Education Robin Anderson also mentioned the need for thought leadership to help members stay ahead of the curve. And, while ASID has been integrating AI-focused content into professional development offerings since 2023, she noted an expanded presence at this year’s GATHER conference, in the learning management system and with additional programming.

The learning doesn’t stop there. “The profession should proactively learn from other industries that have already navigated AI’s impacts. Often, best practices originate outside the design field,” Anderson encouraged.

One example is restricting access to the intellectual property (IP) that Martin discussed, proprietary information, or client data.

“Something that we can all start looking at as an industry is to pull some information we have provided from these platforms,” Martin said. “Then the quality of the output for other people wouldn't be as high and as easy to get.”

Gensler is developing private AI sandboxes and secure environments that ensure sensitive information is only accessible to individuals within the organization. They are also building internal tools that leverage Gensler’s own data, IP, and experiential logic.

“Ultimately, it’s not about enforcing a single tool, but about creating a trusted framework where employees can innovate safely, and where Gensler’s collective intelligence becomes an always-available resource for every team,” Bischoff said.