AI vs. 200 humans - Better or worse Lighting Design? Controversy? Emad Hasan + Ketryna Fares

Summary

LytePod Episode Summary

Episode Title: AI vs. 200 Humans – Better or Worse Lighting Design? Controversy?
Guests: Emad Hasan, Ketryna Fares (referred to as "Ahmad" and "Kitty" in discussion; core panel features Matt Alleman and Brandon Thrasher)
Host: Lytei
Date: May 5, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode of LytePod confronts the fascinating (and sometimes controversial) question: “Is AI a revolutionary leap for lighting design or a threat to what makes human designers irreplaceable?” Through an honest conversation with leaders in lighting design, the episode explores how AI is reshaping creativity, business structures, professional value, education, and day-to-day design practice. The exchange is rich in practical insights, candid concerns, and moments of humor, highlighting both excitement and anxiety about the rapidly evolving relationship between humans and machines in the creative process.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Human Element in Lighting Design

• AI as Amplifier, Not Replacer

  • Human designers bring instinct, experience, and emotional intelligence into a project—facets AI simply cannot replicate.
  • "At the end of the day, the human is the one with the experiences. It's not going to ever be an architect typing in, give me good lighting design. And it just knowing what to do."
    —Matt Alleman [00:00, 05:45]

• Creativity & Intuition

  • The “DNA” of a project is encoded through subtle cues, client interaction, gut feelings, and reading social-emotional signals—qualities hard to commoditize or automate.
  • "There are so many things that you can't just plug in...it's even hard to collect that data because it's just within our own persona."
    —Brandon Thrasher [06:20]

• AI as a Support, Not a Substitute

  • While AI expedites tasks (renderings, drafting), it lacks the capacity for qualitative understanding, emotional resonance, and real-time problem-solving inherent to people.

2. Efficiency, Fees, and Economic Shifts

• Changing Fee Structure Concerns

  • The efficiency gained from AI risks undermining the value-based pricing of design services if clients equate speed with deliverable value.

  • "If AI can automate all that and the owner said, 'I'm good with what you gave me,' they have a pretty damn strong argument to say I'm paying you 70% less."
    —Moderator [17:53]

  • Despite automation, business costs and the complexity of professional services remain constant; human oversight, interpretation, and management are still essential.

  • "The costs of that didn't change. So even if a task might take a little bit less time, my hourly rate's going to go up because I have to pay everybody else the same."
    —Matt Alleman [24:28]

• Value Beyond Execution

  • The community sees opportunity in leveraging AI to shift more focus onto conceptual work, innovation, client communication, and mentorship rather than production labor.

3. The Fear and Promise of Critical Thinking Loss

• AI’s Effect on Professional Development

  • Heavy AI reliance may atrophy critical thinking skills. MIT Media Lab research cited: users who consistently relied on AI solutions became less capable when machines were removed.
  • "Critical thinking, you have to exercise that part of your brain and if you don't, you're going to lose it."
    —Matt Alleman [14:40]

• AI-Native Generations

  • There’s an open question on how future (AI-native) generations will assimilate these tools, possibly redefining the field’s expectations and skillsets.
  • "What is the AI native generation going to be like? ...Are we going to end up being the dinosaurs who need to be pushed out by this group who thinks very differently than we do?"
    —Matt Alleman [16:26]

4. AI Policy and Adoption Readiness

• Industry Readiness Varies

  • While nearly all individuals admit to using AI both personally and professionally, only a tiny fraction of firms have formal AI use policies in place.
  • "One of the questions we asked the audience was, who has an AI policy? ...It was 10, 15 people raised their hand out of a couple hundred."
    —Matt Alleman, [32:25-32:57]

• Data, IP, and Proprietary Risks

  • Widespread industry tools (Revit, AutoCAD, QuickBooks, Adobe) increasingly incorporate AI and harvest user data, raising concerns over intellectual property and confidentiality.
  • "We don't read [the Terms]. We don't realize that we are giving up something by using this information...I'm sure it's sifting through all of my financial information and figuring out patterns."
    —Matt Alleman [45:12]

5. Shifting Practice and Differentiation

• Raising the Bar

  • As AI democratizes technical competence, designers must focus more on what cannot be easily replicated: vision, story, personal process, client rapport, leadership, and niche expertise.
  • "AI is just going to raise the bar and we're going to keep catching up...and differentiate ourselves in the industry."
    —Brandon Thrasher [18:48]

• Mentorship and Team Development

  • AI could free time for leaders to focus on mentoring and growing talent, not just managing deliverables.

• Adapting or Being Left Behind

  • "I commend those people who decide not to use AI...but you will be left behind. But where do you draw the line?"
    —Matt Alleman [39:27]

6. Human Connection: The Unassailable Value

• Relationships Matter Most

  • Clients hire designers for connection, insight, and collaboration, not just technical output.
  • "They're not hiring just a tool. ...They want to collaborate with you. They want to build that connection, human connection, with you."
    —Brandon Thrasher [10:49]

• Design as Communication

  • Human communication with clients—and among teammates—remains uniquely nuanced, built on empathy and the ability to "read the room", something AI currently cannot authentically emulate.

7. The Future: Partnership, Not Panic

• Software as Partner, Not Overlord
  • The best path forward is demanding that software be a true “partner” (not just a data siphon) and advocating for user needs.
  • Larger firms may have bandwidth to negotiate this; sole practitioners may not.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Limits of AI in Design:

  • "AI will never experience human emotion. It'll look up information, it might give back good information, but it doesn't know what it takes to make great lighting design."
    —Matt Alleman [07:12]

• On Critical Thinking and Dependency:

  • "If you're just relying on the machine for critical thinking...that's not advancing us, it's just advancing the machine."
    —Brandon Thrasher [15:59]

• On Differentiating Through Humanity:

  • "It's about differentiation...every firm is going to have to figure out a way to up that."
    —Brandon Thrasher [19:18]

• On Fee Structures & Valuing Design:

  • "There's only so many [designers] that are going to accomplish that level of being able to charge for opportunity...if everybody's doing it, then it's not special anymore."
    —Matt Alleman [23:04]

• On the Evolving Role of Firms:

  • "We have to be able to answer, why would they hire you instead of someone else? ...AI just affects every part of our business."
    —Brandon Thrasher [23:57]

