How To Prepare Your Business For When The Client Isn't Human
With the advent of Meta’s MUSE and other agentic AI agents, the new client/customer isn’t always human. This has major implications for every stakeholder in any industry, but especially in the home furnishings industry where sales have always depended on human interaction.
But now that there’s a new intermediary that isn’t human, deciding what a customer/client will not only see in a search, but can also now purchase on behalf of the customer/client without human intervention, how do you prepare your businesses for that?
Alex Shuford, III, the CEO of RHF Investments, has kindly agreed to lead this conversation at the upcoming High Point Market in his Century Furniture showroom on
Monday, Oct. 19th
8:30 am sharp
200 Steele, 2nd floor
Alex has a vested interest in this topic as his companies employ over 1700 people [mostly in NC] across these iconic brands:
Century Furniture
Hickory Chair
Highland House
Maitland Smith
Hancock & Moore
Jessica Charles
Cabot Wrenn
and he has to be prepared for this eventuality with so many people depending on him to get it right.
I am honored to have known Alex and his sister, Comer Wear, for many years now.
Here’s the backstory on how our relationship developed.
Alex and I had our first major interaction before Alex became CEO, when Century agreed to host the finale of the very first multi brand social media marketing campaign collaboration ever to be held at HPMKT - a product design competition that was a partnership between SCAD, Cargill’s BioH Polyols division, Ultrasuede and Century.
This was a project of my company for then client, Cargill’s BioH Polyols division, in partnership with Leslie Newby, owner of Work The Brand, who handled the traditional PR for Cargill and Ultrasuede at that time.
The final voting for which SCAD student would win the chair design competition, and have their chair manufactured by Century, [ the winning student would get royalties on its sale - a contest perk that’s never been repeated and one that I’m so grateful to Century for agreeing to at that time ] took place in the Century showroom at a Fall HPMKT back in 2010 - 16 years ago now.
Jessica Koster, then VP of Marketing for BioH, underwrote the project.
By the time #ProjectUDesign was completed, Jessica had been promoted and Nicole Nachazel took over. It’s Jessica in the image below standing next to Wanda in the Century Furniture showroom and it’s Nicole, below, shaking hands with the SCAD student winner, Ryland Quillen.
Ryland is now the Senior Manager, Visual Merchandising - wholesale at Calvin Klein/PVH Corp in Brooklyn, NY. Don’t you love that?
Almost all of the other people in the image below are still friends of mine all these years later: Veronika Miller - Gott, Wanda Horton, Joann and Kelly from Kandrac & Kole and Jackie Von Tobel
In the years since 2010, every time I’ve gone to High Point Market, I’ve visited with Alex and Comer at their Century Furniture showroom and, if they have time, I chat with Comer and Alex a bit. This is how I found out a few years ago that Alex had taken such an interest in AI, as he must for his business.
In the meantime, I, too, had become very interested in AI and had begun delivering workshops on AI, speaking nationally about AI, and utilizing AI for product design via my collaboration with Thompson Traders on the AILA sink which was introduced at KBIS and is now sold through all Ferguson Home showrooms.
[ Note: AILA will be on display again at this Fall’s High Point Market, in the Thompson space in the 313 Spaces building ].
Re: speaking: in 2023, I was invited to speak about AI on a WITHIT panel at Fall HPMKT. WITHIT’s leadership wanted a manufacturer to join the panel and I knew Alex was interested in AI so I asked Alex if he would join the panel and he said yes.
It was such a blessing to have Alex there to lend gravitas to the conversation and also fun for me to see so many of my fellow WITHIT members there that I had not seen in quite a long time.
Alex is also a frequent resource for national media wanting opinions on what is happening in the furniture industry. He recently spoke to Matt Egan, senior business reporter for CNN re: the tariff situation and its impact on manufacturers. Here’s the transcript of that conversation:
https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnc/date/2025-10-14/segment/01
Back to AI, Alex was recently interviewed by Cindy Hodnett, Executive Editor of Bridgewater Media’s brands, Furniture Today, Designers Today, Casual News Now, etc. for their GAMECHANGERS series and this is a not to be missed conversation.
Listen to it on YouTube here.
Dennis Scully, host of Business of Home’s podcast, also recently interviewed Alex in August of this year, 2026, about how he used AI to launch a new brand, and you can listen to it here, by clicking through on this BOH article:
https://businessofhome.com/articles/how-ai-helped-alex-shuford-launch-a-new-brand
Now, I have the GENUINE honor of joining Alex for the presentation we are giving at this Fall’s HPMKT.
I could never have imagined that, 16 years after first meeting Alex, I would be joining in for this conversation on how robots are now in a position to not only comparison shop for consumers but to replace humans in actually doing the purchasing on their behalf!
It makes me wonder where we will be even 2 more years from now, much less 5 or 10 years from now, but it’s time for the entire industry to come together to once again listen to Alex lead this extremely important conversation.
What he’s about to share at this Fall’s High Point Market with all of you who are able to attend re: how he’s preparing his businesses and how you need to prepare yours is a MUST ATTEND conversation if you can.
Please come early to get coffee and the best seating in the Century Furniture showroom and don’t miss, either before or after, taking the time to look around Century’s gorgeous showroom, especially if you’ve never been before.
It’s pure quality, manufactured to the very highest standards. One particular piece I love from Windsor Smith’s new introductions for them this market is this freestanding bar, which can be either a coffee or wine bar.
It’s been designed so there’s space for a mini refrigerator on the bottom, if you remove the wine rack - and I love the recessed lighting in the open space.
Windsor, if you see this: it’s beautiful!
On a final note, I had some fun designing a graphic in AI for our upcoming presentation, using an image from Century’s website, this one. I love the curved front of this chaise and the open back detail.
As you will see, AI took some liberties with the design, but since Century offers complete customization for anything you might want… it might spark an idea.
Alex and I hope to see you at Century on Monday, Oct. 19th, at 8:30 am in his Century Furniture showroom.
Please help us spread the word by sharing this post…and come prepared for a SURPRISE!
Leslie Carothers, Principal
Savour Partnership
Named One Of Home Furnishing Magazine’s Top 40 Most Inspiring Women In Home
Named a Top 2026 Innovator by Kitchen and Bath Design News Magazine
See Century’s entire collection here:
https://www.centuryfurniture.com
Follow Century on Instagram here.
Savour Partnership - reach me on Linked In or Instagram and be watching, too, if you’re an interior or kitchen and bath designer, for the launch of my latest project in AI, a new agentic AI CRM solution that manages the entire backend workflow of your business, DesignOps, launching on Zoom Monday, Nov. 16th at 7 pm ET.
I’d love to have you join in!
For more information on that, see this EVENT link and register to attend here.