Our Take on AI, Delays & the Trust Conversation

Our president, Ruth Ann Janson, recently joined Michelle Lynne, Melissa Lee, and Erika Bonnell on The Designed for the Creative Mind Podcast for an episode that surfaced further conversations around the interior design industry: Business Behind the Design #2 — AI, Client Delays, and the Future of Design. If you haven't listened yet, do. It's an unfiltered look at why projects are stretching from months to years, why clients are hesitating before they sign, and how AI is affecting the client relationship.

We wanted to share and expand on a few more things Ruth Ann raised, because they're exactly the opportunities we help our clients with.

Stay nimble in your messaging as markets shift

One thing Ruth Ann mentioned early in the conversation is that design doesn't feel unattainable the way it used to. There's more competition, more price discernment, more comparison shopping, and clients are vetting like it's a buyer's market because, in a lot of ways, it is.

No need to panic. This is an opportunity to position yourself as the expert you are with sharper messaging that highlights what makes your firm worth the wait and the investment. We're seeing firms win right now by being more specific about their value, calling attention to the span of their vendor relationships, their trade access, and the difference within their design process itself, instead of leaving clients to assume it's all interchangeable with what they can find on Pinterest or generate in a chat window.

Procurement fatigue is real, but think of it as a positioning possibility

Ruth Ann touched on something we’ve been hearing from our clients recently about how they are getting pulled into the depths of procurement. From chasing orders, managing freight delays, and even sitting on hold with vendors when that was never where their genius lived in the first place. As more firms lean into procurement-only offerings or shift that work off their own plates (we can help with that), there's a real opening to say so, clearly, in your marketing.

If your firm is restructuring how you handle furnishings, whether that means a dedicated procurement fee, a phased structure, or handing that piece off entirely, your website and client communications should say why. When this is positioned as a confident statement about where your time and expertise are best spent it will be received better. Clients respond well to firms that are honest about their process, especially when it's framed as protecting the quality of the outcome and, of course, their investment.

Clients don't know why your furnishings cost what they cost. Tell them.

This is the one we would bookmark for later. Ruth Ann made the point that end clients often can't tell the difference between a trade-sourced piece and something that looks similar online, but the difference in quality, and the reason for the price gap, is enormous. That's an education problem, not a pricing problem.

We've been building this kind of education directly into client-facing materials for our design clients in the form of investment guides, FAQ pages, and blogs that explain why trade access matters before a client ever gets a proposal in hand. The goal is to make the value accessible so you can continue to guide them with confidence and full transparency.

AI is a tool

The podcast’s conversation on AI landed on something we think every firm needs to consider. Clients may start bringing AI-generated renderings, AI-assisted research, and AI comparisons to meetings. This is the moment to give a confident, and professional response.

Something like: “We use AI where it makes our process more efficient behind the scenes, but the intentional eye, the sourcing relationships, and the design strategy are ours.”

We've helped firms build this kind of language into their brand voice guidelines and FAQ content, so it's not something a designer has to improvise in the moment. To scale, in terms of projects and team members, having a system like this, documented as a reliable process, helps keep everyone accountable and makes for a seamless design experience. You can learn more about building, and leveraging systems like this in our previous Top Branch episode.

Lean into trust factors

The overarching themes from the podcast tend to fall into one of these categories: slower sales cycles, procurement fatigue, and the AI conversation. Each of these comes back to the same thing in that clients need more context than they used to, and design firms that provide it clearly and confidently are the ones building trust fastest.

If you haven’t already, give the episode a listen. Ruth Ann, Michelle, Melissa, and Erika get into contract clauses, pause fees, and vendor relationships in a lot more depth. If you're a design firm thinking through how to put any of this into your own client-facing deliverables, that's a conversation we'd love to have.

Listen to the full episode on The Designed for the Creative Mind Podcast.