AI for Interior Designers™ *Podcast

EP 78: How AI for Interior Designers Got Started, Live from The Loft
 
Jenna Gaidusek has built a business on technology and interior design and teaching that to others in the interior design industry. In this episode, her longtime collaborator Julia Reinert flips the mic and asks the questions for once: how a girl from Vermont who didn't know "interior design" was a career ended up building the AI Social Club.
 
This episode was recorded live in The Loft inside the AI Social Club, the first one recorded there.
 
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
 
- Where Jenna's design instincts actually started, years before design school
- What it was like graduating design school straight into the 2010 recession
- Why she built eDesign Tribe in 2018 and why she eventually sold it to Mydoma
- What made her buy the domain AI for Interior Designers in 2022
- Why she builds and breaks every tool herself before she teaches it
- How the AI Social Club became a house you walk through, room by room
 
THE ONE THING TO TAKE FROM THIS EPISODE
 
Jenna has never built anything with the intention of selling it. eDesign Tribe, AI for Interior Designers, the AI Social Club, all of it started because she wanted the thing to exist and nobody had built it yet. That's still how she decides what to build today.
 
ABOUT JULIA REINERT
 
Julia Reinert runs The Lifestyle Historian, where she helps designers and brands tell their story, with a background in journalism, marketing, brand management, event planning, and writing. She joined the interior design industry in 2022 and works with clients on a fully custom basis, from content and strategy to sponsor relationships and event planning.
 
Julia is also Jenna's Director of Partnerships and has worked alongside her for nearly two years.
Website: thelifestylehistorian.com
 
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Gemini — gemini.google.com
Google Workspace — workspace.google.com
Perplexity — perplexity.ai
 
JOIN US LIVE IN THE LOFT
Episodes are recorded live in The Loft inside the AI Social Club. Members (join free) can join the room, bring questions, and be part of the conversation. The next live recording is next Friday at 11am EST in the loft. Take the tour at theaisocialclub.com.
 
CONNECT WITH JENNA
aiforinteriordesigners.com | theaisocialclub.com | @aiforinteriordesigners
Support@aiforinteriordesigners.com 
 
TIMESTAMPS
 
00:00 Introduction
02:55 Episode 78, the first live broadcast, with Julia Reinert
06:51 Growing up in Vermont
12:18 Design school during the 2010 recession
20:26 Retail management and hitting a wall
25:22 Launching eDesign Tribe
46:31 Buying the domain, AI for Interior Designers begins
1:00:09 Building the AI Social Club, room by room

Episode 77: The AI Conversation No One Wants to Have
I took the summer off, and I'm not easing back in gently. This week I'm having the conversation I don't see enough people in this industry having out loud: AI development right now does not have enough guardrails, and I think that deserves real attention, even though I still use AI every single day.
Here's the good news I was sitting on all summer. While I was away, I finished building something I've wanted for two years: the AI Social Club, one home for community, ongoing education, and the AI tools I've actually built for design businesses, instead of five subscriptions that were never made for us.
I also get into how I actually use AI day to day (it's almost never a prompt box), why I built this community myself instead of joining an existing one, and the one habit I think every designer needs around backing up their own data so no single tool or company can hold your business hostage.
What you will take away:
Why I'm calling this Season 4 instead of pretending it's a fresh start
My honest, specific concerns about how AI models are being developed right now
Why I built the AI Social Club myself instead of joining an existing community
How I actually use AI day to day, and why it's almost never a prompt box
The one habit I want every designer to build around backing up their own data
The one thing to take from this episode: do not let your business depend on a single software or AI tool staying exactly the way it is today. Back up your data locally and in the cloud, both, and choose tools you could walk away from if you had to.
Starting September 24, this show records live in The Loft inside the AI Social Club. It's free to join, and you'll hear the episode a full day before it publishes anywhere else. If this one resonated, follow the show so you never miss an episode, share it with a designer friend, and come join us live at theaisocialclub.com.

