Autonomous AI ErgoChair Office Chair Review 2024

Is your current office chair beginning to show its age? Are you looking for a replacement?

If so, and if you’ve spent any time at all looking at the various options available, you know that the choices can seem almost overwhelming. There are just so many to choose from!

If you’re struggling to narrow the field, then you’re going to like what you read in this—our Autonomous ErgoChair review.

If you haven’t heard of Autonomous Ai, you’re not alone. While many companies that make office furniture have been in the business for decades—and some have been doing it for a century or more—Autonomous is very new to the scene, having burst onto the stage in 2015 with the introduction of their first product—Maya, a robot assistant.

Based on the success of that product, the company decided to apply their engineering and productivity hacking skills to making office furniture, which is how these products came to be, and note that we said products. Here, we’re not talking about a single chair made by the company but an entire product line consisting of four different models.

These models are:

The Autonomous ErgoChair 1 was released in 2016 and sold more than a million units. Since then, the company has taken user feedback to heart and continued refining its product line. While it’s still possible to find Ergo Chair 1 models for sale, the company has moved onto the Autonomous Ergo Chair v2, which this review will center on.

While these various models are highly similar, they have some important differences that will naturally cause you to gravitate to one chair or another, depending on your specific needs.

In this piece, we’ll step you through all of the Autonomous ErgoChair 2 variants and outline what each one brings to the table, so you can decide for yourself if this is the company you want to buy your next office chair from and if so, which one meets your needs the best. If that sounds good, read on, and let’s take a closer look.

An Overview Of The Ergo Chair 2 From Autonomous

We consider this a very strong component of our Autonomous ErgoChair review, but at first glance, it’s easy to miss the subtle design flourishes that Autonomous ErgoChairs bring to the table. A closer look, however, tells the tale by revealing the fun sculpted area in the lumbar region of the seatback and the innovative lumbar support system.  

We’re not even huge fans of mesh office chairs, and this product line impressed us. Even if your tastes are similar to our own and you’re normally not a fan of mesh chairs, these are well worth at least taking a look at.

Of course, an office chair is defined by much more than its appearance, so to understand what these chairs are all about, we need numbers. Below, we’ve compiled the basic stats for the four main Autonomous AI ErgoChair2 models so that you can make a side-by-side comparison. Here are the basics:

Attribute/Model	Core	Pro	Recline	Pro +
Product Dimensions	28” – 45” L x 28” W x 45-49” H	29” L x 29” W x 46” – 50” H	28” – 45” L x 28” W x 45” – 49” H	28” L x 28” W x 40” – 44” H
Chair Weight	33.7 pounds	48.5 pounds	45 pounds	35.3 pounds
Maximum Supported Weight	250 pounds	300 pounds	250 pounds	300 pounds
Seat Depth	19”	20”	19”	19”
Seat Width	19”	20”	19”	19”
Seat Height Range	18” – 21”	18” – 20”	18” – 21”	17” – 21”
Warranty	1 year	2 years	1 year	5 years
Color Options	All Black, Cool Grey	All Black, Cool Grey, Evergreen, Black and White, Red Apple, and Baby Blue	All Black, Cool Grey	Black Frame & Grey TPE with Grey Mesh, White Frame & Naked Grey TPE, Black Frame & Naked Black TPE, Black Frame & Black TPE with Black Mesh, White Frame & Grey TPE with Blue Mesh
Tilt Range	18 degrees	22 degrees	18 degrees	25 degrees
Adjustability	Armrest, back tilt angle, seat height	Headrest, armrest, back tilt angle and tension, seat tilt and height	Headrest, armrests, back tilt angle, seat height, footrest	Armrests, Back Tilt Angle and Tension, Seat Height
Price	$349	$499	$599	$699

There’s quite a lot to talk about here, but by and large, these are good numbers. Let’s take it from the top.

The weakest chair of the bunch is the Autonomous Core because it offers the smallest number of adjustable features and a disappointing maximum user weight. 

Everything else about the chair, however, is quite good.

It’s worth noting that although this is the weakest chair by the numbers, we gave it the second-highest rating overall because, for the niche that it serves (tallish people with long legs of light to medium build), it really delivers the value. If you fall into that category and don’t have much money to spend on a new chair, the Autonomous Ergo 2 Core will get it done.

The ErgoChair Pro 2 is essentially a more robust and slightly larger version of the Core chair.  

If you happen to weigh a bit more than the Core can support but like all of its features, then the Pro is the model you want. In addition to offering the same basic feature set, the Autonomous Ergo Pro Chair boasts a headrest and a means of controlling tilt tension, making it a good deal more versatile than its less expensive cousin.

The Recline variant is the one we wanted to like best out of the Autonomous family, but the weight limit is underwhelming (back to the modest 250-pound limit). So although it offers a lot to love, it caters to a relatively narrow segment of the market, which is disappointing.

We’d love to see a rugged version of this chair capable of supporting 300 pounds of user weight and perhaps even more. As it is, we wanted to love this model but couldn’t quite.

