Meta acquires Assured Robot Intelligence to build the Android of humanoid robots

Meta buys robotics startup to bolster its humanoid AI ambitions | TechCrunch

Meta has acquired humanoid robotics startup Assured Robot Intelligence for an undisclosed sum, the social media giant said. "We acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a company at the frontier of robotic intelligence designed to enable robots to understand, predict, and adapt to human behaviors in complex and dynamic environments," a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch in an emailed statement. ARI's team, including its co-founders, will join Meta's AI unit, the Superintelligence Labs research division. ARI had raised an undisclosed seed round from AI seed firm AIX Ventures. The startup was building foundation models for humanoid robots to perform all types of physical labor such as household chores. Co-founder Xiaolong Wang was previously a researcher at Nvidia, and an associate professor at UC San Diego, with a list of prestigious awards to his name. Co-founder Lerrel Pinto, who previously taught at NYU and co-founded the kid-size humanoid startup Fauna Robotics before Amazon snapped it up last month, has also won a string of prestigious awards. ARI will help Meta with its humanoid ambitions. "This team, led by Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, will bring a deep expertise in how we can design our models and frontier capabilities for robot control and self-learning to whole-body humanoid control." Meta researchers have been working on humanoid robotics tech for years. A leaked memo from a year ago discussed Meta's ambitions to build such a robot, including AI models and hardware, aimed at consumers. Even if Meta never releases a consumer humanoid product, many AI experts these days believe that the path to artificial general intelligence (AGI) -- the theoretical point at which AI reaches or surpasses human-level intelligence across all domains -- will require training AI models in the physical world, where robots learn through direct interaction rather than data alone. The ARI and Fauna deals reflect a broader industry sprint -- one where forecasts vary wildly, from Goldman Sachs's projection of $38 billion by 2035 to Morgan Stanley's estimate of $5 trillion by 2050 -- a spread that reflects both the enormous potential and the uncertainty around tech that's still finding its footing.

Meta Acquires Robotics AI Company to Help Build Humanoid Technology

Meta Platforms Inc. has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a startup developing artificial intelligence models for robots, as part of a major initiative to build humanoid technology. The social networking giant closed the acquisition Friday, according to a spokesperson. Meta said the startup is "at the frontier of robotic intelligence designed to enable robots to understand, predict and adapt to human behaviors in complex and dynamic environments." Financial terms weren't disclosed. The Assured Robot Intelligence team, which includes co-founders Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, will join the Meta Superintelligence Labs research division. The staff will work closely with Meta Robotics Studio, a team launched last year to work on underlying technology for humanoids. Meta is making a significant investment in humanoids -- futuristic robots that can move like humans and assist with physical tasks. The emerging sector has been gaining steam at many of the industry's biggest companies, including Tesla Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Amazon.com Inc. Wang was previously a researcher at Nvidia Corp., while Pinto was a co-founder of Fauna Robotics before leaving in 2025. Amazon acquired Fauna in March to help bolster its own humanoid robot effort. Assured Robot Intelligence employees were concentrated in San Diego and New York. At Meta, the group "will bring a deep expertise in how we can design our models and frontier capabilities for robot control and self-learning to whole-body humanoid control," the spokesperson for the social media company said. Meta's robotics team, which aims to eventually use technology from the startup, is working on in-house humanoid hardware and the underlying AI that powers it. That includes developing sensors, software and other technology for robots that it will make available to others in the industry, meaning they could ultimately be used by a range of companies. Meta's goal is to provide what Google's Android operating system and Qualcomm Inc.'s chips did for the phone industry by building a foundation for the rest of the market, Bloomberg News reported last year.