Episode 76 | AI Pulse: Jenna's Predictions for Where AI Is HeadingAI for Interior Designers™ Podcast · Jenna Gaidusek
Nearly 3 years into teaching AI for Interior Designers, Jenna shares her predictions and a current pulse of where AI is and where she predicts it will be in the future, with one honest disclaimer: she is not here to guess where AI lands in five years. Nobody knows that. What she can tell you is what she has actually been building for the past three years, and where that points next. The short version is custom tools. The kind you build yourself, designed for how you actually work, instead of renting fifty subscriptions that were never made for the design business.
She gets into the irony of developers handing us the tools to finally cut out the middleman, why the backend has always been the real hurdle and how it is finally getting easier, and the simplest place for you to start today. No big pitch this time, just a candid look at where this is all going and what she is doing about it.
Learn more at aiforinteriordesigners.com
Key Takeaways
Jenna is done making wild five and ten year predictions, and she thinks you should be too. The tech is moving too fast and too unpredictably for anyone to call it. What matters is watching what is tangible right now and building from there.
The real shift she sees coming is custom tools. Not chatbots, not always AI-powered, just apps that do exactly what you need. Designers are not web developers or data scientists, and for the first time they do not have to be. They live the work, which means they know what they need better than any third party ever could.
The irony is not lost on her. The same developers who built the "is your living room ugly" apps and cut professional designers out for years have now built tools so good that designers can build it themselves, and finally cut them out of the things they were always told they needed.
The backend is the part that actually stops people. Building an app is easy. Deploying it so others can use it, with login, security, and working APIs, is the wall. That used to be Jenna's whole disconnect, and it is getting easier every month across Gemini Studio, Base44, and Claude Code.
Artifacts are the easiest entry point. They are little one-purpose apps built right inside Claude, like a pricing calculator or a proposal builder. You build it once, save it, and use it constantly with no backend headache.
Everything Jenna builds now lives in one connected hub. Two years of little builds became the AI Social Club™: proposals, lead generators, her CRM, and the App Studio, all in one place. The rule she builds by is simple. If you do something twice, make an app for it. Then automate it.

Episode 75: Get Messy, Make Mistakes
This week I am taking you behind the scenes of something I usually keep private: the real, unglamorous work of building. After two years in the making, I finally launched Field Day and the AI Social Club™ app, and I want to talk about what that process actually looks like when you do it out loud.
I get into why I build everything myself first, learn it inside and out, and then turn around and teach it to you. That is the whole reason I do what I do. When you hit a wall in your own design business, I have usually been right there, so I can walk you through it.
I also share where I see our industry heading. The ChatGPT design client is real, new business models are popping up, and a clear divide is forming in who our ideal clients are now. None of this means designers are going anywhere. It means we get to build our own table instead of waiting for an invite to someone else's.
What you will take away:
Why I build, test, and learn every tool before I teach it
How the interior design client is shifting in the age of AI
The new business models showing up as designers adapt
Why I build for community first, never just for me
The Miss Frizzle rule I live by: get messy, make mistakes, and actually remember what you learned
If this one resonated, follow the show so you never miss an episode, and share it with a designer friend who needs the reminder that the tech is the problem, not them.

In episode 74 of the AI for Interior Designers Podcast, host Jenna Gaidusek gets into the idea that tools most interior designers have been using to run their businesses were created by tech companies and accountants, not by designers. And that mismatch has been quietly shaping (and limiting) the way you work for years.
In this solo episode, Jenna breaks down why this happened, why the subscription sprawl is a symptom and not the actual problem, and why AI finally makes it possible to build tools that work the way you actually work — instead of the other way around.
If you have ever felt like your software is fighting you instead of helping you, this episode is for you.
What's covered in this episode:
Why off-the-shelf design software was never really built for designers
The subscription sprawl problem — and how the big LLMs are replacing most of it
What custom dashboards and mini apps actually look like in practice
The proposal builder example: discovery call in, formatted proposal out
Why technology is about to become invisible — and what that means for your business
Why small businesses have a real advantage over corporations in AI adoption right now
The question you need to answer before you rebuild anything: what would your ideal business look like if the technology didn't limit it?
Links mentioned:
Register for Field Day: https://aiforinteriordesigners.com/field-day
AI for Interior Designers™: https://aiforinteriordesigners.com
Follow on Instagram: @aiforinteriordesigners
Field Day — Summer 2025 Tuesdays, June 2 through July 28 | 10am–12:20pm ET $249 for 9 weeks | $397 bundle with study halls | $99 single study hall
 
