Artificial Intelligence For The Kitchen And Bath Industry
AI For Kitchen And Bath Designers And Showroom Owners
I’ve been educating kitchen and bath designers and kitchen and bath showroom owners about AI [artificial intelligence ] since 2023 and have developed product a kitchen and bath product for a manufacturer using AI.
This post tells the story.
Ready?
In April of 2023, I began holding online workshops for kitchen and bath [and interior] designers, where I taught attendees how to use Midjourney AI for ideation.
I taught these workshops in partnership with Annilee Waterman, who was teaching the metaverse portion of them. We had a lot of fun introducing our attendees to these twin concepts of how they could use AI and metaverse activations in their businesses.
If you are one of the kitchen and bath designers reading this, who attended one of these workshops? Thank you!
We taught 8 of them altogether that year as you can see from the image below.
We stopped teaching this particular workshop at the end of 2023 and then Annilee taught 3 more, with me helping to promote them, on how to create a custom GPT.
I no longer teach workshops, but Annilee can help anyone who wants a private lesson. She was the first and is an expert at it.
In that same year, 2023, I was approached by luxury kitchen and bath brand, Thompson, to design a sink for them for real world use, using Midjourney AI, that they would then have their coppersmithing artisans make by hand, using the same tools and techniques they’ve used since the 16th century.
This was the first time in history AI had been used in product development for a kitchen and bath related product and only the 3rd time, to my knowledge, that AI had been used in any kind of product development process for any brand in the home related industries.
I wrote a post about the first time AI had been used in lighting design, here and I wrote another one about the previous 2 times AI had been used, here.
Before AILA was introduced at KBIS in early 2024, KBB Magazine wrote this article about it in July of 2023.
I’ve always loved the image below of Alejandra Ochoa Thompson, VP of Marketing for her family’s company, holding the Midjourney image of AILA, while standing in front of the real sink when it was introduced at KBIS in early 2024.
I wrote a recap post about the introduction of AILA at KBIS 2024, here. There were several wonderful articles written about AILA by others, too.
This one, in ARCHITECT Magazine, was a favorite and this one in KBB Magazine, the official magazine of the National Kitchen and Bath Association, [ NKBA ] was greatly appreciated, too. It was written after AILA was introduced.
AILA is now sold through all Ferguson Home showrooms worldwide, and is also available through select interior designers.
AILA is a wonderful example of AI being used in service to keeping the traditions of artisan craftsmanship alive.
The first AILA sink was installed in 2025 in NYC for a client of interior designer, Robin Baron, who customized AILA as an undermount for her client’s powder bath. If you’re curious what it looks like installed as an undermount, I wrote a post about that, here.
[ Note: if you’re a K&B or interior designer reading this, you can create your own products using AI, and send them in via Thompson’s TAILOR MADE portal on their site. If they can make it, they will, and you’ll receive a yes/no and/or a quote within 24-48 hours. It’s a wonderful way to offer your clients bespoke designs that are unique to their homes or hospitality environments.
You can find all the information about AILA on Thompson’s website here:
https://www.thompson.com/aila-product
Thompson created a beautiful video about the process of making AILA, which includes the text prompt I used. Enjoy watching it below.
Also in 2024, I was hired to deliver the keynote presentation on AI at BuyBKBG’s 2024 national conference out in San Diego. BuyBKBG is the country’s largest business group of major kitchen and bath showroom owners.
After my presentation, Nancy Muller, AKBD, President of CR Cabinetry in Schaumburg, IL and Treasurer of BuyBKBG , came up to me and shared a very nice compliment.
I asked her if she would be willing to share that with me in a video, and she kindly agreed..but what she shared in this video went WAY BEYOND what I was anticipating she might say….
You can listen to it below.
To my true surprise, I was hired again by BuyBKBG to give another talk at their 2025 annual conference in Denver, but this time they asked me for a 2 hour interactive presentation on AGENTIC AI.
Afterwards, I received a wonderful video testimonial from attendee, Pete Ciarlante, owner of Weilers Kitchens & Baths in Bucks County, PA, which you can listen to below.