Meta acquires robotics AI startup as it makes the push into humanoid machines - Engadget

Meta has purchased Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI), a startup company that's building artificial intelligence for robots in order to "address critical challenges" in "high-value labor markets." The company is already working on robot hardware and AI in-house, but a spokesperson told Bloomberg that ARI "will bring a deep expertise in how [it] can design [its] models and frontier capabilities for robot control and self-learning to whole-body humanoid control." They didn't reveal the financial details of the acquisition. In a post on X, ARI co-founder Xiaolong Wang said that from the start, they knew achieving his company's goals meant "training a truly general-purpose physical agent." He continued that they now believe the agent will be humanoid and that "scaling will come from learning directly from human experience." Meta, he added, has access to the "key components needed to make this vision possible." Wang, his co-founders Xuxin Cheng and Lerrel Pinto, and the ARI team will be joining Meta's Superintelligence Labs. Pinto also co-founded Fauna Robotics but left the company last year before it was acquired by Amazon for its own humanoid robot project. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said back in 2025 that the company is aiming to create software that other companies can license, similar to what Google does with Android. "Software is the bottleneck," he explained. He said the plan was to start with developing software that can power a dexterous hand and then building out the technology from there. In addition to Meta and Amazon, Tesla has also been working on humanoid robots for quite a while now. The automaker decided to stop producing Model S and X cars earlier this year and to convert their production space in the company's Fremont factory to manufacture Optimus humanoid robots instead.

