Meta acquires robotics AI startup as it makes the push into humanoid machines
Meta has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI), a robotics AI startup focused on developing artificial intelligence for humanoid robots. The acquisition aims to enhance Meta's in-house efforts in robot control and self-learning technologies for whole-body humanoid systems. ARI's co-founders and team will join Meta's Superintelligence Labs to advance the development of general-purpose physical agents.
- ▪Meta acquired Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI) to strengthen its AI capabilities for humanoid robots.
- ▪ARI co-founder Xiaolong Wang stated that Meta has the key components needed to realize their vision of a general-purpose physical agent.
- ▪The ARI team, including co-founders Xiaolong Wang, Xuxin Cheng, and Lerrel Pinto, will join Meta's Superintelligence Labs.
- ▪Lerrel Pinto previously co-founded Fauna Robotics, which was later acquired by Amazon for its humanoid robot project.
- ▪Tesla has shifted production at its Fremont factory from Model S and X cars to focus on manufacturing Optimus humanoid robots.
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News AI Meta acquires robotics AI startup as it makes the push into humanoid machines By Mariella Moon May 2, 2026 10:00 am EST Frame Stock Footage/Shutterstock Meta has purchased Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI), a startup company that's building artificial intelligence for robots in order to "address critical challenges" in "high-value labor markets." The company is already working on robot hardware and AI in-house, but a spokesperson told Bloomberg that ARI "will bring a deep expertise in how [it] can design [its] models and frontier capabilities for robot control and self-learning to whole-body humanoid control." They didn't reveal the financial details of the acquisition.
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