Seeing is Believing: How AI Is Transforming Product Visualization in the Building Products Industry
by Tim Sandlund, Marketing Director, Eva-Last Americas
Seeing is believing. And believing leads to buying.
Every purchase begins with a belief that a product or service will fulfill a need, solve a problem, or improve an experience. Before customers commit to a purchase, they need confidence. And confidence often starts with visualization.
For Eva-Last, as a manufacturer and distributor of advanced composite building, a significant portion of our capital is invested in stockholding, either at the factories or at our Eva-Last distribution hubs. This strategic investment serves the dual purpose reducing lead times to supply and stock risk mitigation in established territories, while facilitating market penetration into broader regions.
Consumers don’t buy deck boards, siding, flooring, or windows. They buy the vision of what those products can become. They buy the backyard where they’ll entertain friends, the deck where they’ll watch a sunset, or the home exterior that finally delivers the curb appeal they’ve imagined.
The challenge has always been helping them see that vision before making a purchase.
The role of visualization changes throughout the buying journey. Early on, consumers are simply trying to understand what a product looks like and how it might fit into their lives. As they move closer to a purchase, visualization becomes more personal. They begin imagining the product in their own space, or own home, and as part of their everyday life.
In the building products industry, seeing plays a role at every step of the path to purchase.
A contractor may bring samples to a homeowner’s kitchen table. A customer may walk into a local lumberyard and see a display. They may be inspired by a social media post, discover a glamour photo on a manufacturer’s website or watch a product or installation video on YouTube. Each interaction helps build confidence and move them closer to a decision.
Then comes the most important step: personalization.
The homeowner holds a sample against their home. They compare colors and styles. They begin to visualize the finished project in their own property. Many contractors will offer design services to show what the finished deck will look like.
As marketers, our responsibility is to help buyers visualize that journey every step of the way.
Today, we’re engaged in another transformational shift. One that may ultimately have an even greater impact on how products are marketed, sold, and designed.
That shift is Artificial Intelligence (AI).
A Career Built Around Visualization
Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to leverage emerging technologies to help customers better visualize products.
More than a decade ago, I launched the first augmented reality applications in the building products industry. The app allowed homeowners to place a virtual deck behind their home using a mobile device and change the decking and railing styles and colors. An experience that felt groundbreaking at the time and often resulted in a “This is magic” type of response. This was two years prior to the viral Pokémon Go AR app, so majority of people didn’t know augmented reality existed.
Later, I led visualization projects for national retailers and homebuilders that enabled customers to customize kitchens, bathrooms, and even entire homes within virtual reality environments.
I then began 3D modeling products and entire scenes prior to having product to install and build.
While the technology has evolved dramatically, the goal has remained the same: helping customers see what’s possible before they buy.
The Evolution of Product Visualization
Historically, creating product photography and visualization assets required significant investments of time, budget, and coordination.
A typical product launch often involved:
- Manufacturing all the product and shipping to the installation location
- Building the deck or installing the siding on a real house
- Hiring photographers and production crews
- Coordinating travel and logistics
- Waiting weeks or months for final imagery
The process produced exceptional assets, but it was expensive and time-consuming.
AI is changing that.
Accelerating the Creative Process
One of the most exciting aspects of AI isn’t that it creates finished marketing assets. It’s that it dramatically accelerates the creative process.
Today, marketing teams can explore dozens of concepts in the time it once took to create one.
Want to visualize a modern lakefront deck? A luxury rooftop entertaining space? A contemporary backyard retreat? AI can generate multiple creative directions in minutes rather than weeks.
This allows teams to test ideas, evaluate styles, and align stakeholders much earlier in the process.
Instead of asking, “Can you imagine what this might look like?” we’re able to ask, “Which version do you prefer?”
That distinction is powerful.
Bringing Products to Life Before They Exist
AI is also changing how manufacturers approach product launches.
In many cases, marketers can begin visualizing new colors, profiles, textures, and applications before physical inventory is available.
For manufacturers like Eva-Last, this creates an opportunity to develop sales materials, dealer presentations, advertising concepts, and go-to-market strategies much earlier in the product development cycle.
Rather than waiting for products to arrive in a photo-ready environment, teams can begin building momentum months in advance.
Enhancing, Not Replacing, Traditional Photography
Rather than waiting for products to arrive in a photo-ready environment, teams can begin building momentum months in advance.
Authenticity remains critical in our industry.
Homeowners, contractors, architects, and distributors still want to see real installations, real projects, and real-world performance.
As marketers, we want to show our customers deck builds and showcase them at a national level.
E-commerce is now standard in the building products industry, and it’s critical to have photos of every color variant for consumers to see. AI has become an incredibly valuable tool for planning those investments effectively and efficiently. But it’s not automatic. AI can only take an image so far, and then it takes our skilled designers to touch up the textures and colors to ensure the representation of the product is accurate.
In many ways, AI serves as a creative accelerator rather than a creative replacement.
The Future of Visualization
The future of product marketing is becoming increasingly personalized.
Imagine a homeowner uploading a photo of their backyard and instantly seeing multiple decking colors, railing options, lighting packages, and outdoor living configurations tailored specifically to their home.
We’re rapidly moving toward a world where visualization is no longer a static experience but an interactive one.
My wife and I recently experienced this as we were updating our landscaping. We uploaded a photo of our home and gave AI prompts, inspirational photos and specific products to visualize our landscaping. It was an incredible experience, and it truly helped bring to life my wife’s vision, ultimately resulting in a virtual photo of the finished project. It created efficiency with the landscapers as well, because we could show them a photo of what it should look like in the end.
For manufacturers, the opportunity is significant. The companies that make it easiest for customers to visualize possibilities will be the companies that create confidence, shorten the buying journey, and ultimately drive greater adoption.
The technology has evolved dramatically since the early days of augmented reality. But the goal remains the same as it was twelve years ago when I launched my first visualization tool:
Help people see what’s possible.
AI is changing the speed at which imagination becomes reality.
Because when customers can clearly envision the outcome, better decisions follow.
