The design world is flooded with new tools—especially in AI and interior design. Every week brings another platform promising to streamline or even reimagine creativity. But after more than 15 years working across fashion and interiors, I keep returning to one question: Can artificial intelligence truly understand taste?
I’ve tested the tools. I’ve played with prompts. And while I’m no stranger to technology, I’ve found that most AI-generated design lacks the one thing that defines meaningful work: empathy.
Taste isn’t just about what looks right—it’s about what feels right. It’s sensing how people move through a space, how light changes during the day, how emotion can be shaped by proportion or texture. So far, no algorithm can replicate that.
This article builds on something I first explored in my 2023 LinkedIn piece, Interior Design and AI: Why Interior Designers are Still Needed, written at the height of AI’s arrival in creative conversations. Two years on, I’ve seen more tools, more hype—but not one that understands a brief, a client, or a space the way a human does.
Why We Don’t Use AI at House Designer
At House Designer, Our clients don’t come to us for “generated options.” They come for real collaboration, empathy, and experience. AI tools can’t ask the right questions. They don’t push back or notice the small emotional cues in a client’s tone. They can’t feel when a space needs breathing room or softness.
Taste is subtle. It changes depending on light, rhythm, context, and lifestyle. We’ve found AI tools can mimic style, but they can’t grasp intention.
We’re interior designers, not prompt engineers. Design isn’t about automation—it’s about perspective.
image credit: House Designer
The Role of AI in Interior Design: Assistant or Imitator?
AI can seem extraordinary at first glance. It promises faster ideation, instant moodboards, and automated layouts—streamlining what once took hours. But these aren’t design decisions. They’re starting points. At best, they’re a sketch. At worst, a distraction.
But that’s just it: these tools don’t design. They recombine. They remix aesthetics that already exist. AI can give you a hundred options, but it can’t tell you which one feels right. It doesn’t know your client, the energy of the space, or the way light hits at 3pm in October. It doesn’t know your gut feeling.
Taste lives in those details. In restraint. In knowing when to stop.
Design Is Empathy, Not Output
Good design isn’t made by churning out a hundred variations and picking one that “looks okay.” It’s shaped by lived experience, emotion, restraint, and dialogue. That’s what our clients pay for. That’s what they deserve.
No tool can yet replicate the human side of design. And at House Designer, that’s exactly the side we never plan to give up.