IKEA has announced a new line of “self-assembling furniture” that aims to revolutionize the industry. The new line of products from the world’s largest furniture retailer is called “AI-kea.”
“Our customers love our low prices but hate how difficult it is to assemble the furniture,” IKEA’s CEO said in a press release. “We have listened, and AI-kea is the future of furniture.”
AI-kea furniture is made of the same lightweight materials at wholesale cost, but comes with a LÖSNBOT, a robot programmed to assemble any piece of furniture in a matter of minutes.
Available AI-kea items include desks, shelves, tables, chairs, bed frames, and sofas. The initial release of AI-kea furniture sold out immediately, and there is a growing waitlist of millions. However, some AI-kea customers are already voicing complaints against the new line of “self-assembling” products.
Upon purchasing a piece of AI-kea furniture, you first have to assemble your LÖSNBOT, which, due to its highly advanced circuitry, is more complicated and time-consuming than simply assembling traditional IKEA furniture by hand—that is if you can even manage to figure out how to assemble the robot at all. The parts are all customized, requiring special tools, and the directions are entirely picture-based with no words, often described as “needlessly confusing.”
While an LÖSNBOT comes free of charge with your purchase of any AI-kea furniture, the robot remains property of IKEA. Upon completing assembly of your furniture, the LÖSNBOT will return to an IKEA store on its own accord. [Warning: If you attempt to keep a LÖSNBOT at your residence longer than necessary, it will use self-defense to escape.]
Some AI-kea customers have reported complaints that their LÖSNBOT left before fully assembling their furniture. Others claim that the LÖSNBOT assembled the furniture incorrectly, causing the items to break and resulting in user injury. One customer even claims to have been attacked by his LÖSNBOT when he attempted to return his new chair after finding it uncomfortable.
An IKEA spokesperson said that customers with computer programming and electrical engineering experience should be able to assemble their LÖSNBOT in less than 48 hours. For an extra fee, you can order a BYGGAMATE robot to assemble the LÖSNBOT for you. Then you’ll be enjoying your AI-kea furniture in no time (until it breaks and you need to order a new LÖSNBOT to fix it).