AI-powered Virtual Staging: From History To Modern Solutions

Virtual Staging AI is a brand-new service that is gaining popularity with realtors and photographers all around the USA. If you work in this sphere in 2025, you might have already heard about this exclusive solution or even tested it personally, but is it really effective, and can it substitute creative human-made projects? Our company has conducted detailed research on this topic and gained insights into the history of home staging to clarify its role in AI-powered virtual staging. Let’s discover how home staging has evolved into a powerful tool managed by AI and what role this service plays in visual-related spheres nowadays.

The Origin Of Home Staging

Home staging has always been associated with creating an emotionally appealing atmosphere in addition to traditional furniture placement. However, this approach hadn’t been known until the distant 1972 since all homes were just listed and shown to potential buyers who saw them in their current lived-in state, even if they were cluttered and outdated. 

Barbara Schwarz, a real estate agent and designer, decided to give home staging a new lease of life in 1972 and enhance a home’s appearance to sell it faster and for more money. It was an ordinary house that she was preparing for a TV show, so she decided to change its curb appeal drastically. Barbara used such popular techniques as:

• Decluttering
• Furniture rearranging 
• Adding decorative items
• Depersonalization

It helped her to make homes look more universal and appeal to a much broader audience. She realized the necessity to help buyers see the potential of homes that are presented poorly and visualize themselves inside them. Her idea that real estate is a product that should be properly presented has received many followers and was confirmed by numerous surveys and findings later.

Home Staging Evolution In the 1980s – 1990s

An increase in the number of real estate properties offered for sale has also influenced the popularity of home staging services. They were getting more popular with sellers, and it led to the appearance of new styles used to enhance homes visually. In the 1980s, interiors were characterized by brighter prints and patterns, country style, and eye-catching details. 

California used to be a leader in home staging since it faced the emergence of professional companies to offer these services. They have become a proper investment in the real estate market, so staging continued to grow in popularity at that time, too.

The beginning of the 1990s brought about changes in the styles used to improve home looks. Interiors have become more functional and featured minimalistic aesthetics. The House Doctor TV show, launched on Channel 5 in 1998 in the UK, was another important step in the development of home staging since this approach was introduced to the audience all around the world. 1999 was another signature year since the International Association of Home Staging Professionals was created.

Staging Popularity Boom In the 2000s

Home staging faced another leap forward in popularity at the beginning of the new millennium, thanks to the media exposure and a rise in the competitive housing markets. This solution was actively advertised in different TV shows on HGTV and TLC. The most well-known ones are “Selling New York” and “Property Brothers”. A staging approach used in the 2000s aimed at attracting a bigger number of potential buyers, so it followed the latest trends in interior design and focused on creating a warm, welcoming atmosphere for the right first impression.

The main achievement of this period is that home staging has become a rule of good tone in the real estate sphere. Buyers have appreciated the opportunity to get a home ready for a move-in, so they preferred to look at such real estate and neglected empty properties. 

The aesthetics of home staging in the 2000s were influenced by international trends and styles, so homes could have exposed bricks and mixed metals during this period, too. The important milestone in the history of home staging was the creation of the Real Estate Staging Association in 2007.

Real Estate Globalization In the 2010s

It’s predictable that home staging has already become a standard solution in the real estate market, so its popularity has reached international markets, in particular. Home staging has already crossed the borders of the USA and was gaining popularity around Europe and some Asian countries. This solution has been characterized by a huge demand in the world’s biggest capitals and cities like New York, Los Angeles, London, Dubai, and Paris. If earlier, home staging was mainly used to enhance luxury homes, in the 2010s, it spread to the general market of homes and apartments as well as commercial properties. This period is also memorable for the introduction of sophisticated digital technology in this industry.

Virtual Staging – A Breakthrough In Traditional Home Staging

It isn’t a secret that the first CAD software for interior design emerged in the 1980s, but it was primarily used for 2D drafting and offered limited 3D capabilities. More significant advancements were made in the 2000s, with the launch of such well-known 2D abd 3D modelling tools as SketchUp and Autodesk Revit. The integration of rendering and visualization capabilities was possible even later, when V-Ray (2000) and Lumion (2007) were released. This evolution in the tech tools resulted in the appearance of such an innovative solution as virtual staging.
Digital staging has appeared as an alternative to actual staging. It entered the game in the 2010s and quickly won the hearts of many realtors, who tried this solution for faster sales. The attempts to benefit from virtual staging were made before, since the launch of software like Photoshop and SketchUp, but the quality of such projects left much to be desired. It was mainly used as a visualization of newly constructed homes, but not as an alternative to real staging.

The main reasons why virtual staging has become a popular substitute for traditional one were a much quicker turnaround time (24-48 hours), a cheaper cost ($50 – $100), which is a fraction of the actual staging price, and more interest to vacant homes, which used to get stuck in the market for months.

Other reasons for virtual staging success are no less convincing. This solution is suitable for all types of real estate and gives an opportunity to represent every room in a variety of styles. Real estate agents can forget about complicated furniture logistics, photographer services, staging arrangements with sellers, and lots of other challenges that actual staging is associated with. Thanks to virtual staging, they get many more views and visits, so such properties are sold much faster.

Appearance Of AI-Generated Virtual Staging

Though the birth of AI dates back to the 1950s, it has become a powerful assistant in a variety of spheres in the 2020s. Currently, it’s impossible to imagine your life without numerous tools powered by AI, so it isn’t surprising that virtual staging can also be completed with the help of similar services. 

How does AI virtual staging work? It offers digital furnishing solutions for vacant and outdated spaces using a descriptive approach. The process is fully automated and delivers results instantly, which makes it a powerful competitor for humans.

The technology of Virtual Staging AI was developed in Harvard’s Innovation Labs. It uses advanced machine learning algorithms to generate realistic and detailed images of staged spaces. Later, several different apps and tools were released for real estate agents interested in virtual staging as well. Most of them require users to complete the following steps to have their images staged:

• Open the AI-powered tool.
• Provide room dimensions and other space details.
• Select a preferred style.
• Give commands on what details to change and in what way.
• Download the image you’ve created.

It’s important to say that most images you generate with AI are difficult to predict, so it may take time and effort to learn how to create realistic and detailed images to meet your expectations. It can be a good option to get quick results, but it’s a widely known fact that artificial intelligence can’t replace creative people’s work fully, and it’s the main problem with virtual staging, too.

Human-Made VS AI-Powered Virtual Staging

 A wonder why you should order paid virtual staging services from professionals if you can opt for AI-powered tools and get almost the same results in a matter of seconds. However, do these images have such high quality and effect as human-made ones? And why can’t AI replace man-made images nowadays? Let’s look at this comparison table.

Can AI Virtual Staging Substitute Human Work?

It goes without saying that AI virtual staging is a breakthrough in the industry. It allows making the process of adding furniture and decor automated and fast, but you never know what result you can get when you use its services. Otherwise, it’s necessary to explain every detail you want to change and waste hours to create a good final result.

Man-made virtual staging involves professional work and offers better creative control over details and adjustments. Human staging gives much higher chances to tailor images to the preferences of your customers and potential buyers. It happens thanks to the attention to detail and perfectly executed technical activities. A manually made image can also have an unlimited number of revisions and more personal and exclusive aesthetics.