What AI can and can't do
AI can now make renders, mood boards and first concepts in minutes, and most designers already use it for that: 82% in a 2025 survey of 328 interior designers and architects.
The rest of the job is another matter: visiting the site, reading a client, coordinating the trades and running a project to the day. As one designer told Architectural Digest, AI is "a long, long way away" from that.
So no, AI is not about to replace interior designers. But it is changing something else: the moment before a client calls you.
Does ChatGPT recommend your studio?
More clients now ask ChatGPT, Google's AI or Perplexity which interior designer to hire. The answer is not a page of links: it usually names two to four businesses. More than half of UK adults already use AI to find services and advice.
It names two to four studios. Is yours one of them?
Why good studios get left out
- Being first on Google is not enough. Google's own AI answer often shows other websites.
- AI learns about you from your own website more than from anywhere else.
- It reads the words on your site, not your photos. So if your site is mostly photos, AI has almost nothing to say about you.
Find out what ChatGPT says about your studio
We ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google the questions your clients ask, in your city and for the homes you do. Each question twice, because the answers change.
You get:
- which studios it names instead of you
- what it says about your studio, if anything
- the two or three things on your site that would change that
Free, for any interior design studio.
What AI looks for
- A clear sentence on the home page: who the studio is, where it works, what it does.
- A page for each project with the place, the year and what was done.
- The city and the areas the studio works in, written out.
- The same name and description everywhere: site, Instagram, Houzz.
- Short answers to the questions clients ask.
fioel is an Industry Partner of the British Institute of Interior Design.
Sources
Each checked on the original page, 22 October 2026.
- Designers Today, 20 November 2025: a Mattoboard survey of 328 interior designers and architects; 82% use AI regularly, mostly for visuals, concepts and mood boards.
- Architectural Digest, 9 April 2025: the designer Suzanne Sykes on what AI is still "a long, long way away" from.
- BrightLocal, Local AI Visibility Study: AI answers name two to four businesses on average, and the businesses' own websites are the largest share of what they cite.
- Which?, consumer use of AI search tools, 9 December 2025: just over half of UK adults use AI search tools for products, services and advice.
- Ahrefs, does ranking higher on Google mean you get cited in AI Overviews?, 21 July 2025: pages ranking first appear among the top three sources in Google's AI Overviews only about half the time.