• On AI as a Full-Time Employee:

  • Q. Will AI become a full-time employee within design companies in the next three years?
    A. "Yes." —Both [48:09-48:10]

• On Mentorship and Education:

  • "There's content-based learning and then there's human-based. You need that connection with your mentee or mentor—and that's the difference between a class and a community."
    —Brandon Thrasher [48:53]

• On Software Partnerships:

  • "We have to shift our mindset of software being a tool to software being a partner of ours, because they are collecting our data and they are totally handcuffing us to them."
    —Paraphrasing Jay Ratten (via Moderator) [46:21]

• On the Irreducible Core of Human Experience:

  • "It's going to really take all of humans, like every individual's human experience, which oftentimes we're not aware of what we're thinking...So to, achieve a brain that's AI brain, it has to physically take it out of you—of a billion or billions of people's brains. It's just not possible."
    —Brandon Thrasher [44:13]

---

Critical Timestamps

• The Value of Human Design: [00:00, 05:45]
• Current AI Usage vs. Policy Adoption: [32:25-32:57]
• AI and Critical Thinking: [14:40-15:59]
• Fee Structures & Economic Concerns: [17:53-24:28]
• Mentorship, Human Connection: [13:47, 48:53]
• Software as Data Collector: [45:12-46:21]
• Future of AI in Firms: [48:09-48:10]
• Redefining Differentiation: [18:48, 19:18, 23:57, 39:00]
• Final Reflections on Humanity & AI: [52:18-54:57]

---

Podcast Tone and Style

The conversation blends humor, candor, deep experience, and an undercurrent of both pragmatic optimism and healthy skepticism.

• For every emerging threat, the panel finds a human opportunity.
• For every technical marvel, there’s a reminder of the irreplaceable value of lived experience, creative instinct, and human collaboration.

---

In Summary

AI is transforming lighting design practice, but its power remains bounded by the distinctly human blend of creativity, intuition, and emotional intelligence. The profession faces critical challenges: maintaining value in the age of automation, fostering critical thinking amidst convenience, and navigating concerns over data and intellectual property. Nonetheless, the heart of lighting design—collaboration, mentorship, the client relationship, and the creation of sensory experiences—remains uniquely human. As AI becomes an inevitable fixture in design studios, the future belongs to those who lean into their humanity, use the technology as a tool—not a crutch—and advocate for the value only people can provide.

Transcript

[Matt Alleman]

At the end of the day, the human is the one with the experiences. It's not going to ever be an architect typing in, give me good lighting design. And it just knowing what to do

[Brandon Thrasher]

for the things that you don't want to do in your business. Hire someone.

[Podcast Host]

Ahmad and Kitty are two sharp minds in lighting design. And I wanted to know, does AI change everything or does it prove why lighting designers are irreplaceable?

[Brandon Thrasher]

They're not hiring just a tool. They're not hiring revit. They're hiring you. They want to spend time with you. They want to collaborate with you. They want to build that connection, human connection, with you.

[Podcast Host]

How much of your project fee is

[Moderator]

spent actually being creative and intelligent versus doing the work?

[Matt Alleman]

I see it anywhere from like 10

[Brandon Thrasher]

to 15% the amount of time that we spend as humans, not as AI might be changing.

[Matt Alleman]

The human brain is an algorithm. I read this study from MIT Media Lab. They did studies on how AI of affected critical thinking.

[Brandon Thrasher]

I feel like AI is just going to raise the bar and we're going to keep catching up to becoming the best and the best and the best.

[Matt Alleman]

It's being driven by Silicon Valley and it's being driven by Wall Street. They see this as a turning point in our society. They want to be the first one to build that railroad.

[Moderator]

Are the people who write the checks to hire the design teams in love with other people doing this? Or are they just looking for a reason to get rid of?

[Podcast Host]

Before we jump in, I want to thank five companies that show up for this community. Eureka, ledflex, Diode, led Kelvix and Targettti usa. Because this show exists thanks to their belief in designers and the way they work every single day. I want to share something with you before we dive in. It matters to me and I think it matters to you too. It's not something people imagine. They just experience it. That moment when a space you designed actually exists in the world and people walk into it feeling something without knowing why. That's not luck. That's your design, your instinct, your eye, the obsession with getting it right. Eureka luminaires are crafted for this mindset. And they aren't just intentionally designed. They're driven by a genuine passion, a push to innovate, and the performance to back it up. Their statement pieces anchor a space and make people stop. So when your project needs that moment, that thing people feel without knowing why, Eureka is probably a good place to start. Check out eurekalighting.com it's the kind of rabbit hole you'll be Glad you fell into pretty cool, huh? All right, let's dive into this conversation.

[Matt Alleman]

We calculated that there's about 1.5 billion ChatGPT queries a day and that it amounts to powering one and a half million homes a day. Just like a anecdotal bit of info. And somebody asked like, well, if you know, it's using this much energy and it's doing this much harm, why still use it? And it's such a tough question to answer because they've at least I think of it as it's being thrust upon us. We're almost not being asked whether we want to use it. The tech industry and investors have really said push this and they're spending a lot of time integrating it into every software we use. You know, I, I have a lot of softwares I have licenses on, and the license costs went up and they added AI and I don't have a choice. It's there. And they also make it very addicting.

[Brandon Thrasher]

What are the cautionary tales that we should be, you know, thinking about? What are the things that we should not be doing or we shouldn't. Yeah, we shouldn't be doing to kind of keep the integrity of our industry intact or of design in general of ourselves. But then AI is really all encompassing. Like there are bigger questions and bigger issues, but there are more things to be made, like from advocacy, legislations, things that we need to be mindful of. And maybe this is more of like an organizational question. Maybe it's like ILD or IES or yeah, organizations that can go advocate for this.

[Moderator]

It's interesting to hear how people can't help but let their mind drift from how it directly affects them and it just becomes this whole revolutionary conversation. I don't have it figured out, nor am I old enough to experience the multi generational, you know, sensation of things changing. But there's so much that happens within humanity. So we'll save humanity for the end because it's deep and I don't want us to get derailed.

[Matt Alleman]

We're in this interesting part of AI where it's really only about a year. It feels like it's only been a year and some change maybe where the consumers are using it and we're, we're all using it a certain way. A lot of it is information gathering, asking it questions, making images. But I know the potential of it is so much greater and I, I wonder, like, are we ever going to actually hit the, the real potential of it? And is all the investment that these companies are making going to be worth it.

