AI Innovation At June 2026 Lightovation
AI can also stand for A.we I.nspiring innovation and that’s what WAC Group’s new INSPIRE app delivered at the June 2026 Lightovation tradeshow, North America’s largest residential lighting tradeshow, held twice a year at Dallas Market Center.
Janelle Norton, Associate Director of Quotations & Custom Product at WAC Group, was in charge of developing this custom application for WAC Group and she hit it out of the park.
I had the opportunity to talk with Janelle early on the first morning of Lightovation, and appreciated her walking me through every aspect of what their new INSPIRE AI app can do.
It’s impressive. Here’s a quick rundown:
You can, [ whether you’re a consumer or designer ]:
1/ Upload a picture of your room.
2/Choose from any of their standard fixtures.
3. Enter in text prompts to change any aspect of the lighting fixture, whether it’s the dimensions, the metal color, the crystal color or some other aspect of the lighting fixture.
4. Save your designs.
5. Get a custom quote. Custom quotes are delivered to the appropriate WAC Group dealer showroom closest to the consumer or, if the designer has a trade account, to the designer.
It’s a first of its kind AI innovation in the lighting industry. Below is an example of a room that Janelle uploaded. Then she text prompted “Change the finish to silver.”
As you can see, the AI kept every other aspect of the room accurate and in proportion, but changed the chandelier to silver.
If you’re a designer reading this, I can see this being so useful in presentations, - can you?
I had some fun playing with this myself afterwards. First, from their standard fixtures shown on the app, I chose the drop crystal pendant lighting fixture you see on the top row, 3rd from left.
Then I started designing.
Then, I entered a prompt to change the metal finish to bronze vs. silver, and after I got that image back, I asked it for *oxblood red crystals”.
Tip: enter only one text prompt change at a time to get better results.
The finish on the canopy was perfect the first time, but the crystals came out a little too red, as you will see below and the wires are a combination of silver and bronze.
You have to watch details carefully.
The next text prompt I entered was: “Change the crystals to a deep dark red, almost black.”
This is what I got back. It took about 10 seconds.
The AI nailed the color of the crystals, but the wires are still a combination of metals.
So, I played some more and decided to make it longer and ask for all the wires to appear in a bronze finish, too.
Here’s the final image. It took a few different types of text prompts to get the length I wanted. The final text prompt that produced this image was:
”Show me this chandelier longer*.
I did try asking for a specific length, first, but it wasn’t able to generate the specific length I asked it for.
However, in real life, of course WAC Group could make it in any custom length you wanted.
Notice that all of the wires are now in the same bronze finish, too.
The text prompt that produced that was:
“Show all the wires in the same bronze finish, no silver.”
I hope, after seeing this post, you’’ll have fun playing with WAC Group’s new INSPIRE AI app for yourselves. It’s easy to go down the rabbit hole!
I expect to see many more manufacturers introducing artificial intelligence apps like this in the coming months, too, but, for now, congratulations to WAC Group and Janelle for being the very first to bring this AI technology to a consumer facing AI app platform.
Visit https://www.inspire.wacgroup.com to start playing!
NOTE: This is not a paid post and no product has been exchanged in kind.
Innovation in artificial intelligence apps is simply exciting to me and I wanted to bring this to your attention.
To read my past posts on the use of AI in lighting product design, I invite you to click here, and here.
Leslie Carothers
Principal, Savour Partnership
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