TOOLS MENTIONED
Claude — claude.ai
Gemini — gemini.google.com
Perplexity — perplexity.ai
Canva — canva.com
Base44 — base44.com 
 
REGISTER FOR FIELD DAY
9 weeks. Every Tuesday. Starting June 2nd at 10am ET. Learn the tools, get quick wins, and start building what your business actually needs.
🔗 aiforinteriordesigners.com/field-day
 

Episode 73 — What I'm Doing This Summer (And Why I Want You to Join Me) AI for Interior Designers™ Podcast · Jenna Gaidusek
Jenna gets honest about what's been happening behind the scenes — a scattered site, an evolving program, and a summer that's finally clearing the runway. She shares why she permanently left ChatGPT for Claude + Gemini, how she actually uses AI (spoiler: it's not chat threads - it's custom apps and branded dashboards built for real design workflows), and what's coming this summer with Field Day, a 9-week live AI learning program starting June 2nd.
Open enrollment pricing drops from $149 → $79. A new website is on the way. The AI App Studio is growing. And none of it is built by a tech company guessing what designers need.
 Field Day — Enroll Now (Starting June 2nd): aiforinteriordesigners.com/field-day
Key Takeaways
After more than three months away from it, Jenna has officially and permanently moved on from ChatGPT — not because of the product, but because of the company and the people running it. Her current stack is Claude and Gemini, and she is not looking back.
The way Jenna actually uses AI has almost nothing to do with typing into a chat thread. She builds branded apps, dashboards, and custom AI-powered tools that pull from spreadsheets and calendars and produce beautiful, functional interfaces designed specifically for design business workflows.
The AI App Studio inside her programs is growing — and every tool in it was built by a working designer, for working designers. Not by a tech company that thinks it knows what you need.
Field Day is a 9-week summer AI learning program starting Tuesday, June 2nd. It begins at absolute square one and builds every single week, with live sessions, structured study halls, and hands-on implementation time built into every class.
Open enrollment class pricing is dropping from $149 to $79. The economy is hard, and Jenna wants more designers to be able to access the training. Plain and simple.
A fully rebuilt, highly interactive website is in progress and coming soon. The current site is being untangled — Jenna knows it, she owns it, and it is getting fixed.
 

The rules of being found online haven't disappeared. They've evolved.
In Episode 72, Jenna sits down with Robyn White of RDW Design Studio — website designer, brand strategist, and SEO specialist for interior designers — to break down exactly what has changed with AI search, what still matters, and what your design firm needs to do right now to show up when potential clients are searching in ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
If you have been putting off your SEO because it feels overwhelming, or wondering whether all of that work you already did on your website even matters anymore, this episode is your answer. (It does. You are not starting over. You are adding layers.)
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
The difference between traditional SEO and AI search — and why the shift from keywords to questions changes everything
Why brand mentions are the new backlinks and how podcast features and press mentions are working for your AI visibility right now, even without a link
The exact blog post structure that makes your content extractable by AI: key takeaways first, answer before support, FAQs at the end
Jenna's voice note workflow — how she turns real client meeting moments into search-optimized blog content that sounds like her because it is her
What EEAT means and why your case studies, client stories, and testimonials are more valuable than ever
Whether AI-written content actually hurts your Google rankings — Robyn gives a refreshingly honest, nuanced take
THE ONE THING TO TAKE FROM THIS EPISODE
If AI can't clearly define you, it can't recommend you. Get crystal clear on who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and how you do it. Then make sure that message is consistent everywhere you show up online. Websites, social profiles, newsletter bios, podcast features. It all needs to match. These are bots. Inconsistency breeds distrust.
ABOUT ROBYN WHITE
Robyn White is the founder of RDW Design Studio, where she works almost exclusively with interior designers as a website designer, brand strategist, and SEO specialist. She offers traditional SEO, AI search optimization, website design, and ongoing monthly SEO services.
Find Robyn at rdwdesignstudio.com. She is also joining Jenna as a guest instructor for Q2 of the AI for Interior Designers™ Certificate Program — her class on AI search visibility is May 19th. Enrollment closes May 4th.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Claude by Anthropic — anthropic.com
ChatGPT by OpenAI — openai.com
Google NotebookLM — notebooklm.google.com
Perplexity AI — perplexity.ai
Google Analytics — analytics.google.com
LuAnn University — luannnigara.com/lu/
AI for Interior Designers™ Certificate Program Q2 — aiforinteriordesigners.com
 