Meta acquires Assured Robot Intelligence to build the Android of humanoid robots

Meta acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a startup co-founded by former Fauna Robotics co-founder Lerrel Pinto and former Nvidia researcher Xiaolong Wang, to bolster its humanoid robotics platform strategy. The deal, which brings whole-body robot control models and tactile sensor technology into Meta Superintelligence Labs, reveals Meta's ambition to be the Android of humanoids: provide the intelligence layer and let others build the machines. Lerrel Pinto co-founded Fauna Robotics, a startup that built an approachable bipedal robot called Sprout. He left in 2025. Amazon acquired Fauna in March, along with its 50 employees and its $50,000, three-and-a-half-foot-tall dancing humanoid, to enter the consumer robotics market. Pinto then co-founded Assured Robot Intelligence with Xiaolong Wang, a former Nvidia researcher and associate professor at UC San Diego who won the MLSys 2024 Best Paper Award for work on AI model optimisation. On Friday, Meta acquired ARI and both founders joined Meta Superintelligence Labs. The acquisition closed the same day it was announced. Financial terms were not disclosed. The interesting question is not what Meta paid for a startup whose employees were concentrated in San Diego and New York. It is what Meta intends to do with the technology, and what that intention reveals about the company's theory of how the humanoid market will develop. The platform Meta's stated goal for robotics is to replicate what Google's Android operating system and Qualcomm's chips did for the smartphone industry: build the foundation that everyone else builds on. The company launched Meta Robotics Studio last year, hired former Cruise CEO Marc Whitten to lead the effort, and began recruiting roughly 100 engineers to develop in-house humanoid hardware alongside the AI models that power it. CTO Andrew Bosworth has described humanoid robots as Meta's next bet of comparable scale to augmented reality, a category in which Meta has already spent tens of billions through its Reality Labs division. The ARI acquisition adds a specific capability to this effort: robot control models that enable humanoids to understand, predict, and adapt to human behaviour in unstructured environments. The platform strategy is explicit. Meta intends to develop sensors, software, and AI models for robots and make them available to the rest of the industry, meaning the technology could be used by manufacturers that Meta does not own or control. This is the Android model applied to physical machines. In smartphones, Google gave away the operating system and captured value through search, advertising, and the Play Store ecosystem. In robotics, Meta would give away the intelligence layer and capture value through the data, the model ecosystem, and the integration with Meta's existing platforms, where 3.3 billion people already interact daily. Meta has been acquiring AI talent aggressively, hiring five founding members of Thinking Machines Lab, including a researcher whose six-year package reportedly reached $1.5 billion. The ARI acquisition fits the same pattern: small team, frontier capability, immediate integration into the Superintelligence Labs research division. The technology ARI's technical contribution centres on what the company calls "robotic intelligence designed to enable robots to understand, predict and adapt to human behaviors in complex and dynamic environments." In practice, this means AI models for whole-body humanoid control, the ability to coordinate a robot's limbs, balance, and movement in response to real-time sensory input from an unpredictable physical world. Wang's award-winning work on activation-aware weight quantisation, the same technique that made Nebius's $643 million acquisition of Eigen AI valuable this week, is relevant here: compressing AI models so they run efficiently on the limited compute available inside a robot, rather than requiring a connection to a remote data centre. The company also developed e-Flesh, a tactile sensor that measures deformations in 3D-printable microstructures using magnets and magnetometers. Tactile sensing is one of the unsolved problems in humanoid robotics. A robot that can see its environment through cameras and lidar still cannot feel the difference between gripping an egg and gripping a tennis ball without tactile feedback. The gap between how robots learn in simulation and how they perform in the physical world remains the central obstacle to deployment at scale. ARI's work on self-learning for robot control, combined with its sensor technology, addresses both sides of that gap: better models and better sensory input. The market The humanoid robotics market has moved from speculative to competitive in the span of 18 months. Tesla plans to begin large-scale production of its Optimus V3 humanoid between July and August, with annual capacity targets of one million units by late 2026 and a price point between $20,000 and $30,000. 1X Technologies has opened a factory in Hayward, California, to produce 10,000 NEO humanoid robots in its first year, with first-year production capacity selling out within five days of preorders opening. Apptronik has raised $520 million at a $5 billion valuation, partnering with Google DeepMind and its Gemini Robotics models. Amazon has made two robotics acquisitions in a single month. Unitree is targeting 20,000 humanoid shipments in 2026. Morgan Stanley projects the global humanoid robot market will reach $38 billion by 2035 and $5 trillion by 2050. The competitive dynamics are clarifying into three tiers. The first tier is vertically integrated manufacturers, companies like Tesla and 1X that design, build, and sell the complete robot. The second tier is platform providers, companies that supply the intelligence layer, the operating system, or the key components that multiple manufacturers use. The third tier is the component suppliers, chipmakers and sensor companies that sell to both. Meta is positioning itself in the second tier, and it is not alone. Google, through DeepMind's Gemini Robotics programme and its partnership with Apptronik, is pursuing a similar platform strategy. Europe is developing its own approach to the humanoid race, with companies and research institutions pursuing strategies that emphasise safety, industrial precision, and regulatory compliance over the speed-to-market approach favoured by American and Chinese competitors. The bet Meta's history with hardware platforms is instructive. The company missed mobile. Facebook Home, its 2013 attempt to become the default interface on Android phones, was discontinued within a year. The company then spent more than $50 billion on Reality Labs attempting to own the next computing platform through virtual and augmented reality, a bet that has yet to produce returns at anything approaching the scale of its advertising business. The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are the closest the company has come to a successful hardware product outside of its core social media platforms, and even those are essentially an accessory for Meta's AI assistant rather than a standalone computing device. The robotics bet is different in one respect. Meta is not attempting to manufacture the hardware at scale itself. It is attempting to provide the intelligence, the models, the sensor technology, and the software stack, and let others build the machines. This is a lower-capital, higher-leverage strategy than the Reality Labs approach, and it plays to Meta's genuine strengths in AI research, open-source model distribution, and platform economics. But it depends on the humanoid market developing the way the smartphone market developed: with hundreds of manufacturers needing a common software platform. If the market instead consolidates around a few vertically integrated players, each with proprietary AI, the Android model does not apply. Tesla is not looking for an operating system. Neither is 1X. The companies that might want Meta's intelligence layer are the ones that do not yet exist, the humanoid equivalents of Samsung and Xiaomi and Oppo, manufacturers that can build bodies but need someone else to provide the brain. Meta is betting those companies are coming. The ARI acquisition is the latest investment in making sure that when they arrive, Meta's technology is what they reach for first.