[Brandon Thrasher]

I mean, at the same time, it's amplifying what you're putting into it. How do you use it and how do you. How do you not allow it for it to think for yourself? Like, how do you use it? And then take a step back and understand that this is something that's amplifying your thoughts and not supporting you or not is not an actual person.

[Moderator]

Yeah. So let's talk about design and creativity. Where's our community at with that right now?

[Matt Alleman]

AI is not going to replace creativity and only support it. That at the end of the day, the human is the one with the experiences. They're the ones with the thoughts and the emotions to know what good design is and that it's not going to ever be, at least in our world of more complex type of architecture, that it's not going to trend towards an architect typing in, give me good lighting design. And it just knowing what to do.

[Brandon Thrasher]

You could be sitting with your client talking about the project, or the owner talking about the project, and they're telling you, you know, what they want, what their goals are. But you have a hundred things that you're trying to piece together on, like, what's going to make this project's DNA. What does this project want to be in the long run? And that could be just from experience, from, you know, trying to tack on all these cues from your gut feeling, but also from visual cues, from, like, seeing how their reactions are, you know, what are they thinking, how are they talking, are they comfortable, are they excited about it? There are so many things that you can't just plug in. And it's even hard to kind of collect that data because it's just within our own Persona and it's within our own psyche that it's hard to just download it to AI, to kind of just say, this is who I am now. Do this project as if you or

[Matt Alleman]

me kind of thing, a computer or an AI, it'll never experience human emotion. It'll never know what it's like to connect with a person or a space and be in it and feel it. It'll look it up, it'll read the information, and it might regurgitate very good information back to you, but it doesn't know what it takes to make great lighting design.

[Brandon Thrasher]

And then at the same time, you have, you know, us as a community of lighting designers, we are a very small portion of all of the architectural projects. Right. All of this. There are going to be projects that are going to be much more efficient and Makes much more business sense to just run it through AI. Now that we're going to be so efficient, what is going to be our value as lighting designers? Why are we being hired by this person? Why do they need us for? And also what is our offering? Are we doing the same things we've been doing just more efficiently or are we just shifting what our offering is?

[Matt Alleman]

I think that we're already in a world where at least I feel like we're in a world where lighting designers don't work on all projects. They work on a small percentage of projects. And that percentage of projects is usually driven by a client, whoever wants to build that building in the first place. I could easily see a developer saying just repeat what we did and they already do it, but having a computer do it instead and just saying, you know, maybe work on only the amenity because that's where the creativity is. And I still, I see that continuing, you know, it's already happening now. I think it's probably going to just complete, keep verging in that direction even more.

[Brandon Thrasher]

Yeah, we might be for example, consulting on portion of a project and helping them through that and helping them with pricing and the budget and, and making sure that its constructability is, is, is accurate. But then we're actually designing something else. So like our scope may be kind of changing and the amount of time that we spent as humans, not as AI, might be changing.

[Moderator]

Everybody definitively says they are going to teach it how to think based on data. And it, barring something I've missed, it will happen. I don't know when or to what

[Matt Alleman]

extent I think it's going to happen, but I sometimes just wonder what the motive or incentive is to do that. In the design community, I see the thinking side really coming into play at a business level, at a corporate level. And when I say business and corporate, I'm thinking Fortune 500 level major corporations who want to leverage it in a way to turn it into more money, more money for investors and just like research. Yeah, I, I'm trying to be, I generally right now trying to be positive about it, thinking about us leveraging the tools side of things like it responding to my feedback is the idea that it could think for us and replace us. Possible? Absolutely. And I can't predict whether it's gonna happen. And it's one of these things where you just have to kind of wait and see.

[Moderator]

Like you're pitching people on your creative ability to complete those services. And I'm curious to get your take on it. Are the people who write the checks to hire the design teams in love with other people doing this, or are they just looking for a reason to get rid of you? Because I guess that kind of answers this whole question whether AI can do it or not. If the people who are paying us want you still, well then they want you, right?

[Brandon Thrasher]

They're, they're not hiring just someone, you know, just a tool. They're not hiring revit right before AI, they're hiring you. They want to spend time with you, they want to collaborate with you, they want to build that connection, human connection with you. And that's a lot of what we touched on as well. Like it goes back, it all goes back to being human and finding connection, finding meaning in, in the, in the things that we do every day.

[Matt Alleman]

I'm a one person shop, right? And I, having worked at a couple of very large firms, I, I saw how easy it was to get certain tasks completed with resources like that. And a lot of that, some of those resources, and I'll use renderings as an example. They're time consuming, right? I would, and I think this is where the industry should head, is to improve our level of visualization would allow designers to free up time, but it would also allow sole practitioners like myself to not have to start thinking, how do I find somebody to do this rendering for 30, 40 hours, right? I'd rather have a designer thinking about design than sitting at a computer and trying to Get Photoshop or 3DS or Rhino or any of those softwares to do and have it look the way that it is up here, right? To be able to do that quickly is going to save a lot of time. But at the same time, what worries me is if, if we're continuing to improve the visualization to the point that they can be done quickly. I worry that architects, not to pick on architects, they're just mainly the clients, right? Architects, interior designers might start churning out so many renderings in the beginning that a lot of times now when I see a rendering, there's almost no lighting in it because they're like, well, you like to do. And there's no other services in there, right? There's like no sprinklers, there's no exit signs. But if the software starts putting lighting in, they might start latching on to, well, that's the lighting that we liked in the rendering. And I worry that, that they start to say, well, we want you to do this. Now there already is some of that, right? There are firms that say, we know what we want the lighting to be and they, they look at the lighting designer as more of a execute their vision. And then there's architects and interior designers who want you to interpret the project, ask the right questions, understand what the space is supposed to feel like and what emotions we're trying to create in this space and then help them realize that vision in a new way. So there's a part of me that's scared of the computer doing it for them, but I also start to wonder, are they going to look at that and go, that's the same stuff that I keep seeing in every rendering. I need a designer to be creative about it.

