Creativity X AI at High Point Market: A practical briefing for product development teams
AI is changing how home products are imagined, sampled, and brought to market. If you build assortments and ship product, the Creativity X AI Trend Spotter Seminar at the American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame is worth an hour on your market schedule.
The session runs Monday, Oct. 27 at 2 p.m., 311 S. Hamilton St., hosted by Markor International with A.R.T. Furniture, Caracole, Jonathan Charles, and Rowe.
Why this matters for product development
- Shorten concept cycles without creating lookalike products.
- Turn trend signals into clear briefs, constraints, and testable prototypes.
- Tighten sourcing, cost modeling, and material decisions with better data.
- Keep the brand's signature while using generative tools at scale.
Inside the session
Jaye Anna Mize, Vice President of Advisory and Partnerships at Future Snoops (FS), moderates a panel built for teams who ship real product. Expect practical strategies, real examples, and early access to FS's new white paper, "Active Creation in the Age of AI."
The conversation will go beyond demos to address risks many teams already feel: lookalike products, predictable spaces, and a slow fade of competitive edge. The goal is to show how human imagination and machine precision can support each other in daily work.
Key questions on the table
- How do brands preserve the human spark when models can generate endless outputs?
- What new boundaries can designers and makers push to deliver true originality?
- How do teams use AI as a collaborator-without replacing judgment, taste, or integrity?
Who's on stage
- Leslie Carothers - Principal, Savour Partnership. A digital marketing innovator for home brands and retailers, with projects spanning the first Designer Virtual Showhouse and product development using Midjourney. Known for work in agentic AI and how it changes how home brands operate, market, and grow.
- Mark Feng - Chairman and CEO, Markor Home Furnishings. Leads a vertically integrated business with 500+ retail doors and wholesale across 84 countries under Caracole, A.R.T., Rowe, and Jonathan Charles. Founder of DecorX, an AI-powered interior design startup changing how customers and designers create spaces.
- Ania Sommerauer - Vice President of Content Strategy, Future Snoops. Guides global trend forecasting across fashion, interiors, and consumer culture. Focused on how technology and shifting lifestyles redirect consumer desire and opportunity.
- Moderator: Jaye Anna Mize - Leads FS's consulting practice and partner ecosystem. Connects cultural foresight to business strategy and integrates AI into trend and advisory work for brands and retailers.
Event details
- Date & time: Monday, Oct. 27, 2 p.m.
- Location: American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame, 311 S. Hamilton St. Venue info
- Host: Markor International and its brands A.R.T. Furniture, Caracole, Jonathan Charles, Rowe
- In collaboration with: American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame, FS, ANDMORE, Interwoven, and the High Point Market Authority
What product teams can take back to the line
- Concept-to-brief workflow: Use AI ideation sprints with tight constraints (materials, cost targets, channel) to create sharper design briefs faster.
- Originality checks: Run image similarity and vector comparisons during concept reviews to reduce lookalikes before sample spend.
- Supplier scouting: Deploy multilingual search agents to surface alternative mills, factories, and finishes with live MOQ, lead-time, and compliance signals.
- Digital sampling: Generate material and finish variations, then qualify 2-3 for physical sampling to cut time and waste.
- Design governance: Maintain prompt libraries, brand style matrices, and audit trails so outputs stay on-brand and defensible.
- Agentic workflows: Pilot small, supervised AI agents for SKU rationalization, feature prioritization, and cost/quality trade-off proposals.
Before you go
- Bring one active line challenge (cost overrun, late material, flat sell-through) and ask the panel how they would reframe it with AI.
- Collect three examples of "too similar" market items you're trying to avoid-use them to pressure-test the originality tactics discussed.
- Block a 30-day pilot window post-market to apply one workflow change, measure impact, and decide on rollout.
"AI is transforming every part of our industry, from the products we design to the way we connect with clients," says Mize. "This panel is a chance to cut through the hype and talk about what AI really means for designers, brands and showrooms right now."
If your team needs structured upskilling, explore curated programs by role and skill at Complete AI Training.
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