I tried the robot masseur — did it have the human touch? - The Times

[Hannah Evans]

While the world’s carmaking robots may grind to a halt in the wake of Donald Trump’s tariffs, there is one extra-special robot that has whirred into action. Actually, it hasn’t stopped since it was switched on last month in London, working tirelessly to prod, poke and polish until it produced a finished product. Except it’s not cars that this robot is working on: it’s me.

I am lying face down on a bed in the middle of a luxury gym called Third Space in Canary Wharf while Britain’s first robot masseur gets to work on my body, knocking out knots and soothing pressure points. Everybody meet Self, Self meet everybody.

Self was invented by Julian Jorgensen, a 39-year-old entrepreneur from Copenhagen who spent 20 years of his career working as a digital developer before discovering himself, along with yoga, wellness and tantra (“not the sexual kind,” he assures me. Though I do wonder where the idea for the massage robot came from, now he’s mentioned it). He founded Self in 2023 with his brother, Jimmy, who is a doctor of robotics and owns a company that engineers robots used to polish and make Apple products. “My whole life I have been searching for a piece of bodywork like this,” he says. “I am 6ft 4in and so sitting at a desk for many hours is sore.”

“Self looks like a monster not a masseur, but I’m fond of him”

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Rather than looking like a humanoid from Blade Runner or I, Robot, Self consists of one long robotic arm with what looks like a leather tennis ball attached to the end that performs percussion massage, vibrating at 30 beats per second like an extra-large massage gun. “We’re taking an industrial arm and using it on a human in a public setting. It’s a real first,” Jorgensen continues.

Self is powered by artificial intelligence. What does that mean? New users will have a quick body scan with Self and a (human) assistant to understand the curves and shapes of your body. You then decide if you want it to focus on your upper or lower body, for how long (the shortest massage is five minutes) and then hop on the bed before Self gets to work. The more he massages you (this robot definitely has male energy), the more he gets to know your body and what it likes.

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“It’s taken people a while to trust the robot,” Jorgensen tells me as Self gets to work on a particularly sore knot in my calf.

I get it. Thankfully Self doesn’t have a face so there’s no awkward robot eye contact. And I do get to keep all my kit on, but I’d feel a bit vulnerable left in a room with an AI-powered robot. I know that Inga, my favourite masseuse from the beauty salon in my neighbourhood, knows what she’s doing. But what if Mr Self misbehaves and pummels me too hard?

And what if people take advantage of him? Look, I don’t want to lower the tone, but I am certain there are plenty of people who’d love to be left in a room with a giant vibrating machine that knows their body intimately.

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Neither situation will happen, Jorgensen assures me. Not only because the robot is in the middle of a very busy gym, but also because users are handed a remote control to use during the session that allows them to change the pressure and angle of the vibrating head, or pause the massage altogether.

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Right now a session with Mr Self is free to members of Third Space. And so it should be. This place is like the Rolls-Royce of gyms. Membership of this branch costs from £260 a month and it has a spa, a pool, saunas and all the other bells and whistles that make fitness-obsessed millennials splash out.

In Scandinavia, where it has already launched, each Self robot costs roughly £39,000. In the UK, Jorgensen wants offices to buy a robot to help to soothe stressed-out workers. Another option is to subscribe and have a machine in your building, like a Peloton, and pay per minute.

Admittedly, there are no essential oils or sounds of trickling streams (though Jorgensen does say heated pads that will attach to the machine are coming soon). You don’t even take your clothes off. And if I look to my right, my view is of someone’s arse as they struggle at the bottom of a squat. If anything, Self looks like a monster rather than a masseur. But I am getting fond of him.

The UK fitness industry’s market value is at an all-time high. “Recovery” is the buzzword of the moment as exercise junkies spend more money than ever on things that make them feel good after a workout as well as during it. The hottest gadget is a portable massage gun. But until Self arrived on the scene, the problem has always been that you have to use it to massage yourself.

Granted, the best bit about getting a massage is the feel of someone’s fingers kneading your knots, but Julian knows that. And so in the next year Self will be releasing another first: a heated massaging glove. “The idea is to invent a glove for massage therapists to use. We’ll then record all of the fine movements and pressure levels. Then we’ll transfer that information into the machine,” he says. I think I know what he’s going to say next. “Then added to the head of the robot will be a vibrating big thumb or finger.”

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And there you have it. Coming soon: the ultimate Nordic massage.