Alexey Sheremetyev, Founder and Chief Product Officer of Planner 5D – Interview Series

Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Alexey Sheremetyev brings ruthless motivation to innovation and is passionate about designing solutions for his role. New product creativity, business relationships and customer happiness are key points for Alexey.

Planner 5D is a design platform that enables users of all experience levels to create professional-looking floor plans and layouts for homes, landscapes and offices. The tool leverages artificial intelligence, allowing users to try various design elements and instantly generate detailed 2D plans, 3D rendering and immersive virtual reality journeys. AI features help with layout suggestions, furniture placement and style matching to simplify the design process. In addition to design tools, Planner 5D also offers an interior design school to help users develop and refine their skills in space planning and aesthetics.

What prompted you to launch Planner 5D in 2011? Have you noticed specific gaps in the home design market?

Back in 2010-2011, I discovered a distinctive gap in software while renovating my first apartment: on the one hand, expensive engineer-grade CAD tools require weeks of training; on the other hand, the lightweight 2D drag and drop app is more like a digital mood board than a real design tool. Neither option lets the homeowner draw a floor plan, provide it, and immediately “walking” into the space in 3D.

So I set myself a clear goal to be the planner 5D when planning in early 2011: to make home design playful like the Sims, but accurate enough that the contractor can trust the size.

How does your web design, UI/UX and product management background shape your vision for Planner 5D?

My UI/UX background hardwired interface concept is so intuitive that they feel invisible – every click, drag and reveal should be simply “clicked” with human instinct. Product management experience is layered in disciplines to connect this joy with clearing business outcomes, ensuring that each feature gains its place by serving users and the marketplace. They are together, and I enter startup mode with confidence: move quickly, wear many hats, and always turn to planners 5d towards the best place to meet the beauty experience for sustainable development.

But the main thing is that I have the hardest client: me. The Planner 5D was originally used as a tool I built for my own renovation project, so I was actually the first user of the platform and a very strict user. Capture every swing in the grid, every click, every millimeter of unaligned cabinets appear in my own floor plan, so it must be fixed before anyone else sees it. In this sense, I “ordered” the product from myself and had the read specifications: making the home design so intuitive and precise that I actually believe it could transform my apartment.

That personal dog blends my three disciplines into a Polaris question: “Can a complete newbie design a published room in less than ten minutes without reading a manual?”

It can make the product into dog food from day one, but it also guarantees that when Planner 5D is released, it already feels fun and professional – allowing first-time users to go from ideas to immersive walkthroughs before cooling the coffee.

From idea to startup, can you share the early story of Planner 5D? What was the initial challenge?

We were excited and inspired to start working on the project. We set two main goals: (1) make it as easy to use as possible, and (2) make it cross-platform, so people don’t need additional plugins or specific devices.

We achieved our first goal by drawing on my UI/UX background and putting all the efforts to make it feel as intuitive as a game. For cross-platform support, we chose HTML5 as our primary technology, which enables anyone to open on any device and use Planner 5D in any browser. Although we later migrated to native code for each platform, HTML5 was a small team that went back to the 2011 small team in its early stages.

How has it evolved since Planner 5D? How is the AI ​​centered for today’s planner 5D experience?

When we launched the browser-only MVP in 2012, it was nothing more than a 2D grid that popped up basic 3D views and a furniture catalog of our handmade models. From there, the product continues to expand its commitment to “any device, any skill level”: 2013 iPad apps, the cloud is presented in 2014, full iPhone/Android/MacOS coverage in 2015, followed by Windows plus 2016’s first VR/AR Trackthroughs.

The real inflection point was in 2017, when I rotated the internal AI R&D track. We ship in two years AI floor plan recognition – Upload a photo or PDF and watch it become an editable 3D model. In 2022, laser drive Scanning room and AI Automatic furniture arrangement Arrive, let your phone scan your space and automatically load the system in seconds. Last year, we were stratified AI room designer This proposes a complete layout, palette and material blend in a single prompt.

Today, AI is no longer a feature, but a backbone of workflow. From the moment the floor plan is confirmed, the machine learning model indicates wall movement, traffic flow optimization, and style presets. Computer vision stays honest. and generate the algorithm to automatically stage the video rendering for several minutes. Now, more than half of new projects start with AI wizards, while Power users rely on predictive furniture and instant recoloring to iterate faster than manual tools. In short, the original vision – making design feel like playing without sacrificing precision – has evolved into a collaboration between user creativity and always among AI co-designers.

