Getting to Know Our New BIID President

Who is Anna Burles?

The New BIID President - Anna Burles – is the Creative Director and Co-Founder of Run For The Hills, an award-winning multidisciplinary design studio specialising in creative interiors, branding and art for residential and commercial clients. 

She is known for designing immersive hospitality spaces and hospitality-infused home design - layering private residences with the same design cues they bring to a restaurant, bar, club or boutique hotel. 

She is also a BIID Registered Interior Designer. Before coming to interiors at the age of 37, she was an event stylist, creating experiences for fashion brands and even further back, she was a radio reporter and interviewer, chasing celebrities down the red carpet and covering hard news at the BBC and ITN Radio.  

How do you perceive the arrival of AI?

AI is both the unknown and the inevitable. Its arrival is a seismic moment in humankind's development. None of us know where it's taking us or if it's friend or foe. I'm fascinated by the opportunities, but also have anxieties. But Pandora's box is open, and as an industry we have to reconcile how we're going to live with and embrace it, rather than potentially be left behind.

Studio founders often juggle many hats - MD, creative director and marketing lead all-in-one. So, me and my husband and business partner use AI as another form of senior level support, in the same way we rely on our accountants and advisors.

Can you share how you use AI in your own practice?  

As business owners, we're finding AI transformative; able to test ideas and complete half-written strategies we never had time to finish. We began playing with ChatGPT around 12 months ago, then moved to Claude Cowork, which we use every day, building artifacts and plug-ins. I'm not super techie and can't code; I went to a one-day seminar, so we've largely taught ourselves.

Our team use it daily too, but we try to make sure they're still using their own skills and judgement, not over-relying on tech.

It's been a fascinating process and made us think that if we were starting our business now, we'd structure it fundamentally differently. The next gen of designers will offer distinctly new services, and charge in very different ways. So it's hugely important for those of us who've been in business for much longer to keep pace with change.

What do you believe are its potential benefits? 

There's a lot of hidden time spent in interiors that isn't covered by fees: building excel schedules, putting together proposals and pitches. Bespoke AI apps and plug-ins can do those tasks in hours rather than days.

I asked Claude Cowork to look through all of my old project proposals and categorise them by size, deliverables and type to cross-compare when a similar project comes through the door. In around half an hour, it had catalogued hundreds of projects.

Time saved, though, isn't simply cut. It gets moved into areas of the project that were previously very stretched on time - allowing more time on site, more time with the builder, more time with my team, mentoring them. More talking, rather than emailing.

Which potential pitfalls would you highlight?

Of course, AI needs super careful oversight and diligent checks. 

You can't rely on the accuracy of anything it does. It makes so many mistakes and assumptions, and it's often very flattering - telling you what you want to hear. 

And it will turn out something slightly different each time, so the only way to get consistency is to move from a chat-type relationship into more of a coworking one, teaching it your way, your voice, the way you behave and think. Creating custom artefacts and plug-ins. We're also very careful about which parts of our computers we allow it to access.

Which other valuable ways can AI support business?

Using AI search has opened up my world far beyond Google and Pinterest. A supplier search will show makers and fabricators that don't show up in Google. Likewise, AI can collate cleaning and care guides for the products in a schedule in a fraction of the time it would take a human (which need checking of course!).

We use Gmail, which includes Gemini, and Google's NotebookLM lets you upload files, documents and audio to a dedicated notebook for the AI to work from, so its answers are more precise than a general internet search. We also use Fathom, an AI note taker, which is amazing for documenting meetings with recordings, transcripts and summaries.

What do you hope to highlight across the BIID in your presidential year?

The BIID has always been about building a community and a benchmark for professional interior designers - promoting excellence and professional training, ensuring the BIID Designer badge means something.

 AI is moving so fast that our industry needs to pull together - so this year as President, I'm going to work with the BIID to explore how we use these new tools, to make the member experience more immersive and our community even more. 

My genuine hope? That AI might end up ushering in the Age of the Human. Freeing us to spend less time on screens and more time with each other - collaborating, inspiring, motivating and activating.  

I also want to celebrate the human skills we bring, and sound the drum to clients, the industry, the press and ourselves about the hugely complex combination of creative, technical, financial and project coordination skills we offer.

And I want to focus on how the industry can give graduates hope in the age of AI - building experience through placements, and training them in ways to make them stay relevant, just as we current designers need to protect our value and relevance with clients, architects, builders and developers.