Meta has officially announced its acquisition of AI startup Manus. This is a strategic move to pivot from simple chatbots to autonomous agents that can manage complex projects across platforms.
Industry giant Meta is accelerating its investment in AI through acquisitions as it navigates intense competition.
Meanwhile, Facebook's parent company Meta invested in Scale AI earlier this year in a deal that values the data annotation startup at $29 billion and brings in 28-year-old CEO Alexander Wang.
According to Reutersfinancial terms of Mehta's deal with Menus were not disclosed.
Manas, who is based in Singapore, is developing general-purpose AI agents that act as digital employees and independently perform complex tasks such as research and automation with just basic instructions.
The company said Meta will continue to operate and sell Manus services while incorporating its technology into both consumer and business products, including Meta AI.
Manus launched its own AI agent and claimed its performance outperformed OpenAI's AI agent, DeepResearch.
Manas is among a number of Chinese companies that have recently relocated to Singapore, betting that the move to the trade-focused city-state will protect their operations from the ongoing U.S.-China geopolitical competition.
The acquisition capitalizes on the momentum of the fastest-growing AI startup in history and represents a major transformation from generative AI to agent AI.