This year, in June of 2026, I became an official INDUSTRY PARTNER member of the National Kitchen and Bath Association. I’ve attended the NKBA’s tradeshow, KBIS, for many years now, and have spoken there on the NEXT stage but this is the first year I’ve been an official Industry Partner member of the NKBA.
Next week I will be speaking to the NKBA’s Texas Gulf Coast chapter members on
*5 Pain Points AI Solves For Kitchen And Bath Designers*
This talk will be on Thursday, June 18th from 11:30-1:00 pm at chapter sponsor, Hilltop Stones and Interiors.
You don’t have to be a member of the Texas Gulf Coast chapter to attend. And if you’re an interior designer and not a K&B designer? This will still be helpful for you. It’s free and lunch will be served, but please RSVP to Hilltop Stones and Interiors on this link so they know how much food to purchase and prepare.
Also, in late summer or early fall of 2026, I will be launching, in collaboration with AI app developers, SHURU, an agentic AI app that will automatically manage all back end operations for kitchen and bath designers [ and interior designers who offer kitchen and bath design. ]
It will integrate with all existing software platforms kitchen and bath designers are now using: Revit, 2020, SketchUp, AutoCad, Asana, Basecamp, Quickbooks, Studio Designer, etc. so there won’t be anything new to learn.
Kitchen and bath designer, Shea Pumarejo, [ on Instagram as Studio_Pumarejo, ] and winner of the NKBA’s Best Overall Bath award at KBIS 2026, has been SHURU’s beta tester. This is Shea, below. She lives in San Antonio.
This is Shea’s award winning bath on the cover of the March/April 2026 issue of KBB Magazine.
At Spring High Point Market 2026, a preview presentation event was held in The Leaders Boardroom at the American Home Furnishings Hall Of Fame.
We were so appreciative of the 2.5 hours of time all of the designers you see in the image below gave to us during that presentation and I was personally very honored to have Akashdeep Singh, the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of SHURU, joining me from his home in Vancouver to deliver the presentation.
SHURU employs 190 native AI engineers in offices around the world - Dubai, Singapore and India - and they will soon be opening offices in the US and Canada. The story of how I met them and came to collaborate with them will be told in another post.
After the preview presentation, SHURU asked every designer in attendance to sign a legal Letter Of Intent to subscribe to the app when it launches later this summer. Of the 26 designers who could have signed it, 19 of them did, as of the date of this original post.
Meet The Founders Circle. These are the 19 kitchen and bath and interior designers who are giving feedback to SHURU before the app launches to make sure it’s as useful for all designers worldwide as possible, prior to launch.
Although our agentic AI app will launch prior to Fall High Point Market, we are holding a major presentation and launch party event at Fall 2026 High Point Market in Celebration Hall, the large space downstairs at the American Home Furnishings Hall Of Fame.
This event is open to all market attendees.
Please put this date and time on your calendar now - we sure would love to have you there to celebrate with us!
Monday, Oct. 19th
8-9:30 am
American Home Furnishings Hall Of Fame - Celebration Hall
311 S. Hamilton
If you’ve never been to the Hall Of Fame, it’s very close to the Transportation Terminal at HPMKT, and it’s a very beautiful space to visit, to hold events in and to celebrate special occasions in - as you can see in the image below.
This concludes this post, which focuses specifically on my work in AI for the kitchen and bath industry and kitchen and bath designers and showroom owners, but I have done much more with respect to AI and virtual worlds.
If you’d like to read about all of it, I invite you to read this post:
https://www.savourpartnership.com/blog//artificial-intelligence-and-metaverse-activations-a-summary
If you’ve gotten this far, I thank you for taking the time. If you have any questions at all, please reach out to me at leslie@savourpartnership.com.
If you’re interested in hiring me to speak at your next event? Please use that same email.
For all of you that have hired me, wanted to collaborate with me, supported me, shared my posts, etc. ?
Thank you. I am deeply grateful for these opportunities I’ve been given to educate and develop products revolving around AI and the kitchen and bath industry.
Leslie Carothers
Principal, Savour Partnership
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lesliemcarothers
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesliecarothers
