00:03.45

CCB

Welcome back to the ONEder Podcast, where we explore the ideas, innovation, and people shaping the future of the built environment. This is your host, CCB. And today we're diving into one of the most transformative forces our industry has ever encountered, artificial intelligence, not as a headline, but as a practical, evolving design partner.

00:25.11

CCB

Our guest is Julie Maggos, who leads Interior Architects, or is a part of the Interior Architects Area team, and she's going to explain a little bit more about her responsibilities. But it's a forward-thinking group dedicated to understanding how AI will shape design workflows, creative processes, and the client experience.

00:43.48

CCB

Julie sits at the intersection of design, intuition, and emerging technology, helping IA navigate what's possible today while envisioning where the industry is headed next.

00:54.46

CCB

Wow. We're going to explore the big visionary questions like where AI will unlock long-term opportunity in architecture or interiors and how the balance between human creativity and machine intelligence may evolve.

01:07.93

CCB

We'll also look at the practical realities, what parts of the workflow are ripe for AI integration, what experiments are showing real promise, and how to separate meaningful innovation from hype. And of course, we're going to dig into those ethical considerations. Oh my gosh, I had the most interesting conversation yesterday. But about risks and responsibilities that come with adopting AI in practice is as well as how those tools might transform client collaboration and the skill sets that designers will need in an AI accelerated future. So let's get into it. Julie, you are helping interior architects exploration into how AI will meaningfully shape our industry. So to start us off, how about you tell us how you got engaged in this, and then we'll jump into the actual meat of the matter.

01:54.30

Julie Maggos

Sure. Thanks for having me. I am really excited to talk about this and could probably spend way too much time talking about AI and its impact on our industry because we are all building this plane as we fly it. And IA, we created something called ARIA. which stands for AI Research at ia It's a committee that brings people together from across the firm to explore how AI is going to support us thoughtfully and responsibly. And it's just basically a central place to focus on the opportunities and risks and the training and the testing so that the entire firm can move forward together.

02:32.98

Julie Maggos

How did I get involved? I'm a designer. You know, like i I come from the design world. I am senior director of experiential design is my title. I got to start the experiential design group here at IA.

02:46.04

Julie Maggos

And, you know, it's a fun place to be. And if you see a need, if you see something that could help advance the firm, you can raise your hand. And I guess I i sort of accidentally did that. I just, in 2022, read something, I saw something about AI and I was like, boy, that's going to that's something we need to pay attention to and there were several other people doing the same thing i just happened to have a one of my monthly calls with our ceos and i said you guys know what this is and i just did a quick live demo of a chat bot they were like " yeah can you uh can you help?"

03:23.00

Julie Maggos

So here I am helping to co-lead this AI. I mean, it gets really technical sometimes and I just sort of tap out and and rely on the experts in our IT and cybersecurity to work on that. But, you know, I think coming at it from a design perspective for our firm is really helpful.

03:40.16

CCB

So like if we just jump into the practical workflow kind of delivery model, what parts of the design and delivery process are currently most ripe as you're sitting there looking at it for integration? And what do you think at this moment in time still needs to remain human led?

03:57.00

Julie Maggos

Sure. AI fits naturally into tasks that benefit from speed and variation. So like concept visioning, spatial studies, material exploration, and then things like product research and sustainability modeling. We're not there yet, but I think documentation setup and code compliance and that kind of thing will be really helpful when it's proven to be accurate, which you know we still have some ways to go there. But The parts that need to stay human-led are setting the vision, storytelling, guiding clients through decision-making and prioritizing. So it's not it's not just about developing all this information. It's discerning what's important and why, and the humans are still needed for that judgment and empathy and alignment.

04:49.33

CCB

That was the the interesting conversation that I was that I referenced was talking about code compliance and the idea that in the world of architecture and design, how are people trained to understand what each part of each component is in the process and how from a code compliance standpoint, you The person that I was chatting with was saying, well, we've got junior designers that think they can run it through, but are you going back? Did you check the code book? Because we know right now that many of the AI tools are not up to speed and do not address that level of detail.