Can you explain how AI technologies like smart wizards, design generators, and floor plan recognition enhance the user’s home design process?

The biggest benefit is the time you save – and the inspiration you get. You no longer need to start from scratch.

Smart guide and AI designer Break the blank icanvas anxiety, perform ergonomic spacing, and act as your perfect “first draft” instead of starting from scratch.

Plan recognition Save hours of tracking, retain the accuracy of scales and allow agents, remodelers or new homeowners to jump directly to layout adjustments.

Design generator Sparks creativity helps non-designers express aesthetic preferences and accelerate iteration without manual recoloring or refusion.

In other words, click on one click and then – boom – you already have a lot of materials that can be perfected or even used.

How do you make sure that the designs generated by AI still feel personal and creatively unique to each user?

At Planner 5d, we believe that AI should be an extension of user creativity, not a replacement for users. Our approach combines data-driven intelligence with people-centered design. During onboarding, we ask users about contextual information, such as their home address or attribute type, which allows us to enrich the experience with open source data related to their environment, such as architectural style, climate and even local materials.

We then leverage AI to provide deep context and adaptive design advice, but we always provide users with the final decision. Whether it is layout or furniture style, users can adjust each element. So our AI is not only a mechanical tool, but a true co-designer you want to work with.

How do you see that Planner 5D can help not only homeowners, but also students, real estate agents, contractors and professional designers?

Planner 5D has always been about democratizing design – making it accessible, intuitive and powerful, not just homeowners. Although homeowners are our core audience, we see exciting traction among neighboring user groups and we are actively building platforms to better serve them.

student – We have special offers for K-12 school district! They can obtain a free Planner 5D Education License for use in their courses, implementing special projects with students, project-based learning (PBL), and more.

Real estate agent – We understand the challenges and are actively working to solve the Planner 5D. For example, we just launched a powerful new feature on iOS – Home Scanner. Just use the iPhone camera and you can generate CAD and GLA blueprints, editable 3D floor plans, renderings, 3D walkthroughs, and more. Just stroll around the property and you will get valuable visual materials to enhance your list.

Professional designers and contractors – Not only are we famously advanced features, but also access to powerful new collaboration tools to improve their work with customers. Planner 5D is developing into a full-size platform – not only a 3D home design tool, but also helps solve real business challenges.

Ultimately, our vision is to make Planner 5D the preferred ecosystem for all these characters to collaborate around their vision, tools and languages ​​in the shared vision model of the space.

As Founder and Chief Product Officer, how do you balance your long-term vision with your daily product development priorities?

Balance of long-term vision with daily execution is one of the hardest (but most important) parts of my role. As a founder, I’ve been thinking about where the industry is heading in 5 to 10 years: how spatial computing, AI and immersive experiences will redefine home design. However, as Chief Product Officer, I also need to ensure that our team ships value every week and solve real problems for today’s users.

The keys are structured alignment. We operate with a strong product strategy framework that connects everything we do to the North Star – making design simple, smart and human. I work closely with our product managers, designers and engineers to set quarterly OKRs to achieve our long-term goals. That way, even the smallest UX improvement or infrastructure update is part of a bigger story.

I also spend time getting rid of weeds every week. I talk to users, view data trends, and maintain close relationships with emerging technologies – which helps me calibrate our roadmap still points in the right direction or if course corrections are required.

Ultimately, it’s building a team and culture that can operate on two levels. I don’t have to choose between vision and execution – I just need to make sure they’re in conversation all the time.

What are your most exciting things to integrate into Planner 5D in the next few years?

Over the years, it hasn’t been easy to note today’s technology, but I’m going to mention it.

Generated AI – Not only for creating design ideas, but also for building a true conversational design assistant. Imagine the user saying, “Make this room more like a cozy Scandinavian cabin”, and the AI ​​immediately adapts to the space with proper texture, layout and lighting. We have experimented with this and it has great potential.

Real-world data integration – We are exploring ways to everything from climate analysis to building data. By accessing users’ real home data – layout, location, materials – our AI can provide tailored suggestions that actually change everyday life.

Where will you see Planner 5D in five years from now, especially in the world of AI-driven design?

It’s hard to make long-term predictions – just a few years ago, we couldn’t imagine how AI is developing and accelerating. Now, we expect stronger progress that unlocks new ways to help people make home improvements. Our goal is to make the process more seamless, beyond the equipment and bring smooth, impactful results.

Thanks for your excellent interview, readers who hope to learn more should visit Planner 5d.