Spacelift: AI Will Not Replace Garden Designers. It Will Scale Their Expertise.

• The AI debate peaks at Chelsea - Matt Keightley calls for the profession to help shape the technology - not fear it

As the RHS Chelsea Flower Show opens its doors, Matt Keightley - two-time RHS Chelsea Silver-Gilt Medallist, multiple BBC/RHS People’s Choice Award winner and co-founder of Spacelift - makes the case that the greatest opportunity for the garden design industry isn't a threat to be managed. It's a moment to be shaped.

Keightley has heard the argument that AI cannot replace human creativity and design expertise - and he agrees entirely. What he is inviting the profession to consider is not whether AI will change things, but what it could do for every designer's business. The question is no longer whether technology enters the profession. It is whether the profession helps to shape how it does.

“I don’t want to replace the expertise and creativity of my fellow garden designers. I want to grow a generation of new clients for them. Every homeowner who uses Spacelift and discovers they love great design could be a potential future design client - informed, inspired and with a brief. That’s not a threat to the industry. That’s the industry’s next customer” Matt Keightley, Co-Founder & Creative Director, Spacelift.

What makes Spacelift different from the dozens of AI design tools now available is the integrity of its foundation. The platform has been built on Keightley’s codified professional methodology - the spatial logic, planting structure, proportion and garden flow principles behind 25 years of award-winning practice. Without his expertise in its architecture, the platform produces nothing.

The interiors industry has already demonstrated this model at scale with designers using AI to extend the reach of their expertise, reaching new audiences without diminishing their standing. The question for garden designers is whether they engage now, on their own terms, or later, on someone else’s.

By encoding his methodology as Spacelift’s training architecture, Keightley has created something that has not previously existed in landscape design: expert design thinking that scales and generates commercial value independently of the designer’s working hours. He has not advised on an AI product. He has become its methodology.

“What I have done is codify the things I know to be true about how great spaces work - proportion, structure, flow, the relationship between planting and built elements - and make that thinking available to people who could never have accessed it before. That doesn’t make my design practice less valuable. It makes what I know more valuable. The expertise is the engine. That’s the model”- added Matt Keightley.

COLLABORATIVE, NOT COMPETITIVE: WHAT THE DATA SHOWS

New research commissioned by Spacelift (Opinion Matters, 2,000 UK adults) reveals the scale of the market the industry has never been able to reach:

• 46% of homeowners say their garden looks nothing like the one they dream about
  
  
• 37% say technology to help them visualise their garden would help them take action
  
  
• 60% would spend up to £5,000 - with a design plan they trusted
  
  
• £3,268 the average Brit would invest given a clear design direction
  
  
• 10,000 homeowners on the Spacelift waitlist before the platform launched today

These are not existing clients. They are homeowners who have never commissioned a professional — not for lack of ambition or budget, but because the proposition has never felt accessible. Once equipped with a design they trust, they spend: on plants, materials, professional help. The whole industry wins.

“Spacelift doesn’t compete with designers - it expands the market. Users who go on to invest in their gardens arrive better informed, with clearer briefs and more realistic expectations. That benefits the entire profession” Maeve McDonald, Co-Founder & CEO, Spacelift.

Spacelift launches today as the first phase of a broader community, connecting Britain’s finest designers, nurseries, retailers and tradespeople through a single design journey. Hillier Nurseries, holders of the world record for RHS Chelsea Gold Medals, has signed as Founding Retail Partner, embedding its plant ranges directly into Spacelift’s design and recommendation engine. More designers, nurseries and trade partners are being invited to join throughout 2026.

“What I would love is for this to become something the profession builds together. The more design expertise that shapes this technology - from the best practitioners in the country - the better it becomes for the industry and for the clients we all want to serve” explains Matt Keightley.

Britain’s collective gardens are one of the country’s most significant untapped opportunities for biodiversity and climate resilience, but only if more homeowners are actively engaged with them. Every Spacelift design recommendation includes sustainability from the outset: pollinator-appropriate planting, climate-resilient species, water-conscious layouts. At one million users, better-planted gardens could collectively offset over 484,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year, the equivalent of planting eight million trees.

Spacelift is committed to a legacy beyond commercial growth. Through the Spacelift Foundation, a portion of profits will fund the transformation of public outdoor spaces, from hospital grounds to school gardens to care home environments and support young people's access to nature and outdoor design. The goal is a lasting environmental and social legacy, built garden by garden.

Spacelift’s three official show gardens - Calm in the Cotswolds, Urban Chic, and Woodland Escape - designed entirely using the platform, are on display throughout the RHS Chelsea Flower Show week, offering a live, real-world case study of AI-assisted design in professional practice.

Spacelift launched the first iteration of its platform today 18 May with an early-access experience for its growing waitlist community which, in just three weeks has exceeded 10,000 people. For trade enquiries, retail partnerships and professional licensing, contact the team at www.spaceliftapp.com.

Source : Spacelift

Image : Spacelift

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