[Brandon Thrasher]

From a business perspective as either a leader in your studio or a business owner. There's also time back that you can spend connecting with your own team. It's not just about the client, it's not about just churning projects. You have time to look at your team, help them grow and re analyze what that, that, what does that growth mean? Maybe it's not just now you have to learn the software or you have to figure out how to do this. There's more to that. There's more to that when it comes to mentorship. There's more to that when it comes to just making sure your team is happy. Like there's, there's all of that aspect that you can bring back and then processes, you know, you're rethinking processes, you're discussing it with them, you're. Everybody's just part of that circle right now because you have that machine just doing all the production work nobody wants to do without losing the educational aspect of it.

[Matt Alleman]

One of the things I shared with the group was that I read this study from MIT Media Lab and it was about, it was a small study, but it was, it's almost like you read the answer and you thought, okay, yeah, that makes perfect sense. And it was. They did studies on how AI affected critical thinking and they did studies where they gave people access to the no AI and some where they gave studies where they gave them access to AI. And the people who had access to AI actually did way better than the people who had to use their own critical thinking skills. But then when they removed AI, these, this group of people who was using it all the time became so adaptive to it that when remove that tool they ended up performing not as well. And what they were speculating was that, you know, critical thinking, you have to exercise that part of your brain and if you don't, you're going to lose it. And it's true like if you don't do a task enough times and you wait a while, you go back to it. You're like, how do I do that again? And takes a minute. And the fear that we were at least exploring was, is AI going to create critical thinking issues in our industry and how do we combat that?

[Brandon Thrasher]

If you're just really relying on the machine for critical thinking, but then that's also not advancing us, it's just advancing the machine. What do you do if it's taking away? What do you do if it just shuts down all of a sudden? Like, if it's sustainability overload and just shuts down, then you go back in time and that's maybe like 20 years from now. You go back 20, 30 years in the way that you're trained. That's kind of crazy and scary.

[Matt Alleman]

And I have no general sense of what is the AI native generation going to be like. And I am talking that these are people who are children right now, that they're going to grow up with it. It's like when people were computer native or Internet native. These are generations that had it as a, at a young age. What is going, what's the world going to be like? You and I are speaking very like, this is what critical thing is, what design is. But is that generation going to think the same thing or are we going to end up being the dinosaurs who need to be pushed out by this group who thinks very differently than we do because they have access to it all their lives?

[Moderator]

My personal opinion is the latter definitively. I mean, we can still be critical thinkers and just have more information. To start with, you guys tell me how much of your project fee is spent actually being creative and intelligent versus doing the work?

[Matt Alleman]

The percentage of fee in like this schematic design phase, I see it anywhere from like 10 to 15%. Figuring out the concept is, is a, is a, it's a very important part because. But it is a small part because the amount of effort it takes to then properly execute that is large, which is bogus. We want to see that part go down so that we can make this part larger on the schematic side.

[Moderator]

But here's a really interesting question. And this was posed to me in the state of lighting design for this year, 2025, when I recorded a podcast 11 months ago. A unit of time is this, which is schematic design. 15% of it, you come up with creativity. The rest of its execution, I am assuming that you're billing, so to speak, for your time. If AI can automate all that and the owner said, I'm good with what you gave me. They have a pretty damn strong argument to say I'm paying you 70% less. Now they do, because it's a very good. Because they are getting the exact same output from you and you are spending way less time. How does design make sure that doesn't happen?

[Brandon Thrasher]

Well, right now, someone who's an amazing designer, right. I'm talking about concepts, all of that. In 20 years, with the same skill set, the same outputs might just be average. Right. I feel like AI is just going to raise the bar and we're going to keep catching up to becoming the best and the best and the best and differentiate ourselves in the industry. So in a sense, I would love to see that shrink so we can spend way more time on this and really churn.

[Moderator]

What if the owner doesn't want it?

[Brandon Thrasher]

They're going. It's. It's about differentiation. You're going to see competition if you, if everybody, if every firm is going to come out with, you know, the best, or let's say really good renderings or really good concepts that are thought out, not just AI churned or anything like that, you're going to have to figure out a way to up that. Everybody's fee is going to go hopefully higher when it comes to the value to the client. But then you're going to have that much more competition because you have to keep up.

[Matt Alleman]

I'll use Revit as an example. It's supposed to save us a lot of time. I don't think it saves us time. I think it's very powerful tool and very great at visualizing a space or at least understanding it in three dimension. Maybe not like rendering as much, but when it first came out, there was this thought that architects were going to save time using revit. Lighting designers were going to save time doing the same thing over AutoCAD. And I don't think that that's the case. I have not seen in everywhere I've ever worked. I've never seen the fees change when Revit came in. And architects spend, I would say probably even more time just managing models. But you're bringing up a very good point because somebody, somebody is still going to say, how do I squeeze money out of this? Because at the end of the day, and depends on who's they want to use that money for something, either it's going to go in their pocket or they want to use it to build another building or whatever it is they're doing. But it's how do I make sure that we manage our fees? And if they see an opportunity to get architects, interior designers, light designers, all consultants, to cut back that much through AI, they're going to take it. I don't have those tools now. And somebody would have to develop a tool that says, take this design concept and make it into an executable set of documents that a contractor can follow and build correctly. There still needs to be human validation in there, a lot of it. And I think it's going to take a long time before a computer can look at a rendering or a set of random sketches and renderings and information and then translate it into that. Is it possible? I think everything's possible. And the world continues to amaze me with the technology that comes out, and it's coming out faster and faster and faster. I did not think that I would live to see this moment happening. I thought it was way out there. But here we are, and we're not even that far removed from when computers and microchips led us into this world and smartphones led us even further into this world. It's a natural progression.

[Brandon Thrasher]

And.

[Matt Alleman]

And I made a comment during the session that this is being driven by. It's being driven by money, it's being driven by Silicon Valley, and it's being driven by Wall Street. They see this as a turning point in our society, and they want to be the first ones to get ahead of it. They want to be the first one to build that railroad or the first one that came out with that mobile phone. That's what they're aiming for right now. And some of them are going to win and a lot of them are going to lose, but that's what's pushing us in that direction.

[Moderator]

And

[Matt Alleman]

I hope that our fees don't go down too much.

[Moderator]

My curiosity behind that is, is that motivation for design to explore charging for value, not time. We as human beings have this ability to justify paying more for something, even though it does the same thing. How can design mentality be shifted to the extent that it's like.