CONNECT WITH JENNA
www.aiforinteriordesigners.com | @aiforinteriordesigners

 
Are Your Business Processes Living Rent-Free in Your Head?
If your team can't access the knowledge you carry around in your mind, your design firm is more vulnerable than you think. In this episode, Jenna Gaidusek sits down with Dixie Willard — Founder of Poised & Plumb and operations expert for interior design firms — to talk about how AI is completely changing the way designers build, document, and manage Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why keeping everything in your head is one of the biggest risks to your business
How to use voice-to-text to capture your processes on the fly — even during a furniture delivery
Why Google NotebookLM is a game-changer for creating a private, searchable knowledge base your whole team can use
How to bring your brand voice into Claude the right way (without dragging in years of messy chat history)
The mindset shift from depending on SaaS tools to building your own AI-powered systems
Why documented SOPs are your business's best protection when the unexpected happens
This conversation is packed with practical strategies you can implement immediately , whether you're a solo designer or managing a growing team.
Don't miss these upcoming opportunities with Dixie:Dixie will be speaking at the 2nd Annual AI Design Tech Summit on April 2nd and teaching an in-depth course on AI-powered SOPs as part of the AI Certificate Program in May (Q2). Register before the summit for Q2 and your summit ticket is included!
🎟️ Summit tickets: https://www.aiforinteriordesigners.com/virtual-design-tech-summit-26📚 Certificate Program: https://www.aiforinteriordesigners.ai/
Resources & Links:
🔗 Dixie Willard's Website — Poised & Plumb: https://poisedandplumb.com/📲 Follow Dixie on Instagram: @poisedandplumb | @designingdixie🌐 Learn More About AI for Interior Designers: https://www.aiforinteriordesigners.com/
Join the AI for Interior Designers Community!
Subscribe to the Podcast so you never miss an episodeFollow Jenna on Instagram: @aiforinteriordesigners | @jenna.gaidusek
If this episode hit home, please LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and tap the notification bell — staying ahead of AI in the design world starts here.
🎓 Explore AI for Interior Designers™: https://www.aiforinteriordesigners.com/

In this special episode recorded live from the KBIS 2026 Podcast Studio, Sponsored by AJ Madison Pro, AI for Interior Designers *Podcast host Jenna Gaidusek sits down with the KBB Person of the Year, Sharon Sherman, founder of Thyme & Place Design.As AI moves at a breakneck pace, who is guiding the ship? Jenna and Sharon dive deep into the "feminine energy" required to nurture this technology, the importance of setting rigid ethical boundaries, and why AI can mimic a mood board but can never understand the "energetic quality" of a home. From Sharon’s AI assistant "Ursula" to the rising trend of "Analog Rooms," this conversation is a must-listen for designers looking to stay human in a digital world.In This Episode, We Discuss:
AI as a "Child": Why boundaries and "parenting" your AI models are essential for ethical design.
The Ethics of Stealing: How to use AI to enhance your own portfolio without infringing on others.
The Power of Analog: Why "sit tests," real stone, and physical connection are becoming the ultimate luxury in a digital age.
Human EQ vs. AI IQ: Why the industry still needs the "voice of reason" only a human designer can provide.
The "Wait and See" Crowd: Why the industry needs hesitant designers to help build better solutions.
Resources & LinksLearn with Jenna & Sharon:
AI for Interior Designers™ Certificate Program: Register for Q2 Enrollment Here
Q2 Class (May 8): The Ethical Designer: AI Humanization & Team Leadership
Connect with Sharon Sherman:
Website: Thyme & Place Design
Instagram: @thymeandplacedesign
Our Sponsors:
AJ Madison Pro: Smarter appliance sourcing and exclusive trade programs. ajmadison.com/pro
KBIS (Kitchen & Bath Industry Show): Special thanks to the KBIS Podcast Studio. kbis.com

