Walk into almost any appliance showroom this year and the salesperson’s first question about a new range isn’t gas or electric anymore. It’s whether you’ve ever cooked on induction. Two-thirds of kitchen designers surveyed for the National Kitchen and Bath Association’s 2025 Kitchen Trends Report now expect induction to be the most popular cooking type within three years, a reversal from a decade of homeowners treating the technology as a novelty for people who don’t really cook. In some markets, the shift has already happened. Boulder, Colorado buyers now choose induction 95% of the time, according to the same report, and designers say new construction has quietly defaulted to it for the better part of five years.
The cookware fear that keeps coming up
Ask a homeowner why they resisted induction and the answer is almost always the same: they think their pots and pans won’t work. It’s a reasonable worry, but not a complicated one to resolve. Induction cooktops use magnetic fields to heat cookware directly, so any pot with a magnetic base works fine, and any pot that doesn’t will simply sit there cold. AjMadison vice president Amy Chernoff told Forbes that expanding brand options and price variability have made the technology far more accessible than it was even five years ago, and the compatibility test itself hasn’t changed. If a refrigerator magnet sticks to the bottom of a pan, that pan works on induction. Cast iron, enameled cast iron, and most stainless steel pass easily. Aluminum, copper, and glass cookware generally don’t, which means some kitchens do need a partial cookware swap, but it’s rarely the wholesale replacement people assume going in.
What the efficiency numbers actually show
The energy case is where induction separates itself most clearly from both gas and standard electric coils, and it isn’t marketing spin. According to ENERGY STAR, a gas burner transfers only around 33% of the heat it generates into the food actually cooking, while certified electric models push 74% to 85% of that energy where it belongs. Induction goes further still, running roughly three times more efficient than gas and 5% to 10% more efficient than a conventional electric coil, and it can boil a pot of water in under half the time either alternative needs. Whether that translates into a lower monthly bill depends on what you’re paying per kilowatt-hour of electricity versus per therm of gas locally, since gas is still priced lower per unit of delivered heat in a lot of U.S. markets, as appliance retailer Clarke notes. But the efficiency gap means induction wastes far less of whatever you’re paying for, gas or electric, and that gap shows up on every single burn.
A market that’s no longer a niche
The sales data backs up what showroom staff are seeing. Grand View Research projects the global induction cooktop market growing from roughly $27.7 billion in 2024 to $40 billion by 2030, a steady compound annual growth rate north of 6%, driven largely by exactly the households that used to avoid the category. Homeowners citing indoor air quality are part of that shift too. Research cited by ENERGY STAR found children in homes with gas stoves faced a 42% higher risk of developing asthma, a statistic that’s changed plenty of minds at the point of sale even among buyers who never cared about cook times or precision heat control.
The upfront cost that hasn’t disappeared
None of this means induction is a slam dunk for every kitchen. Entry and mid-range induction ranges still carry a higher price tag than comparable gas models, and switching from an existing gas line usually means adding a dedicated 240-volt circuit, which can mean an electrician visit before the range even gets delivered. Some utilities offset that cost with rebates for electrification upgrades, but it’s a real line item buyers should budget for rather than discover mid-renovation. At the luxury end, where induction and gas ranges both run into five figures, that price gap narrows considerably, which is part of why designers are seeing the fastest adoption at both the very top and the environmentally motivated middle of the market simultaneously.
What’s happening in kitchen showrooms right now isn’t a fad correcting itself. It’s a technology finally catching up to the reputation problem that kept it out of ordinary homes for years, one magnet test and one utility bill at a time.