Meta bags Assured Robot Intelligence to further humanoid plans

Last year, sources told Bloomberg that Meta plans to make humanoid robotic hardware to help with household chores. Meta has acquired US start-up Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI) as it ramps up its plans to build humanoid technology. Terms of the deal closed Friday (1 May) were not disclosed. The team at ARI, including co-founders Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang are set to join Meta's Superintelligence Labs' research division. They will be working closely with Meta's Robotics Studio, launched last year. "We acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a company at the frontier of robotic intelligence designed to enable robots to understand, predict, and adapt to human behaviours in complex and dynamic environments," a Meta spokesperson told news publications. ARI was founded in 2025 with the idea of achieving "physical artificial general intelligence (AGI)" according to Wang's comments online. Wang is an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, and a former researcher at Nvidia. "We believe this agent will be humanoid - and that scaling will come from learning directly from human experience, not teleoperation alone. Meta's ecosystem brings together the key components needed to make this vision possible," he added. Meta said that ARI will "bring a deep expertise" to help the social media giant design its models for robot control and self-learning to "whole-body humanoid control". Bloomberg reported on Meta's humanoid plans last year. According to a report from February, sources had told the publication that it was making "significant" investments in this category with goals to create humanoid robotic hardware to help with household chores. The latest acquisition comes after a strong quarter at Meta, with revenue up 33pc to more than $56.3bn. The results were posted following a major workforce layoff announcement at the company, which would see 8,000 employees being made redundant globally. Meanwhile, a previous Meta acquisition is unravelling at the seams after China blocked the company from completing its purchase of AI start-up Manus. The robotics industry is witnessing a fresh wave of interest fuelled by AI. For the world's biggest chipmaker Nvidia, robotics represents the biggest market for potential growth after AI. While Meta's Big Tech contemporary, Amazon, made its own robotics-related acquisition with Fauna Robotics in March. Google, on the other hand, revealed two new robotics AI models last year. Earlier this year, Alphabet's AI company Intrinsic joined Google to further the company's physical AI goals. Japanese investment giant SoftBank bought Swiss electrical and engineering platform ABB robotics last October for around $5.4bn, adding the start-up to a robotics portfolio that includes the likes of Wayve. The Group's chief financial officer Yoshimitsu Goto told investors last year that these investments bring "AI into the physical world...creating new opportunities for growth". Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Meta acquires robot software startup Assured Robot Intelligence - SiliconANGLE

Meta acquires robot software startup Assured Robot Intelligence Meta Platforms Inc. has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence Inc., a provider of artificial intelligence software for robots. The social media giant announced the deal today without disclosing the financial terms. However, it did specify that the acquisition is designed to advance its efforts to develop humanoid robots. Assured Robot Intelligence's single-page website doesn't provide information about its AI software. The San Diego-based company was founded by prominent AI researchers Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang. Pinto previously co-founded Fauna Robotics Inc., a humanoid robot startup that was acquired by Amazon.com Inc. in March. Wang, in turn, is a former Nvidia Corp. researcher and an associate professor at UC San Diego. Last year, Wang gave an academic talk about a humanoid robot control system developed by his team. The system enables users to view footage from a robot's cameras through a virtual reality headset. When the direction of the wearable changes with the turn of the user's head, the robot repositions its cameras accordingly. That technology may have been a factor behind Meta's decision to swoop in. Last year, the company launched a pair of smart glasses called the Meta Ray-Ban Display. Meta may be looking to develop humanoid robots that users can control remotely using smart glasses. The Meta Ray-Ban Display features a built-in screen that can theoretically show footage from a robot's cameras. Furthermore, the device ships with a wristband called the Neural Band that enables users to control it with hand gestures. Future versions of the accessory could be theoretically repurposed to control a humanoid robot's arms. The Assured Robot Intelligence team will join Meta Superintelligence Labs, the business unit that leads the Facebook parent's AI development efforts. The group trained the Muse Spark large language model that the company debuted last month. Additionally, it includes the Meta Robotics Studio, the team that leads Meta's humanoid robot initiative. Last year, Bloomberg reported that the company doesn't plan to launch its own humanoid robot. Instead, it hopes to supply components and software to other market players. The report compared the role that Meta hopes to play to Qualcomm Inc.'s position in the mobile ecosystem. The latter company supplies chips to many Android handset makers. The MIA500 machine learning chip that Meta debuted last month may be part of its plan for the robotics market. It's an inference accelerator that can provide 10 petaflops of performance when processing FP8 data. In theory, Meta could develop a power-efficient version of the chip optimized for humanoid robots and sell it to other companies. The social media giant stated that Assured Robot Intelligence will help its engineers develop robot control systems and AI model architectures. Additionally, the startup's team will explore new self-learning techniques. Self-learning is an AI training approach that teaches neural networks to perform new tasks through trial and error.