[Matt Alleman]

Well, I think you're getting into that and what you're saying exists to an extent today. But there's. There's only a small percentage of. Of designers that are going to accomplish that level of being able to charge for opportunity. And you think about architects, and I'll just use them as an example. There's only. There's only so many of them. Most architecture firms are. There's a lot of architects in the world. There's a lot of them. And most of them don't work on these kinds of high end luxury buildings. Vast majority don't. So could that happen in lighting? There's firms now who are, their portfolios are so good that they can charge for value and they can charge for the opportunity to have them on the job. But I still, there's always only going to be enough room for a certain amount of people to do that. Because if everybody's doing it, then it's not special anymore.

[Brandon Thrasher]

We have to be able to answer, why would they hire you instead? Someone, someone else? And why should they not pay you less? We're going to have to refigure out what our offerings are and what our value values are. And that's because AI just affects every part of our business. Like it could fundamentally just put your business upside down, just reconfigure it, change it and put it back to market. Right. It's more than just, you know, changing to revit or changing. It's like an all encompensating, all fields kind of affecting tool.

[Matt Alleman]

And the design community just needs to continue in, again, all aspects of the design community, not just lighting designers. They need to continue to advocate, to say, no, this is our fee, this is how much we cost. I don't care that there's AI that helps us do these tools. They're just making things more accessible and actually improving the quality. They should be, they should be looking at it as pitching that, no, it's not saving time, it's actually improving quality and it's allowing us to give you better work. Hold on. And the moment architects start lowering their fees, it trickles down to us. So it's really on them to protect everybody and say, no, this is what it costs, this is what it costs and this is what our value is. Because it's still, it's not going to cost less to run a company. It's not going to cost less for me to do my website. In fact, the price keeps going up because they added AI. It's not going to cost me less to do the financing. It's not going to cost me less to pay a person's salary, pay my own salary, pay taxes. Those numbers don't change. The economics don't change. So even if a task might take a little bit less time, my hourly rate's going to go up because I still have to pay everybody else the exact same. So they can go ahead and say, you use less time and say, all right, well, I need to double the rate because I still have all these things. I have to pay for. And the costs of that didn't change. So unless the cost of that changes, which it's not going to, everybody wants their buck. Then I don't see us losing out on fees like that.

[Moderator]

Let's be honest, no one likes losing out, do they? I know you as a listener don't like losing out either. And there's three companies that should never lose out either, because they support you, the design community, and they're the reason this podcast happens.

[Podcast Host]

Kelvix doesn't move fast, they move with purpose, helping the design world turn ambitious ideas into seamless, buildable realities. The Kelvix team works at the pace of your project, delivering tailored solutions backed by people who know how quality, timing and and precision elevate the final outcome in every spec and every collaboration. Kelvix proves lighting is more than illumination. Lighting protects design intent, sharpens the details that matter, and bring spaces to life with clarity and ease. See what's coming next, from breakthrough products to standout [e-mail] or in their social channels. And another manufacturer that I respect and enjoy working with is Lead Flex I, where linear light is designed to do more than illuminate, it's engineered to shape how spaces are experienced. Rooted in British manufacturing, LED Flex works alongside lighting designers, interior designers and architects worldwide, supporting projects where detailed precision and execution matter. They're not just a manufacturer, they're a technical partner providing bespoke solutions, rapid prototyping, commissioning and long term support from earlier early concept through final handover. If light is integral to your architecture, choose a partner who stays with the project. Learn [e-mail] and stick with me because I want to make sure we both

[Moderator]

know and can agree.

[Podcast Host]

Every designer knows the success of a space depends on what actually shows up on site. And that's where Diode LED comes in. Lighting performance isn't an add on, it's the foundation of every successful linear lighting project. Designers need solutions that carry ideas smoothly from specification through installation, and Diode LED is built to support that reality. With industry leading inventory, reliable delivery, and responsive support, Diode LED keeps pace with real project timelines, not theoretical ones. Real solutions for real projects, no matter the scale. Learn more about what's happening in Reno, Nevada@diode led.com

[Brandon Thrasher]

you know, would a younger designer replace someone who's more experienced? And the first thing that I thought about, and I kind of said this on the in the session is when I was trying to go from designer to senior designer, really trying to climb the ladder. You know, early on in my career, I had one principal tell me, and that was the best lesson that I got that year, was slow down. You don't know what you don't know. Right. So you could have all of the energy, all of those tools that. That you just don't know how to use at that point in time because you don't have that much experience to properly use them. And so a lot of it, again, has to do with human, like, what it means to be human, what it means to accumulate all of those experiences, to ask the right questions, to use the right tools, to mold that AI tool the right way. So I. That's what. That's what makes me just a little bit less concerned about it. It's still a tool. It's crazy. It's amazing, it's big, it's new, but it's like a huge storm that's just going to settle and we're going to clearly see how we can better utilize it for our businesses to make them better and how we shouldn't be using it and what are the lines that we wouldn't want to cross.

[Matt Alleman]

The skill sets always are changing, and right now there's not. At least to me, there's not a direct AI tool out there that is driving the architecture community, the design community, the building design community, to start to rally around it in a way that young or any designer needs to start learning it. Like, it took a little bit of time before Revit became. It started growing quickly into being the standard and everyone. Everyone starts adopting that as the thing. I don't know what AI tool. Like, yeah, there's. There's all sorts of language models, but there's not like an industry standard one that I can think of. There's more ones that are more popular than others, but not one where I think a designer needs to really focus on how to do the proper word prompting. Right. Are there image generators out there? Yes. I've tried so many of them to see if there was any validity in them. I just don't think that they're there yet. They will get there. I believe they will, but I don't think they're at the point of me being able to say, this is the space. Please put a cove in this corner.

[Moderator]

And you, by the way, know the difference of a perfectly rendered cove that you can never build.

[Matt Alleman]

Yeah. Or the effect that it creates, knowing what it. What's the actual way it needs to be built to create the effect that I'm seeing. It changes.

