- Meta has acquired AI startup Manus in a deal reportedly worth over $2 billion
- Manus builds autonomous AI agents that perform complex tasks such as coding and data analysis
- The acquisition accelerates Meta’s pivot from chatbot tools to task completion AI across its platforms
Meta has acquired AI startup Manus, known for its semi-autonomous AI agents, in a deal reportedly valued at more than $2 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. It is one of the largest AI acquisitions to date. More importantly, it underscores Meta’s plan to shift from creating basic models like Llama to providing full-service AI agents capable of performing complex tasks for individuals and businesses.
Meta said it plans to make the AI agent platform part of its Meta AI assistant and enterprise offerings. Script agents can perform complex analysis and long-term research and planning along with the more usual conversations and image generation. It can also go online and perform tasks for users, which is why it is called Manus, Latin for hand.
“We will continue to operate and sell the Manus service, as well as integrate it into our products,” Meta said in a statement. “Manus already serves the daily needs of millions of users and businesses worldwide. It launched its first General AI Agent earlier this year and has already earned more than 147T tokens and created more than 80M virtual machines. We plan to scale this service to many more businesses.”
The reported valuation is consistent with where Manus was headed before Meta intervened. The company had raised new funding at a $2 billion valuation when Meta approached with an offer. With over $125 million in revenue just eight months after launch, Manus had proven not only its technical prowess, but also its commercial appeal.
But this isn’t just a story about a high-value tech buyout. It marks a directional shift for Meta, one that deepens its commitment to building AI that does more than chat. In fact, Manus wasn’t just another chatbot; it was one of the first widely available agent systems capable of autonomously performing multistage, goal-oriented tasks using a mixture of reasoning, memory, and tool use. For example, users could give Manus a research goal or a programming task and watch it coordinate a solution from end to end. It’s a radically different product category than LLMs that are trained solely to predict the next word.
AI agent future
Meta wants to build AI that works. It’s also why Meta invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI earlier this year. But a working autonomous AI platform is several steps beyond. The company’s pricing model, a mix of free and premium subscriptions, helped it grow quickly, especially among developers, analysts and SMEs looking to automate workflows without hiring engineers.
And while Meta has poured money into building its own LLMs, developing effective agent behavior remains a very specific engineering and design challenge. Tools like planning, memory, tool usage, and recursive reasoning can’t just be bolted onto a large model, and Manus has already solved many of these problems.
“Joining Meta allows us to build on a stronger, more sustainable foundation without changing how Manus works or how decisions are made,” Manus CEO Xiao Hong said in a statement. “We’re excited about what the future holds as Meta and Manus work together, and we’ll continue to iterate the product and serve users who have defined Manus from the beginning.”
Meta is racing to build AI agents among fierce competition. Google’s Gemini is actively developing agent capabilities, while OpenAI’s ChatGPT has introduced tools to complete tasks online and provide more assistance that adapts to the context. But Manus promises to make it easy to integrate its services into other platforms. That brought interest from companies like Microsoft, which tested Manus integration in Windows 11.
With Meta owning it all, what happens next is as much a matter of strategy as it is technology.
Manus’ origins add a layer of complexity. Originally developed under Chinese AI startup Butterfly Effect before it was spun off, data security concerns likely contributed to its move from Beijing to Singapore this year and the layoffs of most of its Chinese workforce. Meta’s acquisition even comes with an explicit condition that “there will be no continuing Chinese ownership interests,” according to the companies.
Meta has had to walk a fine line in the global AI race as it evades regulatory scrutiny. Manus is letting it skip ahead in product development, but is likely to come up with at least some probing questions about who owns the data used to run Manus. In 2026, no major American tech company can afford to look like it has Chinese influence, just ask TikTok.
Then there’s the hardware angle. Meta’s Reality Labs division isn’t bringing in much money, but Meta still sees a future of smart glasses and agentic AI assistants that interact with the physical world. Scripts could provide the cognitive layer to these ambitions.
The acquisition makes it clear that Meta sees 2026 as the time when AI chatbots become AI agents. With Manus powering its AI platforms, Meta plans to be the first tool when it comes to AI engaging in the real world.
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