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 Heading AI 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

• 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