Meta said it will acquire Singapore-based AI startup Manus as part of its efforts to expand general-purpose AI agents across its products.
“Meta's acquisition of Manus AI will enable us to provide cutting-edge technology to our users, with safeguards in place to eliminate potential risk areas,” a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement. “Following this transaction, there will be no continued Chinese ownership of Manus AI, and Manus AI will discontinue its services and operations in China.”
Manas was founded in China but moved to Singapore in mid-2025.
The social media giant's acquisition is another step in its AI ambitions. This time we are focusing on AI agents.
Mehta said Manas is building autonomous agents that can independently handle complex tasks such as market research, coding and data analysis, and the technology will be integrated across consumer and business products, including Meta AI.
Manas said the deal will not cause any confusion for customers. The company will continue to sell subscriptions through its app and website and will continue to operate from Singapore.
Manas launched its first comprehensive AI agent in March 2025, and said in a press release about the deal that it has processed more than 147 trillion tokens and “powered more than 80 million virtual computers.”
The company's background has attracted political attention. In May, Sen. John Cornyn criticized the U.S. investment in Manus in a post on X, questioning whether U.S. capital should support AI companies with Chinese roots amid concerns about economic and military competition with Beijing. His comments followed reports that US venture capital firm Benchmark participated in a $75 million funding round for Manas earlier this year.
Meta said it had no operations in China and that the acquisition would completely sever Manus' remaining ties with China, including its ownership in China. As part of the deal, Meta will wind down Manas' limited business operations in China, including discontinuing its AI assistant Monica.cn and reassigning related employees.
The spokesperson added that Manus employees who join Meta will not have access to data collected directly from customers, and Meta will continue to geogate access to its AI models.
Manas positions itself as an AI execution layer, focused on transforming advanced models into systems that can perform real-world tasks.
The AI startup gained widespread attention when it announced that it had built a fully autonomous AI agent that can perform tasks end-to-end with minimal human input. Early testing conducted by Effie Webb for Business Insider in March 2025 highlighted both the product's ambitions and shortcomings, including phantom data and errors performing complex tasks.
“Through continued product iterations, we have worked hard to make these capabilities reliable and useful in a broader range of real-world use cases,” Manas said in a statement about the partnership.
Meta said bringing the Manus team on board will enable the company to bring general-purpose AI agents to the billions of people and millions of businesses that use its products.
Meta's move comes as the company ramps up its AI ambitions through aggressive hiring and deals. Earlier this year, Meta acquired a 49% stake in data company Scale AI, a deal widely seen as an effort to bring CEO Alexander Wang on board with the company's superintelligence efforts.
This article was written using Business Insider's AI tools and edited by Business Insider editors.