05:28.18

Julie Maggos

Absolutely. i And there's a long way to go there. it AI is built, like LLMs are built on, you know, the are only as good as the data that they're trained on. and And then they might hallucinate. so you know, were we're constantly reminding everyone, you have to check this. You must, the human must stay involved for review. And because the biggest risk in our design process is in, you know, code compliance, we need to make sure you know,

06:00.47

Julie Maggos

that part of the process is heavily reviewed and and human led still. I think it's future. i think we can rely on AI because it is based on a a set of data. So in theory, it should be able to reliably check code and stuff. but I saw ah Eric Schmidt, you know formerly Google person, talking about his top three astonishing recognitions about what's going on. And the the idea that yeah one can ask the question and then take the the response from the AI and put that back in again and ask you know the next step of the question. And his forecast was in five years, you will not have a problem at all. that it will have It also will have collected as much information across what everyone's but you know popping in there. Okay, so what early experiments has ARIA run that show the clearest productivity or creativity gains for your team? We've tested tools in pilots as well as in real project settings. And the biggest gains so far are in the early design phase, giving teams the time to explore a larger range of ideas in a shorter amount of time, which helps bring alignment faster. It helps the clients see it maybe more clearly or more early on. But honestly, the

07:25.27

Julie Maggos

The biggest productivity gains we've seen are in like meeting notes and like meeting summaries. I mean, it's so silly, but those note diggers are getting pretty good. And let's just say it's a ton of time from project managers now. They just have to edit, they have to review, but they don't have to write all that stuff up. I think the more integrated the tools become in our workflow, and the more we will fully like rely on them. And, you like something like as simple as finding a document for example like is so much faster now because ai is in our whole ecosystem so like where did i save that like where was that conversation it searches emails chats folders the cloud and just being able to find something like that faster is such a little boost but it saves so much time in the long run which then should allow for more time to do the creative stuff right

08:15.37

Definitely. So that makes me think about that whole, the client experience, because you're bringing it up, you're referencing it. And how do you see or have you explored sharing AI with the client? I mean, you know, collaboratively working

08:35.67

Julie Maggos

Yeah, I mean, it it does help bring ideas into client conversations earlier. And so we can generate options in real time. We've done that exploring variations together. And that obviously creates a more collaborative, informed dialogue.

08:51.54

Julie Maggos

I think clients, it's a real value add because they can react sooner. they That builds more trust. It keeps the process moving. So i think... We were maybe afraid that clients would expect things faster or cheaper, but luckily we haven't had those demands. It's more like, let's see the value add that AI brings. Let's see those visualizations sooner, understand it better. But we don't have to cut anything short. It's just allowing for more exploration.

09:21.91

CCB

So you talk about the client expectations, and they haven't really shifted at this moment in time, short of being delighted by. But where do you think the biggest risks are in adopting AI within architecture and interiors?

09:37.66

Julie Maggos

I mean, the biggest risk, hands down, is just protecting our data because we sign contracts with our clients that say we will safeguard their information. So we have to be extremely vigilant that any technology we use keeps that promise. So that's the first thing we look at. Beyond that, there are risks when people use AI and they don't have enough review or enough context, right? There's that temptation to treat AI as like AI outputs as final answers. And they're really just starting points. We have to keep humans involved, as we keep saying, and make sure our teams understand that. And then I think another risk, or maybe it's just like a

10:17.11

Julie Maggos

potential bummer is the possibility of everything starting to look the same. So if all of these things are trained on the same things and they're they're all trained on stuff that has already happened in the past, and if people rely too heavily on AI, you can get a kind of sameness developing. But that is not a new challenge for designers. Like i remember a few years ago, people being like, oh, everything looks like the same Pinterest board. We we have to just go against the temptation to hit that easy button and make sure that we're constantly like keep our foot on the gas for innovation and new ideas. And you can use AI to help you think of something, but you need to direct it with your own sense of what is new and interesting.

11:00.39

CCB

So you just actually dropped me right into the next question that I wanted to ask, which was really about training. What are the skills that you know should be in design schools if they're not now? And how does IA look at keeping people up to skill?

11:17.28

Julie Maggos

As far as students and like the next generation, I've talked to a lot of students recently and such good conversations. They're thinking hard about what skills they need to be successful. And honestly, I do think design firms will expect new graduates to come in with some level of AI fluency. That's just kind of the reality of practice moving forward. But there's a risk in that if everything we've been talking about is true and that humans still need to be the directors and the curators and like the arbiters of taste and decision making, then students, like where are they going to learn that?