Meta acquires robotics AI startup Assured Robot Intelligence

Meta has acquired startup Assured Robot Intelligence, which focuses on developing artificial intelligence models for robots. The acquisition was finalized on a Friday, as confirmed by a spokesperson for Meta, reports Bloomberg. Assured Robot Intelligence aims to enable robots to understand, predict, and adapt to human behaviors in complex environments. This focus aligns with Meta's ambition to create humanoid robots, potentially placing it in competition with xAI, an AI startup founded by Elon Musk, also working on similar technology. Musk has publicly stated that humanoid robots could be the biggest product ever, and he predicts that the demand for these robots could lead Tesla to become a trillion-dollar company. Other companies, including several developers in China, are also entering the humanoid robotics space, with Amazon acquiring humanoid robot maker Fauna in March. The market is showing significant interest in life-sized robot companions, yet the consumer availability and adoption of such technologies remain uncertain and potentially far off. Current smart robots, such as automated vacuum cleaners, do not see widespread adoption despite their increasing presence in homes. Challenges facing further robotics integration include effectiveness, user perception, and privacy concerns about autonomous devices. Experts suggest it may take years or even decades for AI-powered robots to achieve a price-to-value ratio that appeals to consumers. This generational shift in acceptance may be necessary for humanoid robots to gain mass market traction. While investments in these technologies by major tech firms continue, immediate profitability from humanoid robots remains uncertain, suggesting a long road ahead before such products significantly influence consumer behavior. Big tech companies are competing heavily to lead in the AI robotics sector, with substantial financial investments expected to continue as they explore transformative products that could reshape everyday life.

Meta acquires robotics company Assured Robot Intelligence to help build humanoid technology - The Economic Times

Meta has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a startup developing artificial intelligence models for robots, as part of a major initiative to build humanoid technology. The social networking giant closed the acquisition Friday, according to a spokesperson. Meta said the startup is "at the frontier of robotic intelligence designed to enable robots to understand, predict and adapt to human behaviours in complex and dynamic environments." Financial terms weren't disclosed. The Assured Robot Intelligence team, which includes co-founders Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, will join the Meta Superintelligence Labs research division. The staff will work closely with Meta Robotics Studio, a team launched last year to work on underlying technology for humanoids. Meta is making a significant investment in humanoids -- futuristic robots that can move like humans and assist with physical tasks. The emerging sector has been gaining steam at many of the industry's biggest companies, including Tesla Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Amazon.com Inc. Wang was previously a researcher at Nvidia Corp., while Pinto was a co-founder of Fauna Robotics before leaving in 2025. Amazon acquired Fauna in March to help bolster its own humanoid robot effort. Assured Robot Intelligence employees were concentrated in San Diego and New York. At Meta, the group "will bring a deep expertise in how we can design our models and frontier capabilities for robot control and self-learning to whole-body humanoid control," the spokesperson for the social media company said. Meta's robotics team, which aims to eventually use technology from the startup, is working on in-house humanoid hardware and the underlying AI that powers it. That includes developing sensors, software and other technology for robots that it will make available to others in the industry, meaning they could ultimately be used by a range of companies. Meta's goal is to provide what Google's Android operating system and Qualcomm Inc.'s chips did for the phone industry by building a foundation for the rest of the market, Bloomberg News reported last year.

Meta Buys Robotics Startup Assured Robot Intelligence To Power Humanoid Push As $5 Trillion Market Race H

The deal positions Meta directly in a rapidly commercializing humanoid robotics sector, where big tech, automakers and well-funded startups are competing to deploy physical AI at scale. Founders With Deep Robotics Pedigree Co-founder Xiaolong Wang is an associate professor at UC San Diego and was previously a researcher at Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA). Meta Superintelligence Labs head Alexandr Wang welcomed the ARI team on X, underscoring the division's push into physical AI, an area Meta has been building toward for years. "We have the potential to transform AI that can think and talk to AI that can do, assisting humans safely and reliably in the physical world," Pinto wrote on X. Wang added the team aims to achieve "physical AGI," saying scaling "will come from learning directly from human experience, not teleoperation alone." A Trillion-Dollar Race Takes Shape The ARI and Fauna acquisitions reflect a broader industry push. Figure AI, backed by Nvidia, OpenAI and Jeff Bezos, is targeting 100,000 humanoid robot deployments over four years. Photo Courtesy: Shutterstock Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Meta Acquires ARI to Fuel Humanoid Robot Push | PYMNTS.com

