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In this paper, the authors report on user preferences for different interaction modes from pushbuttons to AI when interacting with robot surfaces—malleable, adaptive, and physical surfaces that spatially reconfigure interior spaces within the built environment. With global mass urbanization, micro-homes and offices are proliferating; we envision the utility of robot surfaces in reconfiguring compact space into “many spaces” supporting and augmenting human activity. Users in a lab study (N = 12) were asked to consider robot surfaces of our design, used in conjunction with common design tasks performed in a micro-office—specifically, which interaction modes were preferred at five key instances (we call them “scenarios”) over the duration of the task. We found that, for the five scenarios, participants’ preferences were split between AI-controlled and user-controlled interactions because of the contexts of different …