11:51.35

Julie Maggos

Most of us learn that through experience on projects and through mentorship and seeing how things evolve in the real world. If students come out of school and they know how to use AI tools, but without that that foundational judgment, and if they're not getting it from projects because it's automated or whatever, then where do they learn it? I think That's the challenge for us as the mentors to make sure that we're not just hitting that easy button. The next generation needs both. They need the technical fluency to guide the AI tools, but they need that depth of design thinking that comes from real practice so that...

12:26.30

Julie Maggos

Balance is key. And then how do we train ourselves? How are we doing this right now? we are you know We have a pilot process. We're getting people the tools. I think you know our first round of piloting was just like the basics, the image generators, the text generators, those meeting notes and i was talking about. And once we have them in people's hands, We do an onboarding of any new product, any new program, and some you know provide extra like training on their own time if they're interested. But really, we have monthly what we call coffee chats. They're like 30-minute little bite-sized training sessions where we present from area, but mostly we ask others that are using these tools to kind of quickly present, how did you use it this month? What

13:14.23

Julie Maggos

but are you doing? So it's kind of training each other as we go, because you learn better, I think, when you see your your co-workers using it, because then you can see how you can just fit it right into your your own workflow. And we've got Teams channels, and we've SharePoint, and we've got all this stuff. It's a repository of stuff.

13:30.18

CCB

Overload of information and communications. Yeah. Okay, great. I actually, it i I focused for a moment on, when I was in graduate school, I worked in a photography muse. And i ended up, I was the docent coordinator, and then I ended up being the education curator by taking the history of photography out into schools and and having conversations, setting up conversations with artists. And the idea of photography as a tool and an art... It keeps coming up to in my mind because there are still artists who use that as the medium. so Absolutely. So how are we – it really is another tool to add to your artistic craft and, yeah, manage it –

14:20.50

Julie Maggos

I think that in the grand scheme of things, I think designers and design firms are like really best suited to help lead this transformation because we are experts at directing and curating and establishing tastes. You know, that's literally what we're trying to do. So I think the machines can help us by pushing the pixels around, you know, maybe in a different way, but we're absolutely still developing that direction. And we are the the artists in charge of the tool, like you're saying.

14:48.95

CCB

So I'm wondering, you know, it's kind of future casting. what If you look five years out, what part of the design process do you think will look completely different because of AI?

15:02.17

Julie Maggos

I think, okay, I'm looking five years ahead. I mean, I think the front end of the design process is going to feel very different. As I said, I think ideation is where AI shines because I can see teams like moving through early concepts in a much more fluid way. So we won't be stuck in that traditional pattern of wait a week and then come back with three different ideas. You know, we're exploring ideas in real time and we're pressure testing and all of that. I think the handoff points between phases will start to blur. So AI can support things like, will start to support things like early code checks and documentation setup and quality reviews. So that means designers can stay focused on strategy and design intent. I think it will just feel less like rigid steps and more like a continuous creative loop.

15:51.36

Julie Maggos

eventually as the tools get better, AI will help us uncover insights that we couldn't see before. AI is essentially pattern making. It's a pulling things in in patterns. So if maybe we can see how people use space or how materials or buildings are performing over time, how sustainability goals can be optimized, like what's working and what's not working. So I think that makes design more predictive, which is then more human centered and ultimately more impactful.

16:24.98

CCB

That just made me think about one of the big, huge questions that we hear from many of our clients, no matter what the industry is, is how can the envelope itself become more flexible?

16:40.73

CCB

Because we don't know what the future will hold, and none of us are being that prescriptive at all. So I'm curious how you look at that from the design perspective and how you think that perhaps AI tools might help support that. Yeah.

17:00.18

Julie Maggos

I mean we at IA we pride ourselves on designing from the inside out because it's just that human centered design. Design is for the needs to solve the needs of the people in the space. So Yeah, I think products, materials, buildings, the physical things will change because it will solve a need. It will it will change because people want it to. So yeah, you know I'm a little like, get little uncomfortable looking into a crystal ball because I am not a fortune teller. But if I've learned anything in the last couple of years, it's like, who knows? Like, you know?