Xiaolong Wang, who co-founded ARI with Lerrel Pinto, shared news of the acquisition in a Friday (May 1) post on X. "Excited to share that Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI) has joined [Meta] to help build the future of humanoid intelligence," Wang said in the post. Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang reposted this message, adding: "Welcome Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI) to MSL [Meta Superintelligence Labs]! Excited to build physical with [Pinto and Wang] and the whole team!" Xiaolong Wang shared in his post a link to a report by Bloomberg, which said that ARI is working on technology that enables robots to understand human behaviors in dynamic environments. The report said that Meta plans to use ARI's technology alongside its own software and hardware for robots. In his LinkedIn post, Xiaolong Wang said ARI was launched one year ago to achieve physical artificial general intelligence (AGI) and found that it will take a general-purpose physical agent to meet the opportunity available in this field. "We believe this agent will be humanoid -- and that scaling will come from learning directly from human experience, not teleoperation alone," Wang said. "Meta's ecosystem brings together the key components needed to make this vision possible. We will be joining Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) to help bring personal superintelligence into the physical world." It was reported in February 2025 that Meta aimed to develop AI-powered humanoid robots. The report added that the company planned to work on its own humanoid robot hardware, with a focus on robots that can perform household chores, as well as AI, sensors and software that could be used by a variety of companies manufacturing and selling robots. Last June, Meta introduced a model to help train robots and other AI agents, saying the model is designed to help these agents "understand the physical world and predict how it will respond to their actions." PYMNTS reported in November that physical AI is emerging as the next stage of robotics as advances in sensing, perception and large AI models give machines capabilities that traditional automation never supported.

Meta Eyes Humanoid Robot Comeback After Buying ARI Robotics AI Startup

The company has not disclosed the value of the deal. However, reports said ARI's team will join Meta Superintelligence Labs, the AI division led by Alexandr Wang. Meta confirmed the acquisition through a spokesperson, who said, "We acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a company at the frontier of robotic intelligence designed to enable robots to understand, predict, and adapt to human behaviors in complex and dynamic environments." This points to that can respond to real-world movement and human behavior. However, the company has not confirmed when it will launch any robot product. It has also not said whether it plans to build a full humanoid robot for consumers. ARI works on foundation models for humanoid robots. These systems aim to help robots learn from their surroundings instead of depending only on fixed instructions. Besides, the technology focuses on whole-body control, self-supervised learning, and real-time adaptation. Reports said ARI's co-founders Xiaolong Wang, Xuxin Cheng, and Lerrel Pinto will move to Meta. Wang has worked with Nvidia and later served at the University of California, San Diego. Pinto taught at New York University and co-founded Fauna Robotics, which Amazon acquired in March.

Meta acquires Assured Robot Intelligence to advance humanoid technology By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Meta Platforms completed the acquisition of Assured Robot Intelligence on Friday, a startup focused on developing artificial intelligence models for robots. The purchase is part of Meta's broader effort to build humanoid technology. Meta described the startup as operating at the frontier of robotic intelligence, designed to enable robots to understand, predict and adapt to human behaviors in complex and dynamic environments. The company did not disclose the financial terms of the deal. The Assured Robot Intelligence team will join Meta Superintelligence Labs, the company's research division. Co-founders Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang will work alongside Meta Robotics Studio, a team established in 2025 to develop underlying technology for humanoids. Wang previously worked as a researcher at Nvidia, while Pinto co-founded Fauna Robotics before departing in 2025. Amazon acquired Fauna in March to support its own humanoid robot development. Assured Robot Intelligence had employees based in San Diego and New York. A Meta spokesperson said the group will contribute expertise in designing models and frontier capabilities for robot control and self-learning to whole-body humanoid control. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