The Autonomous ErgoChair Pro+ is not just the flagship model of the lineup; note that we gave it the highest value score of the bunch. That’s a bit of a rarity. Normally, as the price of a chair increases, the value proposition starts to dry up because manufacturers add more features, but they tend to be of lower value or less than universal appeal.

Here though, even if it’s the most expensive chair of the bunch, if you can afford it, this is the one you want. It’s got a raft of high-value adjustable features, comes in a decent array of colors, and has a fantastic warranty to boot. That’s an awfully difficult combination of features to beat!

The Ergo Autonomous Chair Is Delightfully Adjustable And More Comfortable Than You Think!

We’ve already highlighted which chairs have what adjustable features, so we won’t rehash those points again, but it’s worth mentioning that these are mesh-backed chairs. 

That’s a good thing because the mesh is incredibly breathable, which means you can sit in your Autonomous—whichever one you ultimately decide is right for you—for extended periods and not get hot and sweaty.

These chairs offer a markedly different seating experience than you’d get if you were trying to spend extended periods sitting in leather or vinyl-clad chair. The more time you spent sitting in it, the hotter and more uncomfortable you’d get!

The seats of these chairs are worth mentioning too. Here, the company attempted to provide the best of both worlds, using a thinly woven material (polyester fabric or TPE—depending on the choices you make when buying) to cover a generous layer of padding.

It’s a good combination, but in our view, it works best for short to medium stints in the chair.

You’ll be quite comfortable at hour 4 and still comfortable at hour 6, but beyond that, the more time you spend in the chair, the more you’ll wish for some additional padding.

That’s still pretty good as far as office chairs go, and the chair’s ergonomic features work well with the padding and breathable seatback to help augment the overall level of comfort.

Even so, by hour 8+, you’ll be craving some memory foam.

Some Assembly Required

This, too, is a surprisingly strong component of our Autonomous ErgoChair review. As is the case with most of the office furniture sold today, if you decide you want one of these, the chair you pick will arrive at your door in a giant box and in several pieces, so you’ll need to spend some time unboxing and sorting pieces before putting it together.

The good news is that the assembly instructions are quite clear, and the production quality of the chair is off-the-charts good, so the process itself is relatively painless.  

Autonomous AI ErgoChair Office Chair Color Variants

Pros And Cons of Autonomous AI ErgoChair Office Chair

So, where does that leave us?

If you’ve read to this point, then we think you’ll agree that the Autonomous product line is quite good. 

From a technical standpoint, there’s not a thing in the world wrong with these chairs.

They do have a few limitations to be mindful of, however.

First and foremost, two of the models (the Core and Recline) only support up to 250 pounds of user weight. 

That’s fine if you weigh 250 or less, but if you happen to weigh more, then no matter how much you may like these, they’re just going to be nonstarters for you.

The Pro and the Pro+ are better in that regard, supporting up to 300 pounds of user weight, and the Pro+ has the most adjustable features of any of the chairs in the lineup—though we do kinda wish the company had merged the reclining model with this one, which would have made their flagship design flat-out amazing.

Autonomous ErgoChair Review Conclusion

Overall, we really like these chairs, but we don’t quite love them. They’re a bit on the pricey side, but you get what you pay for, and all four models offer solid value.

We provisionally recommend the Core and the Recline variants because of the modest weight limit, and we recommend the Pro and the Pro+ models as being excellent, versatile general-purpose office chairs for light to moderate daily use.

Other Options To Consider

If, after looking at the designs on offer, you’re not sold on these, here are a couple of other great options to consider:

This is a fantastic office chair. If you haven’t heard of SIDIZ, you’re not alone. The company is based in South Korea. Although they are a titan in the office furniture industry, they mostly sell directly to other businesses, so most individual consumers don’t have any experience with them.

They are an amazing company, though, and we regard the T50 as being their best chair. It’s all mesh but insanely adjustable, and we absolutely love it.

In some ways, this chair is a study in opposites compared to the chairs we just talked about. Where the Autonomous chairs are sleek and modern-looking, the Herc is designed along purely conventional lines. It’s a big, steel-framed hulking brute of a chair.

Where the Autonomous chairs have a variety of adjustment features, this one only has the basics and only offers basic lumbar support.

On the other hand, these chairs were specifically designed for 24/7 call center use and can stand up to just about any punishment you can dish out. 

Virtually indestructible, well-padded, and comfortable, you can get yours in either PU or fabric upholstery. But if you’re going this route, we highly recommend fabric, especially if you plan to sit for extended periods in the chair.

Best of all, the Herc can support up to 400 pounds of user weight, and Flash Furniture makes an even bigger and more robust model that can support more than that. So if the weight limit keeps you from selecting the Autonomous chairs, then this is the one you want.

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References & Resources:

• Autonomous AI, Official Brand Website.
• Autonomous AI ErgoChair Pro Functions Guide
• Autonomous AI ErgoChair Pro+ Functions Guide
• 5 Ways an Ergonomically Designed Workstation Can Improve Your Productivity, Business.com.
• Using Ergonomics to Target Productivity Improvements, Science Direct.
• 9 Ergonomic Tips for Synchronizing Your Work Station and Office Chair, Spine Health.