17:40.54

CCB

Totally. You can go into consulting in a big way. Yeah, it depends. Really, it depends. So is this your full-time job?

17:47.48

Julie Maggos

No, I'm still kind of a designer, a people leader. Yeah, I still have a burgeoning role in the design of just you know project work, but it's probably half my time now is spent on AI-related stuff. And yeah you I couldn't have predicted that a year ago.

18L06.21

CCB

I can only imagine. How many people are there across the enterprise of interior architects?

18:12.38

Julie Maggos

Yeah, we're over 600. I think I last heard 625, something like that.

18:16.42

CCB

In how many offices?

18:17.60

Julie Maggos

18 studios.

18:19,70

CCB

Oh, 18 different locations. It's also interesting to think about the matrix of sharing information and keeping people kind of, if they can't make the 30 minute coffee chat, what are the other resources?

18:33.14

Julie Maggos

Yeah. And I feel a real responsibility to that because like, you know, this is, we don't just want this to be a few select people who are the experts at this. We really want everybody at IA to have these skillsets that,

18:46.78

Julie Maggos

to enhance whatever their role is. So it's not just designers, it's our accountants and that's our HR and you know it's every aspect of what we do. So I do feel a kind of heavy responsibility to make sure that we're bringing everyone along because you know the more comfortable we are with these tools, the better we are, but maybe the more fun we can have, you know, let's like, make this an enjoyable experience. And there is there can be a lot of fear about something new and changes and workflow and all of that. And so it's it's mitigating that fear and giving people the tools to really own it themselves.

19:21.72

CCB

It's such a broad and amorphous kind of conversation when we're talking about what we don't really know and what we are anticipating or, i mean, we've kind of addressed what what some of the risks might be, but is when you say fear, where do you think the fear lies?

19:38.61

Julie Maggos

Well, probably like deep down, right? it's my Am I becoming obsolete? Is my job going away? So I think there's just a lot of anxiety and that creates resistance to using it.

19:52.73

Julie Maggos

So it becomes a change management problem for everyone, right? This is something that the whole world is is grappling with and going through. So There's the learning curve of the tool that we're trying to tackle. But then the anxiety, I think, is addressed just by transparency and being as communicative as possible. So that's where all of that, you know, we have town halls and we have our CEOs are are out there speaking about it and just reassuring people that this is not replacing you at all. You know, humans are still incredibly central to the design process. This is rethinking your workflow a little bit.

20:31.48

Julie Maggos

And, you know we'll take on the challenge of constantly keeping up with all these things. I mean, that's that's what's really overwhelming to me and and what I spend a lot of my time doing as part of leading area is just keeping up with the changes. But you guys don't have to necessarily keep up with that unless you want to. but You know, we do expect you and hope that you can come along with us as we gently bite size, give you some learning moments.

20:56.94

CCB

Yeah. Now, this is going to go off into a tiny little bit of a different direction. But there's there was this amazing conversation happened that a number of us saw who attended Cornet Global, which was a sociologist demographer who studied generations. She's done a longitudinal study on generational behaviors and context for over 20 years. And her conversation was around what are the expectations of each one of the high-level generational kind of, what's the word I want? It'll come to me. Are you seeing any difference depending on the age of the the partner and or the designer in embracing? Or is that not in an influence at all?

21:47.29

Julie Maggos

Yeah, I want to dig into our usage to find that out. It's still so new. i mean, we spent a lot of time doing piloting and just in 2025 really rolled out like firm wide tools. And we're still just trying to get people trained so that they actually use it. We're looking at the usage. There are some like superpower users and some people who've never opened it, you know, so i haven't really dug into if there's any trends in that data i think that'll be a 2026 thing we do because we'd like to address it to say what's the hold up if there is one so but i don't know anecdotally i it it seems we're constantly surprised in these coffee chats who chimes in and says you know what and like just yesterday we had one and a finance person chimed in and said i'm using it all the time for this and that and I try not to judge.

