Let’s get one thing straight: the robots aren’t taking over your showroom. 

They’re sorting your samples, sure. Maybe writing your ad copy. Cutting your customer acquisition cost by multiples. Possibly drafting your purchase orders or quoting homeowners faster than your best estimator on a double espresso. Even teasing out a great product that works in an “or equal” spec. Okay. But they’re not replacing the magic touch, the handshake, the read of a room, the judgment call on whether that contractor’s truly vibing with you or just having a drive by.  

That’s what humans in the loop (HITL) means. And it’s about to matter a lot in flooring. John Naisbitt’s contention/mantra of a high-tech, high-touch ethos in his book Megatrends is that as society becomes more immersed in technology (high tech), there is a growing and equally important need for human connection and meaningful camaraderie (high touch). In other words, the more intrusive technology surrounds us, the greater our need for genuine human interaction and emotional fulfillment. Flooring sales, at some point in the purchase calculus, have an element of emotion and serendipity that even the best AI agent cannot get a bead on. 

What Is a “Human in the Loop,” Anyway?  

In AI terms, a human-in-the-loop (HITL) is simply a person embedded within an otherwise automated system to guide, correct, or approve the machine's actions. Think of your business as the machine. It’s how AI avoids going full Terminator when the real world throws you an out-of-stock SKU on a tightly scheduled project. Think of it like cruise control that still lets you grab the wheel.  

Now apply that to our world.   

Picture an AI system recommending flooring SKUs to a designer working on a 70,000-square-foot tenant improvement job. (Remember those?) It pulls data from wear ratings, lead times, previous spec history, and even project budget ranges scraped from public permit records. It’s empirically confident, but not soulfully aware. The spec rep, a human in the loop, knows the general contractor has no problem changing out subcontractors at the last minute. Or that the client’s CEO has an allergy to anything with a pattern. So, she overrides it, tweaks the mix, and shoots the proposal over with a note: “Let’s keep it simple, the client’s got a texture intolerance trigger.” 

That’s the loop. That’s the future. That’s still your lane.  

Where the Loop Lives  

1. Estimating & Takeoffs 
You feed floor plans into a neural net and out pops a takeoff with waste factors, adhesive spreads, stair tread quantities, and cove base. But a junior estimator scans it and flags a missing expansion joint. The AI didn’t miss it because it’s dumb. It missed it because the architect buried it in a bubble cloud and wrote “TBD per site conditions.” You caught it because you’ve been burned before. That’s the ROI of an ignorance tax you once paid.  

2. Customer Experience 
Imagine a chatbot on your retail website that recommends products based on budget, room type, and lifestyle. Customer says, “We have four rescue dogs and a pool.” The bot suggests waterproof LVT. But your human in the loop follows up by asking where they live. It’s Tucson. That pool water is basically acid. So you steer them toward a denser wear layer and better fade resistance. Or a porcelain upgrade. 

AI is a hammer. You’re the hand that knows which nail to hit.  

3. Product Curation & Merchandising 
Large retailers and distributors will use AI to model what SKUs to stock by zip code, scraping Zillow listings, home builder permits, and even Instagram posts. But the field rep, human in the loop, hears that a new custom builder is moving into the region and has a sweetheart deal with a specific mill on a disruptive new finish product. Without that human flag, you miss that entire early-adopter moment. 

Why This Matters: AI Without a Loop Becomes a Liability 

Let’s not kid ourselves. The flooring industry is messy. Skewed spec data. Over capacity. Distributors who reactively update their inventory two cycles late. Retailers working from spreadsheets. Contractors who write change orders on Waffle House napkins. End users with pattern aversion. 

Drop AI into that soup without a human filter and what you get is not efficiency, it’s existential risk. You’ll lose margin, lose trust, and lose control of your brand. And let’s not forget the soul of your enterprise. Yes, I believe that organizational culture is still important despite what PE may think. You decide. But with smart loops, humans embedded at critical friction points, you get something better: 

• Scalable expertise 
• Fewer mistakes 
• Faster decisions 
• Preserved relationships 

It’s not “AI versus humans.” It’s AI with humans where it matters most.” 

Closing the Loop: What Should Flooring Dealers Do?  

If you’re a manufacturer, specifier, or distributor, now’s the time to map your workflows and ask: Where are the decisions where experience still trumps automation? Those are your loop points.   

If you’re a retailer, figure out which parts of the customer journey can be accelerated and which must be deeply human. A product finder? Automate it. Choosing between “Warm Gray” and “Gray Warm”? That’s art. Keep a human there.  

And if you’re on the labor side? Start training your teams to interface with AI tools, rather than fearing them. Being the human in the loop could soon be the most in-demand skill in the industry. Perhaps consider it as keeping your enemies closer.  

Because no matter how smart the software gets, it still can’t tell if the customer meant “matte” or “maple.” You can. And for now, that’s the loop that matters.  

Welcome to flooring’s future. It’s not robotic. It's a hybrid. And you’re still very much in it.