Inside the Conversation

As Specialist prepares to join the next Mix Roundtable on 24 September, we look back at a relationship built around asking better questions about the future of commercial interiors.

The best industry conversations do more than confirm what everybody already thinks: they test assumptions, bring different disciplines together, make room for disagreement and –  occasionally – leave the participants with more questions than they had at the beginning.

That is the purpose of the Mix Interiors Roundtables: focused discussions bringing together architects, designers, consultants, contractors and manufacturers to examine the issues shaping commercial interiors.

Specialist Group has been part of those conversations since 2020.

Over that time, our partnership with Mix has explored workplace happiness, craftsmanship, safe thinking in design, the effect of offices on wellbeing and the role of disassembly in creating more sustainable interiors.

And while the subjects may change, the principle remains consistent: progress depends on sharing knowledge across the industry, not protecting it within individual disciplines.

Human intelligence matters

Our most recent Specialist Roundtable asked a particularly timely question:

How can AI complement human expertise in design and craftsmanship?

Ciarán O’Hagan, Group Managing Director at Specialist, joined representatives from Perkins&Will, Mace, Hassell Studio, Gardiner & Theobald and tp bennett to consider where artificial intelligence adds genuine value – and where human judgement remains irreplaceable.

The group identified clear opportunities. AI can reduce administration, accelerate research and help designers analyse complex information more quickly.

But greater speed does not automatically produce better work.

As Ciarán asked during the discussion, if AI gives people more time, what will they do better with it? Used well, that time could support deeper creative thinking, stronger collaboration and more considered design. Used badly, it simply creates room for more meetings, more outputs and more of the same.

EMBED: AI AND HUMAN EXPERTISE – ROUNDTABLE HIGHLIGHTS

Protecting what matters

The discussion also drew an important distinction between producing an image and developing a design.

AI can generate something that looks convincing. It cannot automatically understand the client, the culture, the material or what can actually be manufactured and installed.

Those judgements still depend on people.

For Specialist, that distinction matters. Technology already supports design coordination and advanced manufacturing across the business, but it works alongside material knowledge, craftsmanship and practical experience.

AI brings technical intelligence at extraordinary speed. What it cannot replicate is emotional intelligence: the instinct that tells us why a space feels right, why a detail matters or why one solution will connect with people more powerfully than another.

The question is not whether the industry will use AI. It already is.

The question is whether we use it to protect and extend human creativity – or allow convenience to flatten it.

Continuing the discussion

As we return to the Mix Roundtable on 24 September, Specialist remains committed to taking an active role in the conversations influencing our industry.

Excellence in Everything means more than maintaining standards within our own business. It means listening, questioning established thinking and sharing what we have learned through design, manufacturing and delivery.

Because the future of commercial interiors will not be shaped by one discipline or one technology.

It will be shaped around the table.