22:44.19

CCB

Yeah, word that i heard wait the word that I was searching for was stereotypes. They're gross stereotypes, but we're not that you know it it everyone is not the same and we're all individuals and you know have our own unique. I saw a conversation that is going to take place in the next week, I think, which was about HR and AI. And I saw it because a friend of mine happens to be a moderator who's an HR person on a on a global level. And I forwarded it to our HR leader saying, hey, I don't know. I mean, you you might already be, you know, evaluating things like this. But I thought I happened to know the moderator and I looked at it. sounded so interesting. And she was delighted to receive, you know, kind of, wow, yeah, that's interesting. Because the more we see...

23:31.58

CCB

The more we understand what the opportunities are for whatever it is that we are doing, you know, in our in our own lives as well as in our professional, you know, kind of experiences.

23:42.30

Julie Maggos

Yeah. And it's just about sharing and like, hey, I saw this. Hey, I saw this. And you just, yeah, kind of open your eyes and mind to. oh, that could help me maybe you know do something.

23:53.16

CCB

Well, it's going to circle it back to your human-centered. We're the people that are using it. Yeah, how is it going to impact us over time? I don't really know. I saw i also saw, okay, this is me and my little magpie. I saw a dog collar that is AI. Wait, yes, it's got an AI agent in it that can tell you what your dog is saying.

24:18.68

CCB

Okay, now stop that. But really what they were doing is they took all you know dog behaviors and the barking kind of and then said, it this kind of bark means this kind of thing. you know It's like early on and are you kidding? And the friend that sent it to me, I'm like, what is that for like you know dog owner 101? Do you not know what your dog is saying? But but again, it's like you know how how pervasive is the use of this tool going to become? and then How responsible are each one of us to be you know more fluent in the use of it?

24:55.58

Julie Maggos

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure we've all seen that thing that's like, you know, AI is not going to take your job. The person that knows how to use AI is going to take your job. And that's a little more threatening than i choose to be. But absolutely, I think we all need to just understand it at least and accept that this will be pervasive in all parts of our life. And maybe it's not so scary. You know, like maybe there's some positives to it.

25:23.12

CCB

and Yes, and the more that we learn, the more that we understand what the you know potential capabilities are. So is there any capability that you're more excited about that that you're starting to hear that, oh, wait, what about?

25:38.01

Julie Maggos

Yeah, I mean, I think it's the idea that it can take away the boring stuff. from our plate so we can spend more time on the fun stuff. Things like file cleanup and all that stuff I was talking about. Like, you know, none of that, like tracking revisions and organizing sheets and blah, blah, None of that is why we became designers. So like if AI can reliably handle that stuff, then i think we leave the you know the humans to really drive creativity for exploration, for storytelling, for the parts of the process that really matter. i think that shift has the potential to make our work yeah more impactful and more joyful, like I said. So yeah, I mean, and I'm excited to...

26:24.63

Julie Maggos

I play around probably every day in some different tool, put some stuff in, see what comes out and it just might spark some new idea. So yeah, I think I'm excited about the potential.

26:37.17

CCB

That's fantastic. All right, Julie, we are at the end of our time. And I wonder, is there anything else that you want to share that we haven't talked about? Or anything that you want to reinforce? Like, come on, go have more fun. you Use AI for fun. I'm starting to see new logos or symbols. I mean, slogans coming out of my mind.

26:55.99

Julie Maggos

Yeah, i I think that is it. it's It's, you know, just dip your toe, just try it out. I mean, when ChatGPT came out with like the really improved image generation, my very first instinct was like, oh, God, here we go. It's truly, there's no use for me anymore. But then I started doing it, playing with it, driving it myself. And it's like, yeah, it still needs to know the you know it's I still come with my whole level of experience, my 25 years and my schooling and all of that to drive it. And it's it's fun like because it can get ideas from your head out onto the screen so much faster. So I've really embraced it as like the pushing of the pixels for me.

27:41.56

CCB

Right, right, right. Okay, so I'm going to remind all of our listeners that there is a webpage that will have contacts for Julie and IA and some of the references that we've made on this conversation. The Wonder Podcast is available on all streaming services, so you can hear it on Apple or Spotify probably some AI-generated podcast list. And we are always delighted to speak with folks who are pushing boundaries, helping us learn. And Julie, we are grateful that you joined us today.

28:16.34

Julie Maggos

Great. Thanks so much.

28:17.48

CCB

Thank you. Bye-bye.