TAMPA, Fla. — Kasper Fopp, CEO of Wonder, an AI-powered software company serving the furniture and home décor industry, warned that home furnishings manufacturers and retailers who fail to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) risk falling behind their competitors.
“If you don't know your tools, you're at a huge disadvantage. Know how to use them, understand their limitations, and understand what you're outsourcing and contracting for,” Fopp says. “To control creative work, companies need to educate themselves and control what AI applications they use.”
In an interview with Furniture Today, AI experts said that AI tools are no longer optional, but essential to increasing sales and improving the customer shopping experience in an increasingly digital world.
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“If you're not on board with this, you're going to be at a huge disadvantage, not today, but on Thanksgiving, Black Friday in 2026. If the adoption rate goes up like it has in the past two years, you're going to see a lot of people, millions of people, buying using GPT and other kinds of tools. And your product won't show up. That means the product won't exist,” he stressed.
Understanding and learning how to use AI is the first step
Fopp likened AI to an iceberg with only the top visible. He said the visible part is the application that people interact with, and below that there are several hidden layers that do the actual work, such as models and technology. He said many AI companies simply add an outer layer on top of tools like ChatGPT and sell it as a product, which is risky for retailers and manufacturers.
“If you don't use the base model correctly and you're just using a wrapper on top of it, it becomes even more difficult to control,” Fopp explained. “You don't know what their data governance standards are, you don't know what their security compliance is, and you don't know what's happening to your information. It could be somewhere else and you have no control over it.”
The AI software company advises large enterprises to rely on in-house basic AI models or AI open tools for simple functions such as image creation, advertising, and research. As examples, Fopp suggested open platforms such as Google AI tools, Anthropic's Claude for coding, and Higgsfield for recreating images and videos.
Fopp recommended that companies build or customize their own AI tools for internal chat tools that leverage their own knowledge and data. “Build a custom GPT and set boundaries that it cannot be shared outside the organization,” he said.
Despite the industry's advances in AI, Fopp warned that while today's AI tools are powerful and good, they still cannot generate the new ideas essential to the industry. “All they're doing is recycling existing IP. It's like… they can only think outside the box and imagine things based on what they know,” he pointed out.
architectural wonders
Wonder was founded in 2013 under the name WonderSign and initially focused on interactive and digital signage, but has since evolved into an AI-powered software company serving the home furnishings industry. Rebranded to Wonder in 2025.
“Initially, we were a kiosk company offering kiosk solutions, and Ashley was our main customer. They really put us on the map,” Fopp says. “This gave us a huge footprint. We had a lot of adoption with thousands of customers, but over time we realized the real value was the platform, not the kiosk.
“Different manufacturers are all displaying data. One manufacturer calls it a bedroom group, another calls it a bedroom suite, but it's all the same. So what we're doing is normalizing all this information so retailers can have one universal catalog that they can use in any application.”
Information optimization
The company updates its software every two weeks and releases new versions to keep up with the rapid changes the industry is facing in the marketplace. Fopp said Wonder's platform has changed significantly over time, from early versions to recognizable as Barley.
Beyond frequent updates, Fopp said the long-term strategy is to focus on the fundamentals, especially how product information is handled, rather than pushing manufacturer-provided data.
The company will also continue to help shoppers discover, understand and buy products, while helping businesses stay competitive in a changing digital marketplace.
