Meta buys robotics startup to bolster its humanoid AI ambitions

Meta has acquired the humanoid robotics startup Guaranteed robot intelligence (ARI) for an undisclosed amount, the social media giant said.

“We have acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a company at the frontier of robotic intelligence, designed to enable robots to understand, predict, and adapt to human behavior in complex and dynamic environments,” a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch in an emailed statement.

ARI’s team, including the co-founders, will join Meta’s AI unit, the research arm of Superintelligence Labs. ARI had raised an undisclosed seed round from AI seed company AIX Ventures.

The startup built basic 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 in his name. Co-founder Lerrel Pinto, who previously taught at NYU and co-founded humanoid startup Fauna Robotics before Amazon picked it up last month, also won an award series of prestigious awards.

ARI will help Meta with her humanoid ambitions. “This team, led by Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, will bring deep expertise on how to design our models and groundbreaking capabilities for robotic control and machine learning to human-like full-body control.”

Meta-researchers have done that worked on humanoid robotics technology 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 humanoid consumer product, many AI experts today believe that the path to artificial general intelligence (AGI) – the theoretical point at which AI reaches or exceeds human-level intelligence in all domains – will require training AI models in the physical world, where robots learn through direct interaction rather than just data.

The ARI and Fauna deals reflect a broader sector sprint – one in which forecasts vary wildly, from Goldman Sachs’ projection of $38 billion by 2035, according to Morgan Stanley’s estimate $5 trillion by 2050 – a spread that reflects both the enormous potential and the uncertainty surrounding technology that is still finding its footing.