How Gemini solved a tricky apartment layout that drove me crazy for a year
AI Byte
AI Byte is a weekly column covering all things artificial intelligence, including AI models, apps, features, and how they all impact your favorite devices.
Artificial intelligence is great at some things, and not-so-great at others. Finding the ways AI can help your workflows or improve your daily life can be difficult, especially without compromising quality.
I’ve found that AI chatbots like Gemini or ChatGPT are excellent at lending a hand when you have a specific problem that requires personalized context. Gemini first helped me tend to my plants earlier this year; I could’ve used a search engine for ideas, but none would’ve been able to take the real-world appearance of the plants into account.
For those without a green thumb, I discovered yet another use case for mobile AI while struggling to come up with a design layout for my apartment. After a year of moving things around, buying new furniture, and reading unhelpful articles online, I finally pulled out my Google Pixel 9 Pro XL in a moment of frustration and turned to Gemini for help. I didn’t expect much, but was blown away by what Google AI came up with.
Here’s how I used AI to solve a complicated interior design issue, and how you can use it to help with your own problems too.
Giving Gemini the right starting point
The problem with my apartment is simple: it’s fairly large, but there’s only one window in the living room, kitchen, and dining area. The window is actually a sliding glass door, and is flanked by perpendicular walls with double doors, which limits furniture placement. With one natural light source, the wrong layout could make this long and relatively narrow living space feel dark and bland — that’s why I needed to turn to AI.
AI is worst when you don’t point it in the right direction, and best when you provide it with ample context and thorough prompts. Instead of giving Gemini a vague and generic prompt, I found the exact floor plan for my space for context and clearly stated my goals. The prompt doesn’t have to be lengthy, but it does need to be thoughtful and specific.
In this case, after providing the floor plan, I asked Gemini how to lay out the living room to get the most lighting.
Gemini’s personalized and specific help
Gemini quickly responded with some general tips, like avoiding blocking the light source, using reflective surfaces, and choosing light colors. These were helpful in their own right, but giving Gemini an understanding of the floor plan returned personalized results. The chatbot understood that “the living room is a central, long space with a large window at the end.”
It sounds simple, but Gemini having a basic understanding of the layout already gave it a massive advantage over search engines or interior design websites. As an example of how, one of the sites I read suggested renovating the room to change the positions of windows and doors, which was laughably unhelpful for a renter.
Gemini provided three detailed suggestions, and I went with the “open flow” layout. This involves floating a couch in the middle, facing the glass door, creating an open concept in the room. To avoid moving stuff around like a madman, I asked Gemini to come up with a few examples of what this would look like in my space — another thing I couldn’t have done without AI.
The other cool thing about using AI for problem-solving and brainstorming is that you can ask further questions as you go. If you have essential needs, like a TV in a certain spot, Gemini can take that into account and only provide solutions that meet this requirement.
AI also suggested ideas and solutions that never even crossed my mind — like using mirrors around the room to simulate more windows and natural light in the space. After going back-and-forth with AI for about ten minutes, I had an interior plan that resulted in the following:
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If you ask me, it’s a pretty bright and open space, which is the vibe I’ve spent a literal year trying to create — and is something I was only able to achieve with Gemini. This was all done using the standard Gemini chatbot, and you could get even more personal help by using Gemini Live’s multimodal live video support.
How you can use Gemini to solve life’s problems
You can use Gemini to solve problems in your daily life by focusing on three things: context, prompting, and refinement.
Context is the crucial starting point. If you don’t provide an AI chatbot with ample context, it only has its training material to go off of, which can lead to unhelpful results. You can go about providing context in a few ways, such as providing AI photos or screenshots, like I did with my apartment’s floor plan. Or, you can use features like Gemini Live that share your surroundings via your phone’s camera, which are other ways to provide context.
From there, be sure to write a thorough prompt that clearly explains your goals and what you need AI to do. You should use complete sentences for the best results, but avoid writing long paragraphs. Lastly, don’t forget that you can refine your prompts as you go and steer the AI chatbot in the right direction. This can help if at first the AI doesn’t provide the results you’re expecting from your prompt.
With these factors in mind, you can get AI to help you with almost anything, whether it’s gardening or interior design — or something else completely.
The best AI phone
While plenty of phones can use the Gemini app, the Google Pixel 10 is the best one on the market for Google AI.
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