Meta acquires intelligent agent startup Manus to cap aggressive AI year

Tech firm Meta has announced the acquisition of Chinese AI startup Manus, marking the next era of AI innovation and adding more paying customers. Meta aims to boost automation across consumer and business products, as Manus is expected to continue operating its subscription services.

Meta said that Manus already serves the day-to-day needs of millions of businesses and users worldwide, and that it plans to scale these services to more businesses. Manus will essentially continue to operate its subscription service without disruption, although further terms of the acquisition are yet to be disclosed.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that the deal was closed at over $2 billion. However, Manus was seeking to raise funds at a $2 billion valuation when Meta approached it. Mauns emerged earlier this year as a product of the Chinese startup Butterfly Effect (A.K.A Monica.Im), before growing into a separate entity after claiming its chatbot offered better performance than OpenAI’s Deep Research agent. The company claimed that it had generated over $100 million in just eight months after launch, with its run rate exceeding $125 million.

Partnership reinforces Manus’s role as the execution layer

Manus said it believes in the potential of autonomous agents, and this development reinforces its role as an execution layer. The development also enables advanced AI capabilities to be transformed into scalable, reliable systems that can perform end-to-end tasks in the real world.

Additionally, Manus has developed one of the leading autonomous general-purpose agents that can independently execute complex tasks, such as data analysis, coding, and market research. The company stated that it has already served more than 147 trillion tokens and created over 80 million virtual machines, with plans to scale these services to more businesses.

Meanwhile, Manus said its solution is driving value for millions of global users, with plans to expand subscriptions to the billions of users and millions of businesses on the Meta platform. However, its priority is ensuring that this change will not disrupt customer services through its official app or website. 

Meta extends specialized AI startup acquisitions

Meta’s acquisition of Manus aligns with its broader strategy of acquiring specialized AI startups to accelerate its AI business. The acquisition strategy also includes the development of its open-source Llama LLMs (large language models). 

In June, Meta invested approximately $14.3 billion in AI startup Scale AI. The deal brought the startup’s founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, onto Meta’s executive team. Meta also said that Manus employees will join its teams as the company continues to aggressively poach AI talent from startups and major rivals, such as Google and OpenAI.

The tech firm further acquired AI-wearables startup Limitless earlier this month as it seeks to expand its AI device business. Limitless develops a small, AI-powered pendant that records conversations and generates summaries. The CEO of Limitless, Dan Siroker, said that this acquisition helps bring personal superintelligence to everyone. 

Meta’s Ray-Ban smartglasses have also been a surprise hit, as the world of AI wearables has slowly grown this year. However, no single company has been able to develop a standout product. Several wearables are available that are similar to Limitless products.

Meanwhile, Plaud comes in a small pill or card shape that can be clipped on or worn around the wrist or neck. Friend also offers a pendant-style device, while Bee, which is worn as a wristband, was bought by Amazon. The e-commerce giant also runs AI through its Alexa+ Echo Speakers, while Google’s Pixel 10 phones have integrated the Gemini assistant.

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