Ayuppie: making new connections in the lighting market

The design world has a wary relationship with digital technology. Great design is all about lasting appeal and heirloom quality, technology famously moves fast and breaks things. But digital tech, particularly AI and data analytics, has radically transformed sales and service, sweeping away entrenched, outmoded and often unfair ways of doing things. And in those areas, design might be in need of positive disruption.

A newly launched Italian start-up, Ayuppie, is bringing just that kind of energy and fresh thinking to the lighting market, creating a new platform that can help architects quickly and easily create lighting designs for their projects and match them with resellers, emerging manufacturers, and makers as well as big brands. And doing it with maximum flair and minimum fuss and bother.

Ayuppie's fundamental mechanics are simple. Architects can search through its digital mood-board, what it calls the 'LightBook', and pick out lighting schemes and designs that feel like the right fit for the project they are working on. Using advanced AI, the platform will smarten that search and generate more images and more suggestions, allowing the architect to quickly find extra inspiration and options. All the images are embedded with product information – revealed with a digital flip – and, crucially, details of local resellers.

Architects can also search using text, create project- and room-specific mood-boards and lighting configurations, and even upload architectural plans. The Ayuppie site will then generate multiple priced-up and interactive digital presentations that the architect can share with their client.

All of the products are available to order directly from the site and Ayuppie pulls up results from multiple resellers so the architect and their client can make a decision based on price and convenience. Ayuppie also runs a distinct B2B site for manufacturers and resellers which means that all quotations are in real-time with prices only available on Ayuppie.

If the architect decides the project is so large and complex that they need assistance, Ayuppie also provides a list of local lighting designers and resellers who offer a design service and whose work seems a good match with their project.

The architect, as a bonus, also receives five per cent of the value of the final order (Ayuppie is clear that that fee isn’t simply built into the prices on the site but comes from a commission charged to manufacturers). Alternatively, an architect can waive that commission and enlist the services of a specialist lighting designer on their next project for free.

Ayuppie calls its model a lighting 'ecosystem' that creates a new 'value chain' which can support and grow local resellers as well as smaller makers and artisans while providing a digital design service and support to small and emerging architects. Eventually, Ayuppie hopes to add a directory of architects where they can display past projects.

Its founders argue that Ayuppie, which they have spent two years developing, is a different kind of marketplace – as much a social network and community as a business, and one that is more sustainable in economic, social and environmental terms. ‘We want to distribute value to the entire supply chain,’ says CEO Piera Poser, ‘we want to change the rules.’

© Architonic