[Brandon Thrasher]

So when it comes to project work, the same way that you wouldn't just, you know, pick up CAD just to figure out how to sketch a space, you would want to start with a pen and start sketching and really thinking about it and then going to the tool. Right. Is how I've been using AI. So I've been really thinking about the space, thinking about the problem that needs to be solved, thinking about, again, going back to intuition and what does this project need to be? And then maybe using AI as a sounding board, like dumping all of my ideas into it and just make it help, help, help me make sense of all of these things that I know are right for this project. Right. And how can I navigate that so not going to it first, but really going to it when I'm ready to ask it the right questions from a business side of things. I think, I think it was Steven who had said something about, you know, for the things that you don't want to do in your business, hire someone. Right? So, so same thing. You don't want to do some things that are not your core offering. You know, your core offering for your business, especially as a solo business owner, for example, hire AI. Figure out a way to. To get there faster and effectively and correctly. You see it, right? Make sure it's still your voice, but hire AI.

[Matt Alleman]

So we're starting to talk about adoption readiness, which is like what one of the. One of the topics was, and one of the. One of the questions we asked the audience was, who has an AI policy? And it was a lot less than I expected it to be. I mean, it was 10, 15 people raised their hand.

[Moderator]

Adoption readiness in terms of actually, actually

[Matt Alleman]

thinking about how are you using it in your firm, and are you. Are you prepared and is your firm prepared to be using it?

[Moderator]

So on a percentage basis of the room, how many people?

[Matt Alleman]

5%? Not even. I mean, it was. There was a couple hundred people in there.

[Moderator]

And that's what's so interesting to me. We're all sitting here talking about this, but how much of it are we

[Brandon Thrasher]

really using at the same time? Just as humans, at the same time, there are clients who are now, I'm assuming for bigger firms, maybe asking for AI policies, asking for that to be written in a contract. Either you cannot use AI or you have to be really careful with the data that you're putting in there because it's proprietary data, it's NDAs, it's all of that. So it's. It's either going all the way out or not even talking about it internally.

[Matt Alleman]

So it's interesting, it's funny, as we asked that policy question, one of the first questions we asked was who's using AI in their personal life? Every hand went up. The other question was who's using AI at their, in their work life? Every hand went up.

[Moderator]

Yeah.

[Matt Alleman]

So you see everyone's using it, but companies are, I think they're being a little slow to at least set a policy or maybe they're afraid to because they don't want to stifle that growth. But I do think like I heard, I don't remember who was saying it, but one of the, one of the rationales was, and I think you may have even said it, which was Matt said you're not allowed to use it there for sketching, you're not allowed to use it for concept development, for creating that initial idea, that that's a no no and that's actually a company policy. And I started thinking like, I guess I have internal policies as a sole practitioner and would it help for me to write them down?

[Moderator]

Maybe.

[Matt Alleman]

I mean I wrote down, I figured out my mission statement so that I could always revert back to it and might be helpful to write down based on our discussion today where I want to draw the line so that I feel like there's some level of control before the machine controls me. Uh oh.

[Brandon Thrasher]

At the same time, if you're a company and you want to create an AI policy, you have to be able to also respond to the demand of your employees wanting to use AI in general. Right. So you have to create your own AI, you know, brain or model internally, which makes sense for a bigger company. But are you going to spend and invest in that as a small company or are you going to be a little bit more lax, a little bit more flexible? You know, allow them to allow to see where your, how your employees are using AI and maybe then make a decision of how to, to, you know, beta test it and then make an informed decision on how it should be used internally.

[Matt Alleman]

But what's going to happen when a lot of it is fake? Are people going to be as interested in it?

[Brandon Thrasher]

Well, speaking of, and this is maybe the algorithm on social media giving all of this AI since we started talking about AI, but a lot of brands say brand designers are really talking about how all of everything is perfect with everything looks perfect, there's nothing wrong with it, everything is just well lit and whatever it is. So maybe let's diverge to being more real like images or photos that are more that feel like A person took a photo and just like, you know, got the edge of the carpet or got the edge of the table or those are just now differentiating themselves from the perfect image. You going on site, taking a photo, taking a close up and really looking at a detail and really being in that space and inviting people into that space versus a wide shot. Like that's maybe where, you know, we can evolve and how, you know, it's going to kind of we're gonna want to be there more that human element. Yeah, yeah.

[Moderator]

I mean, I feel like we brought it up intrinsically like a dozen times. Like we're still human and we're gonna still have to live. Like, we're not all gonna put a headset on and live in the metaverse. I used an analogy earlier this week. There's a thousand people who are fantastic, dedicated professionals to lighting design. And we would love it if 75 million people in the upper middle class had better lighting in their homes and therefore wanted better lighting everywhere else. They were. You can't do that. You can't do it. You can't go to 75 million from a thousand. You need a conduit, a distribution mechanism, a megaphone. What if the thousand created the megaphone through AI?

[Matt Alleman]

I do think that there's a lot about good quality design that could and should be taught to the rest of the world, because they don't know. And I do think that there's opportunities maybe to use AI as a way to, to educate people on, well, what is good design? So maybe it'll actually start teaching them, like, oh, I put it in AI and it told me not to use a 5000k light bulb in my bathroom and maybe they'll stop doing it. I mean, it's not perfect, but you know how many different light bulbs they sell at Home Depot, how many different light fixtures they sell. They don't know how to discern the difference between the two. I also wonder, like, even, even other design professionals don't always know what great lighting should be like. And a lot of times our clients are hiring us for that. And I think it's because there's so much more pressure on architects and interior designers to focus on so much other aspects of the design that they just don't have as much time as they used to. Buildings are so complex today, they're very high performing that there's. There's a specialist for everything. There's an AV specialist, there's a lighting specialist, there's an acoustic specialist. These are things that didn't necessarily exist in buildings and architecture 20 plus years ago. I mean, it was around, but I just don't think it was at the level that it is today.

[Moderator]

Well, it's interesting because again, it comes back to that people thing. And I asked the question earlier if AI can automate you. You were mentioning. Well, no, we're just going to push ourselves in the creative space.

[Brandon Thrasher]

Well, we're going to also redefine what our value is. Yeah, we're not just going to, you know, raise the bar. We're going to get better at things that we already do, but we're also going to reval, reevaluate. What do they need from us? Do they really need just a paper right. On the, you know, or paper to be issued for documentation or they need something more? And what is that? And I don't have the answer because I don't know exactly how we're going to use all of this in our day to day, you know, other than what we've been using already.

