Whether for a simple pearl earring or a gem-encrusted brooch, the design process can be a complex one, often requiring multiple changes in the plans. Does a piece look better in rose gold or white? With rubies or diamonds?
But the creators of Blng, an app that uses artificial intelligence to assist jewelry design, say that in seconds, their product can transform sketches or drawings into renderings so detailed they look like photographs, reducing the time it takes to turn an idea into images suitable for presentation to clients and manufacturers.
The material initially uploaded to the app “can be a sketch, a photo, a keyword; inspiration comes from all kinds of places, and we wanted a platform where you can visualize ideas,” said Valérie Leblond, who created the app along with her husband, Dumëne Comploi.
Mr. Comploi offered an example: “If you’re somewhere on a mountain and see a beautiful flower, you can take a photograph, remove the background and run that,” or even do an initial sketch in the app. Then the material can be manipulated with a combination of text commands and in-app tools.
The idea for the app was born when Mr. Comploi, an architect and former creative designer at Walt Disney Imagineering in Burbank, Calif., was designing an engagement ring for Ms. Leblond. He asked Christian Tse, a manufacturer he knew, to produce it.
“That ultimately led us to discuss the potential for a system that could translate hand sketches into 3-D jewelry renderings,” Mr. Tse wrote in an email. (Ms. Leblond, who previously worked in production and development in Montreal for Cirque du Soleil, and Mr. Comploi were married in 2018.)
The startup, which was founded in 2023 and now has 12 employees working out of Los Angeles, said it generated $3 million in investments in April. And last year at the Viva Technology event in France, it won the LVMH Innovation Award, which offered mentoring from LVMH’s investment specialists and partnerships with its brands, an arrangement that now has Blng working with Tiffany & Company.
In addition to the design-rendering technology, the company has been working on a virtual try-on process as well as digital templates, animations and other materials brands can use to market their products.
Early access to the design tech has been offered through the company’s website, with an iOS smartphone app and a web-based platform scheduled to be introduced in early June. A monthly subscription starts at $49, the couple said.
In demonstrations during a video call, Mr. Comploi used the app to transform a doodle into a diamond-studded gold earring and a childlike drawing of a bumblebee into a gem-laden pendant. The program also displayed an image of a man’s watch in what appeared to be yellow gold that it then transformed into white gold.
During the process, a chat window displayed his prompts and then A.I.-generated comments on how the app had interpreted them. He used a toggle feature during each demonstration to adjust the degree of A.I. influence on the results. The partners said they included such features to give designers precise knowledge about and control of the technology as well as an easy way to return to earlier iterations.
In the future, Ms. Leblond and Mr. Comploi said, they would like to include intelligence that could understand a personal aesthetic, enabling the tech to predict where a designer might go next with a particular piece.
Dov Tannenbaum of Leo Schachter Diamonds in New York City wrote in an email that his company had been using the app for a couple of image-related tasks and achieved results that “significantly improved our speed and quality” in the design and marketing phases of new product development.
Some jewelry designers have been using A.I. to enhance and expedite the design process, but — as Michael Magee, an expert on jewelry industry technology with the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, Calif., wrote in an email — there is still controversy about using it as a creative source.
“Jewelry designers are creative people,” he wrote, “so there are many who have reservations about giving up their creative agency to A.I.”
Ms. Leblond and Mr. Comploi said they understand the hesitation. But artists throughout history have adopted what was considered new technology, Mr. Comploi noted, allowing some to try new approaches.
“To me, art is about excellence; it is about growing, about doing the most beautiful things,” he said. “And technology is not something that should scare you; it is something that should empower you to make better art.”
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