The Future Becomes Our Reality

If you haven’t heard about AI everyday for the past year and all its capabilities and uses, and are reading this now wondering what AI is, then congrats, you have finally escaped from under the rock and are in for a treat. Welcome.

If you have listened to nearly any podcast or read nearly any news articles lately, and are aware of AI, this will still be a pretty cool approach on how to use it.

ChatGPT The Game Changer

Artificial Intelligence, the digital brain. It is a concept which has received much attention in Sci-Fi films for decades. For the longest time, that’s all it was, fiction. Something we collectively categorized with flying cars and replacing all our meals with a couple of capsules. This all changed when ChatGPT was launched in November 2022.

Despite not being the first chatbot created, it was certainly the first to receive broad media coverage and such wide adoption by the public. AI suddenly went from being a rarely thought of concept by most people, to being one of the hottest topics of conversation. Within days, YouTube was flooded with videos about ChatGPT, what it can do, the ethics of AI and people testing the limits of this innovation.

Rise in Popularity

Text-to-image models would begin to gain just as much traction shortly after. Individuals who previously had very little interest in the subject were now fascinated at how they could generate entire artworks or books in seconds. It was an exciting time, it still is.

One trait which makes AI particularly appealing is the fact that new use cases are constantly being discovered. The only limit seems to be how creatively you can utilize the tools available to you.

How To Use In Your Home

One such use case which could come in very handy, and save you a few bucks, is using AI as your very own interior designer. This may sound too good to be true, but combining the multitude of AI models available with the correct human input can achieve some incredible results. Let’s get into the nitty gritty of how to approach this.

The basics

When thinking of decorating, a few core factors come to mind. One of these is the colour scheme. At least, it should be. Previously, your interior designer would come to you with a selection of colour palettes. You would then go through these options and generally, settle, as they were quite limited. There might be one or two which almost match your preferences, but it could be better.

Now, with AI, you can make use of an array of colour palette generators. You can input any specific colour or set of colours, and AI will generate endless options.

Feeling spontaneous? Leave all the work to your new artificial assistant, it will generate random combinations for you until you’re happy.

Maybe you would like to know which fabrics are best suited for which purpose, what they cost, where to get them or even which look best in a certain colour. Asking one of the chat models available will provide you with all this information within seconds.

Perhaps you’re trying to achieve a certain look, let’s say, mid-century modern? Well, having a discussion with your chatbot about how to get that look will surely help. It can tell you the core elements, why that style came about, what to do and what not to do. It can even tell you how to combine styles.

Sure, you could go search for all of this information yourself, but it will take you significantly more time and will probably render worse results.

AI Tools To Use

There are multiple tools available that can generate endless colour palettes for you. Coolors is a free dedicated colour palette generation tool that can continuously render new colour combinations simply by pressing the spacebar.

Want to go back and view previous options? No problem, it provides that feature as well.

Canva too has some great colour tools at your disposal. It has a colour palette generator which allows you to enter a text prompt and generate a massive variety of options.

It also has a colour wheel feature, where you can select a colour and it automatically gives you a variety of colour theory-based counterparts, depending on your selection.

Adobe has their own colour palette generator, also featuring a colour wheel tool amongst many others.

These are only a few of the tools available, of which there are no shortage.

Visualization

Text-to-image models are advancing at a rapid rate, and they were impressive to start off with. All it takes is the correct prompt and it will generate a detailed, high-resolution image for you.

It is easy to understand, then, how this could be applied to interior design.

You know those mock-ups you would grow impatient waiting for ten years ago? Well now you can take that process into your own hands. However, you would describe your ideal indoor space, tell that to AI. The process will not always be perfect, but was the alternative? It will give you a pretty good idea, and you can try again instantly.

We Tested Two Text-to-Image AI Tools

There are several great options for text-to-image models, free and paid. Midjourney is a paid tool with powerful capabilities. Below are some examples of the prompts used and the results that followed.

Design Request Given:

“midcentury modern home, open plan living room, cerise furniture, turquoise furniture”

Design Request Given:

“midcentury modern, open plan living room, mint furniture, futuristic chrome furniture”

Design Request Given:

“Mediterranean, open plan living room, marble flooring, leather couches, rustic wooden furniture”

Design Request Given:

“minimalistic, open plan living room, modern furniture, granite floors”

We also tested Freepik

Below are the same prompts being used on Freepik’s free text-to-image models and the results that followed.

Design Request Given:

“midcentury modern home, open plan living room, cerise furniture, turquoise furniture”

Design Request Given:

“midcentury modern, open plan living room, mint furniture, futuristic chrome furniture”

Design Request Given:

“Mediterranean, open plan living room, marble flooring, leather couches, rustic wooden furniture”

Design Request Given:

“minimalistic, open plan living room, modern furniture, granite floors”

Talk about design inspo!

Making it happen

Obviously, AI can’t actually do the work for you, yet that is. When humanoid robots become an everyday thing, that’s a different story.

So now that you’ve got all the theory behind you and you’ve got an idea of what you want to do, what comes next? Well, first things first. Most interior designers won’t do the work themselves. They create the vision, and a team usually makes that vision a reality.

So, what stops you from doing the same?

You can now look for service providers in your area, with the help of AI if you wish, and have the experts tackle each task. If you lean towards DIY, that is always an option. If you’re not sure where to begin and don’t even know what you don’t know, having a conversation with a chatbot is a great starting point. They do have expert knowledge on most fields after all. It can walk you through each step of the process and can explain everything in as simple terms as required.

Technology always has room for improvement and AI is no exception.

In ten years, we may look back at what is available to us now and think of it as primitive. Nevertheless, the tools we have right now can produce some incredible results. Additionally, they can be a lot of fun. Sure, you may end up getting less than satisfactory results, especially in the beginning, and you may even end up hiring an interior designer, but its certainly worth a try. Who knows, this may be the start of your very own interior design journey.