Is Interior Design Rendering Dead? How AI Tools Are Changing Client Visuals
In this episode of the AI for Interior Designers™ Podcast, Jenna breaks down whether traditional 3D rendering still makes sense for interior designers now that AI tools can create convincing visuals in a fraction of the time.
For years, high-end 3D renderings were the gold standard. Designers would spend 10–14 hours perfecting materials, lighting, and tiny details. It was beautiful work—but also time‑consuming, expensive, and often overkill for what most clients actually needed: confidence in the concept and clarity around how everything fits.
Now, AI is changing that balance. Jenna shares why she personally stopped offering full 3D renderings nearly two years ago, how she now combines accurate floor plans with AI-generated imagery and video, and what this shift means for render artists, students, and working designers.
In This Episode, We Cover:
The shift from hand drafting to high-speed visuals: Why BIM tools and generative AI are the next inflection point in our industry’s evolution.
When to skip the 14-hour render: How to identify when a client needs a high-end investment versus when they just need a "vibe" check.
The New Workflow: How to build accurate 2D plans, then layer on fast AI visuals to sell the concept without the pixel-perfect obsession.
The Future of Render Artists: Why technical designers are more valuable than ever as “accuracy editors” and quality control specialists.
Designer vs. DIY AI: How to talk to clients who think they can replace a professional designer with a few prompts.
Key Takeaways & Workflow Tips
Why Traditional Rendering is Evolving Clients are increasingly hesitant to pay for "perfect" scale in every pixel when they can get a clear vision of the mood and layout in under two hours. Jenna explains how she uses tools like Mydoma’s Visualizer to create accurate floor plans and 2D drawings, then pivots to AI for the "wow" factor.
Jenna’s Current AI Visualization Stack
Foundation: Create a solid, scaled floor plan with accurate dimensions.
Concept: Build a clean concept board with actual products in Canva.
Visualization: Use AI (Google Gemini or ChatGPT) to "drop" real products into an AI-generated room image.
Immersion: Turn those stills into short video walkthroughs using video-generation features to show the dog on the bed or the way light hits the sofa.
Mentioned in this Episode
Jenna’s Platforms & Education:
AI for Interior Designers™ (Site + Newsletter)
AI for Interior Designers™ Podcast Home
Live AI & Visualization Classes
Certificate Program Press Feature (KBB)
Business of Home: Will AI put renders out of business? 
Visualization & AI Tools:
SketchUp: sketchup.com
Mydoma Studio: mydomastudio.com
Canva: canva.com
Google Gemini: gemini.google.com
ChatGPT: chatgpt.com
 
Industry Events & Organizations:
IDS - Interior Design Society interiordesignsociety.org 
KBIS – Kitchen & Bath Industry Show: kbis.com
ASID: asid.org
High Point Market: highpointmarket.org
A + D Summit for Photographers in Austin March 4-6- https://www.ad-photosummit.com/ Use code JENNA for $500 off. 
LuAnn Nigara / LuAnn University: luannnigara.com
Final Thought
AI images are a power tool for marketing and quick visualization, but they are not a substitute for professional space planning and real-world experience. If you’re ready to streamline your visuals and stop losing days to 3D modeling for every project, this episode is for you.
Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell to stay updated with the latest tips and tools for designers!