Demystifying DIY for Novices: AI Shadow Guides & Self-Reliance Messaging

Helping DIY-curious consumers take their first steps towards proficiency – 24% of Americans cite a fear of messing up as a roadblock to starting a project (Frontdoor, 2025) – smart brands are creating confidence-building messaging and service design. Some of the best include artificial intelligence (AI) assistants featuring visual search and facilitating easy product replacement and product-recommending tutorials.

Tapping the Tradeswoman Boom

Both home improvement giants and indie brands are aligning themselves with a) the boom in women taking up trades, such as plumbing and carpentry, and b) a rising consumer desire for more tradeswomen (see below). Tactics include day-in-the-life content by brand-sponsored apprentices, becoming exclusive product partners to tradeswomen networks and running women-led classes for the public.

One-Stop Visualisation Shop Apps

Increasingly sophisticated visualisation apps are enabling consumers to plan and shop makeovers with more speed, accuracy and imaginative flair than their predecessors. Endless AI-generated inspiration (in conjunction with advanced spatial recognition tech) transforms existing rooms – including deploying vast brand-owned colour libraries to generate complementary colour schemes for existing furniture – and surfaces shoppable products.

Paint’s Fashion Flex

Shrewd paint brands are digging into the still-growing synergy between homeware and fashion (see Fashioning Aspirational Lifestyles in Luxury Fashion’s Cultural Pivot) via allure-enhancing Fashion Week activations and casting themselves as fashion-adjacent trend predictors.

Canny (Social Media) Content Strategies

Forward-thinking homeware and DIY brands are augmenting still-critical branded tutorials by establishing creator networks, crafting entertainment-led TikTok and Instagram miniseries and appealing to Gen Zers via trending purchase motivators (#DormTok).

Scaled Down Stores Spur Fast Fulfilment

A clutch of new-format smaller stores from major brands are giving city-dwelling home improvers ultra-convenient access to products, materials and advice – as well as acting as micro-fulfilment centres for home delivery.