Meta has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI), a startup developing AI models for robots, according to a report by Bloomberg. The acquisition is aimed at accelerating Meta's push into humanoid robotics. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The entire ARI team, including co-founders Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, will join Meta's Superintelligence Labs. In a post on X, Wang stated that ARI has been pursuing "physical AGI"—artificial general intelligence designed for the real world—since its founding a year ago. He noted that customer projects showed the need for a universal physical agent, and humanoid designs are the most effective form factor. The system should learn directly from human experience, not just teleoperation.
Meta is developing its own hardware, sensors, and software for humanoid robots and plans to license the technology to other companies, similar to Google's Android model. Competitors such as Tesla, Google, and Amazon are also investing heavily in humanoid robotics.