I don’t know if you’ve heard about this new thing called Artificial Intelligence, also known as “AI”? Well it’s quite a big deal and it’s either going to make our lives easier or make us all redundant. If anything it’s handy for making funny cat videos.
One of the main challenges we’ve found AI has brought is the diluting of information on line, making it harder to get the real answers and avoiding generated ‘AI Overviews’ that can often get things wrong. In one instance I quickly googled one of the Building Regs Approved Documents so I could open it and check something, the AI overview gave me a summary which I knew immediately was completely incorrect and could have caused a lot of issues if someone had taken it as fact.
Image generation is another area we’re seeing AI used, it does create great looking images but sometimes gets the nuances wrong like the scale, making a space look a lot larger than reality and overpromising on the possibilities.
While we do use AI to some extent, we’re still exploring the benefits and have an AI policy in place to protect our client’s information. We instead prefer to rely on Authentic Intelligence based on knowledge and experience to deliver thoughtful interior design with meaningful impact:
Trusted Suppliers
We have a carefully curated list of trusted suppliers who we can speak to and get real answers to real problems. We visit their factories and meet with their reps to make sure we’re getting the facts right and know how their products can be used.
Library
We have a company library where we store key information and make it easy for us to recall when needed. This also links to CPDs we undertake with our suppliers. This is ever evolving and something we refer to daily, it has become our own source of facts that has replaced Google.
Events
We attend industry events throughout the year in a range of different subjects to educate ourselves and have those important conversations on the sidelines that will inform our approach and extend our knowledge.
Sculpt Design Guide
We’re constantly developing our own design guides, keeping record of our approach to certain aspects making sure they meet our standards. We review what has worked and what hasn’t to make sure we take the best ideas into our next projects.
Contacts & Partners
As well as suppliers, we have a list of contacts and partners who we can talk to or recommend for specialist aspects.
Testing
We love to test and prototype our ideas to make sure they work and ensure the client is fully informed of the design proposals. We gather real samples and can create small mockups to test and show how things work.
Experience
As a company we’re almost 10 years old and with many years of experience across the team. This experience brings learning and knowledge that can’t be found online. We debrief with clients to learn how we can improve and take that feedback onto our next projects.