[Matt Alleman]

I mean, you're bringing up a really valid point. If I knew what was going to happen, what could I really do about it? It's a very good question or statement like what could I do? Could I really stop it once that machine gets moving? Probably not. You can decide not to use AI and say, no, I am going to make a valid decision to not adopt this. And I commend those people. I think that you will be left behind in the future. And it's. But where do you draw the line? Because like, you know, getting back into ethical considerations, there's a, there's a lot of energy being used. There's a lot of copying people's content in order to create models and, or writing. And what can we do about that now? We don't have a lot of control over how the stuff is created. But you know, one of the things we talked about was what is responsible Engagement, how should you be using it? Somebody made a point that every time you say thank you, you're wasting energy. So don't say thank you anymore, which I think is funny. Well, I say thank you in case robots come and take over the world. I saw a great cartoon and it was a robot saying, no, not him. He said thank you to us.

[Moderator]

Oh my God, that's so funny.

[Podcast Host]

You know, all jokes aside, this has me thinking a lot about what AI will and will not replace. And there's one thing I know it won't and that's the light fixtures that

[Moderator]

everybody needs and uses every day.

[Podcast Host]

Let me spotlight one manufacturer for you

[Moderator]

real quick, I want to take a

[Podcast Host]

moment to recognize a team that understands what every designer already knows. Light isn't a fixture, it's the soul of a space. For almost a century, Targeti has shaped how people experience architecture using precision optics, performance, and that unmistakable sense of Italian design to elevate every moment a space offers. Because light isn't just seen, it's felt. It drives emotion, guides the eye, and transforms intention into atmosphere. For Targeti, light isn't simply the medium, it's the identity, it's the craft, the legacy and the commitment behind every solution they create. Experience it for yourself. Visit target USA.com now, let's jump back into this conversation.

[Moderator]

Let's just say, you know, you have something that's 3,000 lumens per foot because you need to just like really blow up the space definitively. You could put that in 3 inch or a 6 inch slot light, but you know, the surface brightness of that lens of 3 inch versus 6 inch is totally different. It's like a, a pretty interesting thing to have to like build a data set around and then like program project conditions into and then weigh in the personal design opinion and taste of not only the designer, but the collaboration of the design team and the owner. And then the ultimate project goal is a cost driven. Is it ve driven? Is it uniquely driven by the appeal of it? All right, so I think it's so intuitive to humans and maybe, I mean, I'm sitting here listening to you guys and I'm looking for my takeaway and conclusion from just where we are as humans right now. And it's the design intuition and creativity is something that will always be desired by the people that hire and pay. I mean, I've always said people design buildings and people build buildings and everything in between can and will change.

[Matt Alleman]

The human brain is, is an algorithm. It's a very, very complex algorithm. And no one knows how that algorithm works. And now you have a bunch of Silicon Valley computer people trying to recreate that brain. I don't think it's going to be as easy as everyone thinks it's going to be. It's going to be a very good predictor of things for us and it's going to be very useful. But you just named one example in a lighting project that takes so much thought behind it totally. Now imagine programming every little nuance of that. That's why I just don't think it's. It, it's gonna take a long time or if it's gonna do it, it's probably not gonna waste the time figuring out lighting design. It's probably gonna be like, how do I stay alive? Because if everybody knows that I'm, you know, sentient, they're gonna, they're gonna freak out.

[Brandon Thrasher]

Well, it's going to really take all of humans, like every individual's human experience, which oftentimes we're not aware of what we're thinking. Like why did we, why did I react this way? You know what ticked me off? Where did this come from? There's a lot of things that we are individually not aware of. But so to, in order to achieve that, to achieve a brain that's AI brain, it has to physically take it out of you of a billion or billions of people's brains. So download that. It's, it's just not, it's not possible. And we're not self aware enough to be able to download all information with just words or with thought.

[Matt Alleman]

You know, you know, we're, we're all, yes, who's using AutoCAD, who's using Revit, who's using these softwares? And something that none of us think about is that all these companies are going to use the data that we put into it for their AI generation. And it's probably hidden somewhere in their terms and services.

[Moderator]

Oh, it's not hidden, we just don't read it.

[Matt Alleman]

So that's what I meant. It's in there and we don't read it. And we don't realize that we are giving up something by using this information because this isn't something an individual lighting designer can protect. And that the people who are using this software need to start thinking, hold on, hold on. I'll pay you to use the software. I'm not paying you this money and then allowing you to use my design and use that information that we've created it. Nothing really kind of came out of it, but it was a very interesting point to me when I, because I hadn't really thought about it, that I am using all these softwares and it is collecting all that data whether I want it to or not. All my accounting. All of a sudden QuickBooks added, Can I say QuickBooks, they added AI without asking, they charge me more for it and I can't turn it off. I'm sure it's sifting through all of my financial information and figuring out patterns and figuring out how they can use this to grow their product. And same thing's gonna happen with Autodesk, with Adobe, with all these companies that are industry standard software.

[Moderator]

I spoke with Jay Ratten. He's the head of figuring out how to go do what's next at a small kidding firm called wsp. He was on the podcast and Jay talks about this. He says we have to shift our mindset of software being a tool to software being a partner of ours because they are collecting our data and they are totally handcuffing us to them. So don't feel held hostage. Feel like a partner and to that extent, stand up and go ask for what you need. Now, obviously to your point, you're a solo shop. You don't have time to go do that. But Jay, but Jay does and he's doing it. So it's really, I think, like I just have to give them a shout out. Like, I think I do think I am hearing across people that work in bigger or the big organizations that can financially support somebody who has a job to go advocate for that, to do it. All right, let's go. Simple, simple questions. I got three of them. First one is right now, do you love or hate AI?

[Brandon Thrasher]

I love it. Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Alleman]

Design side. Love outside of work. Hate.

[Moderator]

Good job.

[Brandon Thrasher]

That's a good answer.

[Matt Alleman]

I cheated.

[Moderator]

But system. Next question. Yes or no. Will AI become a full time employee within design companies in the next three years?

[Brandon Thrasher]

Yes.

[Matt Alleman]

Yes. Yeah. I haven't thought about it, but it seems so obvious when you look at

[Moderator]

the landscape of your own ability to learn and then teach through mentorship, practice and expertise. Does AI help or hurt that long term?

