HIGH POINT — While digital imaging’s fundamental significance for furniture producers and retailers is not new, 2024 has seen a number of “new” developments in this area.
The sector has discovered new applications for tools like generative AI, 3D rendering, and virtual reality as their capabilities continue to advance, allowing them to showcase and market their goods.
The following three trends are responsible for the shift in the furniture industry’s usage of imagery to increase sales and provide customers with engaging experiences.
AI has a significant impact
It should come as no surprise that generative AI and machine learning, which are influencing almost every facet of our company operations, have had a significant influence on the way the furniture industry produces marketing and product images.
AI-enabled tools can make it easier to create lifestyle pictures, product silhouettes, and hero images for collections. These solutions’ strength is in their capacity to generate massive numbers of photorealistic renderings in a matter of minutes by utilizing user-provided text and reference photos.
This provides the user with a wide range of options, and they can interact with chatbots to further customize the output to suit their requirements.
This year has seen the emergence of several new companies that provide AI-enabled image solutions to the industry, including Presti.ai, PxyMagic, and Palazzo in the interior design sector.
Hamza Bennis, co-founder of Presti.ai, claims that by offering a rapid and simple pipeline from silhouette to lifestyle image, these solutions may provide marketing teams with a high degree of personalization at scale.
“In order to better engage with their customers, retailers are embracing personalization in their imagery. They are also exploring greater creativity in their settings and can update content more frequently as anything becomes possible,” Bennis said. “All you need to save your product in any kind of setting is an image of it.”
Huge potential in VR and AR
Although generative AI has a more immediate and wide-ranging impact on the business, augmented reality and virtual reality are both making progress in the furniture industry as ways for producers and retailers to create creative new showroom experiences and merchandising for consumers.
Retailers looking to boost customer confidence in their purchases may find augmented reality products extremely useful as they may display furniture in a user’s living space.
The CEO of ThreeKit, a visual commerce platform, is Matt Groniak. Partners in the furniture sector, such as Lovesac and Crate & Barrel, employ the AR solution. According to him, the goal of AR solutions is to encourage the consumer to engage with the product while they are still in the “discovery phase” of the purchasing process.
From the standpoint of visual commerce, you are already highly involved with the product when you are at the augmented reality side of things. You’ve already made decisions. The goal is for customers to be able to explore and get inspired.
“We use visual discovery, which is the capacity to rapidly examine products, become inspired by them, and lead them down that rabbit hole, to catch people earlier.”
Another emerging technology with a lot of promise is virtual reality, which completely immerses the user in a visual experience through the use of headsets. Arrange 3D, a mixed reality furniture purchasing software, was introduced in October by home furnishings resource Kravet and 3D visualization company Intiaro. It made its premiere at this fall’s High Point Market.
The program, which was made for Apple’s Vision Pro headset, lets users see fully configurable furniture in their own room, giving them a realistic and immersive experience that allows them to test out various product customization choices in real time.
According to Jesse Lazarus, chief technology officer of Kravet, “this device is bringing that high quality photorealistic rendering, but you’re in your own space, so it’s easier to tolerate.”
Customization: From Headache to Breeze
For furniture manufacturers, especially those catering to high-end design clientele, accommodating customer-owned material is a common source of frustration. Errors can be expensive, and the back and forth that results from trying and discussing various fabric options can take a lot of time.
This year, Intiaro introduced a novel solution to this issue. For furniture producers that want to display any fabric specified by the customer on any furniture design, its customer owned material (COM) tool streamlines the procedure.
Michal Stachowski, co-founder and CCO of Intiaro, stated that the tool, which also includes a mobile application, was created with user-friendliness in mind.
“The user can use their phone to snap a photo of that cloth, drape it over the item to depict the product exactly as it is, or expedite their 3D creation by downloading one of our models. Along with the COM, all of Intiaro’s functions may be completely incorporated into the process,” he stated.
The ability to use a visual tool to show a buyer a variety of fabric and customization possibilities might help manufacturers close more deals with less effort, especially for designers who have high-value and picky customers.
For manufacturers, particularly the select few who may spend $5 million year with a certain vendor or manufacturer, designers are essentially mini-retailers, according to Stachowski. “So, by providing them with 3D models to facilitate sales, this tool enables a manufacturer to fit in one more project with a designer.”
Each of these trends has the potential to significantly improve workflow efficiency and save businesses a significant amount of money as their capabilities advance.
