The race to build smarter AI systems is changing. In addition to training chatbots to write text and generate images, startups are now trying to teach machines how to understand the real, three-dimensional world.
But it’s a difficult question. Most AI systems still struggle to reason about space, depth, movement, and physical interactions. This is where World Labs comes into play.
The company, founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, has raised $1 billion in new funding to develop so-called “world models,” AI systems designed to navigate and make decisions in 3D environments.
Autodesk invested $200 million in this round. Other backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The company announced the funding in a blog post on Wednesday.
With the new funding, the startup plans to improve Marble and expand its uses, especially in robotics and scientific discovery.
Building spatial intelligence technology
The company says it is focused on building spatial intelligence technology that helps AI understand the structure and physics of the real world. Its broad goal is to transform fields such as storytelling, creative design, robotics, and scientific research.
In late 2025, World Labs announced its first product, Marble. This tool allows users to generate detailed, persistent 3D worlds from images, videos, or text prompts. The idea is to create a spatially coherent environment that can be explored, modified and reused.
It is worth noting that apart from World Labs, Yann LeCun’s startup AMI Labs has attracted strong investor interest for similar research.
Feifei Li is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in artificial intelligence. She helped lead ImageNet, a large academic dataset of millions of labeled images that played a key role in advances in computer vision. This research laid the foundation for many of today’s breakthrough advances in AI.