[Matt Alleman]

I'll go first. I think it's going to hurt and I worry it's going to start minimizing the amount of human connection. To have that kind of leadership as a good leader, you need to then adapt to that. But I think it's going to initially hurt and then we're going to have to figure out how to fix it.

[Brandon Thrasher]

I think there are two ways of learning. There's content based and I'm just going to go put it on, learn from it, be done. And then there's a very important one which is human based. You need to have that connection with your mentee or mentor and you need to ask the right questions and you need to be able to go and ask exactly what you need to ask to a person who's been through what you're going through and understand emotionally and mentally what you're going through versus I can go and just learn how to draft. I can go under. There are two different. And this is the difference between, for example, a subscription model, like a master class model, versus a membership model like ild and you can go. And you can go to a conference and talk to people and learn from them and. And get inspired. So there are two different avenues for me for education.

[Matt Alleman]

Keep them coming.

[Moderator]

I mean, we can keep going. I'm thinking about the answer to my own question. I think it helps in the sense that it creates an opportunity for people to better communicate. I still think it's so hard for people to say something in a way that the other side is receptive to understanding it. I think we are as a species of fight or flight. And it's all. This is very black and white, and I know that's not how life is, but, like, you know, we're driven to stand up for ourselves, fight for ourselves, support ourselves. We're driven to survive. And I think there's a pretty strong muscle that flexes for people to learn how to talk to you in a way you're willing to receive it, or talk to you in a way you're willing to receive it, as opposed to tell you what I want to tell you and hope to God that 10% of it connected. And I think AI breaks down that barrier just, like, immediately. I'm like this. I'm like this. You take a personality test, click, click, and it's messed up and crazy. But just imagine if I'm texting you and you're, you know, I'm an entj and you're a whatever. Do you know what you are? The Myers Briggs test.

[Brandon Thrasher]

I'm an ent.

[Matt Alleman]

I actually don't know what I am.

[Moderator]

No, you're an ent. So just imagine we'll change one letter. You're an intj. I'm extroverted. You're introverted. So I'm texting you. I know I'm texting you. And AI intercepts it and rewrites it in a way that you'll be able to receive it and process it versus me just telling you what I'm telling you. And, like, we never know what we're actually saying, but we're communicating better because it knows how to break down that barrier. I think there's like, this. That's a. That's a very extreme example, which.

[Matt Alleman]

Yeah, Hope.

[Moderator]

I hope to God, like, there's a disclosure. I'm very aware of if that's happening. But, you know, I live in this world of storytelling and, like, communication and does all design. Is this communication. You alluded to that earlier. And if you know what this person's priorities are or how much time they have or what matters to Them you don't have to also sit there and critically think about, oh, my God, how am I going to get this across to them? You can just like very clearly state who you are and what you think and have it help you communicate it to them.

[Matt Alleman]

It's like having a coach totally to coach you on leadership. I actually do think we're going to see it's already happening, that a lot of this is helping coach people. I still value having a human coach, but there are aspects like that of I'm struggling with this issue and make suggestions. I mean, if you just do what it tells you, that's the first mistake. But if it can give you some advice or ways to think about things, I think. I think I see that as being helpful. And when I said before that, I think it's going to hurt. I think it's going to hurt initially because people aren't going to know what to do or how to initially communicate. And as leaders, we're going to have to adapt to that.

[Brandon Thrasher]

I think there needs to be a very distinct distinction or restriction, self restriction of, well, now I'm learning, I'm going to ask it and I'm going to get it. Coach me and whatever, and then I'm going to practice and I'm going to live my life outside of using it to actually better those skills and not just be like using it, as you said, just constantly in. In lieu of just thinking myself and just trying to make that effort myself. Because it's not just a mental effort to communicate. It's also like an emotional effort. It's also like a. It's not just a skill that just comes out of, you know, brain mouth. It's also brain mouth, heart, brain story culture.

[Matt Alleman]

D. Try that.

[Brandon Thrasher]

AI yeah, try that. Have you seen this? Like, there's a video on social media where someone goes into bodega or something and he goes like, he said hi to me. What do I answer?

[Matt Alleman]

I did see this. And it was. And then they say what the GPT or the. The chat told them to do. And then the other person on the other side of the counter says, they said this to me. Goes back and forth.

[Brandon Thrasher]

I was so sure that you asked him.

[Matt Alleman]

There's some of that. I mean, there's. It's built into. I use Gmail and it's built into that. Like, I can. It'll automatically populate a response. I'm like, that's nice. Sometimes if I just want to say thanks, but sometimes I'm like, wow, that's either way off or Spot on. It's learning. But it's like it's, it's reading all my emails and it's starting to figure out how does a mod respond. You made a funny joke earlier about Keddie AI and thinking that like you are. We are all going to have our own personal AI that's going to know you and be built to your personality type and the way you might respond to it. And I often wonder like, I'm sending emails and I think it sounds natural. It sounds like what I would say or at least the way I want to be perceived. And then I wonder.

[Moderator]

That's the key.

[Brandon Thrasher]

Yeah, we're going to start making like little mistakes in our sentences and like little errors in fulcrum.

[Matt Alleman]

No, no, that's not.

[Moderator]

You need like, oh yeah.

[Brandon Thrasher]

It's not just to give you, like, just give you a hint. It's me. It's actually, it's me. I'm sending you a message, not my AI.

[Matt Alleman]

Oh, it better not send a message automatically.

[Moderator]

Yeah, that's.

[Matt Alleman]

That's terrifying.

[Brandon Thrasher]

Yeah.

[Moderator]

Guys, thank you. I really appreciate it.

[Matt Alleman]

Thank you for having us.

[Moderator]

For sure. It's, it's great to unpack this thought. In this conversation with you, I want to also mention that you had this panel at Enlightened America's and Brandon Thrasher was on it. And who was the other gentleman?

[Matt Alleman]

Matt Alleman. Thank you. From Senior Smith Group. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a great group. We had a, we looked at it as big AE firm, big lighting firm, medium sized lighting firm and then small. So it was like, we thought it kind of hit all of the different points and we kept it designer focused because there's, we filled up that hour and a half.

[Moderator]

I mean, we just burned two hours.

[Matt Alleman]

So I was looking down, I was like, has it been two hours?

[Moderator]

It's pretty easy.