Meta Acquires AI Startup Assured Robot Intelligence Amid 8,000 Job Cuts

Meta Platforms has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a New York-and San Diego-based startup specializing in AI for humanoid robots. The move will support CEO Mark Zuckerberg's plan to focus on robotics and superintelligence. At the same time, Meta aims to cut 8,000 jobs, or 10% of its staff, in the next few weeks. Many wonder if the company's new goals are being funded at the cost of its employees' livelihoods. The deal brings founders Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang into the fold at Meta Superintelligence Labs. Their team is known for developing understand and adapt to human movement in real-world settings. Meta wants to build a foundational platform for the robotics industry, like how Android works for phones. By developing both the software and hardware, the tech giant hopes to lead the market alongside rivals like Tesla, Amazon, and Google.

Meta Platforms Acquires Humanoid Robot Startup Assured Robot Intelligence

Meta Platforms acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a startup trying to build humanoid robots. The company declined to disclose the terms of the deal. The acquisition was reported earlier by Bloomberg. "We acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a company at the frontier of robotic intelligence designed to enable robots to understand, predict, and adapt to human behaviors in complex and dynamic environments," a Meta spokesperson said in a Friday statement. The startup's team, led by Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, will join Meta to focus on optimizing its models for robotics applications, the spokesperson said. Disclosure of Meta's deal comes two days after the company boosted its projected capital expenditures for this year, citing expectations of higher component prices and additional artificial-intelligence data-center costs. The company raised its projected capital spending by $10 billion to a new range of $125 billion to $145 billion for 2026. Meta has shifted resources away from its augmented reality initiative known as the Metaverse and toward AI. Last month, the company released a new large language model called Muse Spark, which Meta has said is competitive with leading models from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Investors have viewed Meta's spending plans with some skepticism. Shares retreated following the company's earnings release on Wednesday, and the stock is down 9.4% in the last five days. Shares ended the week at $608.75 each. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has outlined a vision to supply "personal superintelligence" to billions of people. Mizuho analysts wrote in a note earlier this week that though Zuckerberg's vision remains light on details, the picture is coming increasingly into view. "It remains vague, but we can see his agentic consumer focused vision start to take shape," the analysts wrote. "The improving confidence from management was palpable." Write to Elias Schisgall at [email protected]

Meta acquires robotics AI startup to boost its humanoid tech vision

The Assured Robot Intelligence team, including co-founders Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, will join Meta's Superintelligence Labs research division. Meta has acquired a robotics AI startup, Assured Robot Intelligence, as part of its growing focus on humanoid technology. The deal was finalised on Friday, although the financial details have not been revealed. The startup is known for building AI models for robots. Meta described the company as being 'at the frontier of robotic intelligence designed to enable robots to understand, predict and adapt to human behaviours in complex and dynamic environments,' reports Bloomberg. As part of the acquisition, the Assured Robot Intelligence team, including co-founders Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, will join Meta's Superintelligence Labs research division. They will also work closely with Meta Robotics Studio, a group created last year to develop technologies for humanoid robots. Meta is increasing its investment in humanoids- robots that can move and function like humans. These robots are expected to help with physical tasks. Interest in this area is growing across the tech industry, with major companies like Tesla, Google and Amazon also working on similar projects. Also read: OpenAI introduces Advanced Account Security for ChatGPT users: Here is what will change Both founders bring strong experience to Meta. Xiaolong Wang previously worked as a researcher at Nvidia, while Lerrel Pinto co-founded Fauna Robotics before leaving in 2025. Earlier this year, Amazon acquired Fauna Robotics to strengthen its robotics efforts. According to the company spokesperson, the team 'will bring a deep expertise in how we can design our models and frontier capabilities for robot control and self-learning to whole-body humanoid control.' Also read: Tired of contract reviews? Microsoft's new AI Legal Agent could change that Meta's robotics division is working on both the hardware and software needed for humanoid robots, as per the report. This includes building sensors, software and other technologies that other companies can also use. The company's long-term goal is to create a foundation for the robotics industry, similar to how Android and Qualcomm technologies helped shape the smartphone market.