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**ZDNET’s key takeaways:**
Meta has officially acquired Manus, a rapidly rising startup originally founded in China and now headquartered in Singapore. Manus achieved global prominence in March when it introduced what many hailed as the first truly versatile, general-purpose AI agent. This groundbreaking acquisition—valued by *The Wall Street Journal* at more than $2 billion—could significantly strengthen Meta’s position in the highly competitive artificial intelligence industry, providing it with a new and potentially decisive advantage against leading rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

On Monday, Meta confirmed the acquisition publicly, framing it as a strategic move designed to accelerate the company’s AI ambitions. In its official announcement, Meta expressed enthusiasm for integrating the Manus team, emphasizing that the startup’s uniquely skilled engineers and researchers will join Meta’s internal development units to advance the creation of powerful, general-purpose AI agents. These agents are intended to function seamlessly across both consumer-oriented products—such as Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp—and Meta’s suite of business tools. According to the company, the ultimate purpose of this collaboration is to enhance the lives of billions of users and millions of business owners worldwide through increasingly sophisticated AI technology.

Although Meta is one of the wealthiest corporations on the planet—it currently ranks as the sixth most valuable company globally—its progress in deploying AI systems that directly serve consumers has historically lagged behind that of industry leaders. The acquisition of Manus could mark a turning point by enabling Meta to adapt its immense technological and financial infrastructure toward more immediately useful AI experiences. With this move, Meta aims to close the innovation gap separating it from other advanced AI laboratories such as Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic, all of which have already built substantial leads in developing general-purpose artificial intelligence.

**Why Manus matters to Meta’s strategy**
Manus was launched in March with essential early-stage funding from Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology, a Chinese investment firm. It became renowned across the global tech community for its capacity to perform complex, multi-step tasks with minimal direct human supervision. Unlike traditional chatbots, which depend on extensive manual prompting and specific user input, Manus was designed to exhibit a degree of autonomous reasoning—handling intricate workflows like those involved in financial reporting, online research, data analysis, and document preparation. The company’s rapid relocation of its headquarters from Beijing to Singapore in June was a calculated decision to navigate evolving U.S. export restrictions on advanced computing hardware, such as high-end GPUs, used to train and deploy large AI models.

Following Manus’s breakthrough, many leading Western developers raced to release their own AI agent frameworks. For instance, OpenAI introduced *Operator*, while other labs began experimenting with agentic technologies promising robust automation capabilities. These agents were marketed as next-generation assistants able not only to respond to instructions but also to handle an expanding array of real-world tasks—browsing the internet, filling in complex forms, synthesizing research data, and producing dynamic reports for businesses and consumers alike.

With Manus now under its banner, Meta is positioned to integrate similar AI agent functionality across its vast ecosystem of applications. This could result in new intelligent features that allow users to perform routine digital activities with little manual intervention—whether by automating scheduling across Messenger, generating posts for Instagram, or providing sophisticated analytical insights within WhatsApp business services. When asked if this acquisition would immediately lead to a more autonomous “agentic” version of the existing Meta AI assistant, company spokespeople declined to specify their short-term roadmap.

In addition to technology integration, Meta clarified that Manus will retain operational independence and continue to market its standalone platform. This dual structure will provide Meta with a valuable additional revenue stream, granting it access to millions of new users while simultaneously enriching its internal research ecosystem with real-world deployment data. The acquisition also aligns with Meta’s larger, long-term ambition—its aspiration to be among the first entities to build artificial “superintelligence,” an AI capable of reasoning and learning beyond the bounds of current systems.

**Meta’s evolving identity and focus on AI**
Meta’s corporate transformation began in 2021, when the company—then known as Facebook—rebranded to signal a dramatic shift in strategic direction. During that period, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an ambitious goal: to construct the “metaverse,” a shared virtual space blending augmented and virtual realities where social interaction, entertainment, and commerce would converge. However, despite heavy investment, the public reception of this vision was tepid. Sales of virtual reality hardware slowed significantly, and flagship projects like the Horizon Worlds platform struggled to attract meaningful participation, turning what was once a visionary initiative into what many observers labeled a costly experiment.

The landscape changed dramatically after the public release of ChatGPT and the subsequent global fascination with generative AI. Realizing the transformative impact of these technologies, Zuckerberg initiated a major realignment of company priorities. In 2023, he dubbed it Meta’s “Year of Efficiency,” emphasizing streamlined operations, reallocation of resources, and renewed focus on artificial intelligence as a central pillar of growth. Since then, Meta’s investments in AI have expanded exponentially.

One of the most visible outcomes of this strategy has been the continuing development of *Llama*, Meta’s family of open-source large language models. These models form the backbone of Meta’s AI ecosystem, empowering both internal products and external collaborations. The company has also aggressively expanded its AI workforce, acquiring talent from top research institutions and startups. In June, for instance, Meta invested roughly $14.3 billion into Scale AI, a leading data-labeling enterprise essential for preparing high-quality datasets required for training advanced models. Following that investment, Scale AI’s founder and CEO, 28-year-old Alexandr Wang, was appointed as Meta’s new Chief AI Officer—an appointment widely interpreted as evidence of Meta’s renewed commitment to AI leadership.

Meta’s ambitions further broadened when it signed a partnership with Midjourney, another prominent player specializing in generative imagery technology. This collaboration aims to embed creative AI tools within Meta’s social platforms, allowing users to generate visual content dynamically. Such alliances, combined with the acquisition of Manus, underscore the company’s overarching vision: to integrate artificial intelligence into every facet of digital life—enhancing entertainment, productivity, and communication while maintaining global relevance in a rapidly evolving technological race.

Sourse: https://www.zdnet.com/article/meta-buys-manus-ai-agent-2-billion/