Meta Platforms has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a startup developing advanced artificial intelligence systems for humanoid robots, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg accelerates the company’s aggressive AI strategy. Notably, the move comes as Zuckerberg acknowledges that the company’s increasing focus on artificial intelligence directly contributes to planned mass layoffs. Although the company confirmed the acquisition on Friday, it did not disclose financial terms.
Through this acquisition, Meta strengthens its position at the forefront of robotic AI innovation. “We acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a company at the frontier of robotic intelligence designed to enable robots to understand, predict, and adapt to human behaviors in complex and dynamic environments,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. The startup, co-founded by Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, will see both founders join Meta as part of the deal. Previously, Wang worked as a researcher at Nvidia, while Pinto co-founded Fauna Robotics before exiting in 2025. Meanwhile, Amazon acquired Fauna Robotics in March to strengthen its own humanoid robotics programme. Assured Robot Intelligence operated primarily out of San Diego and New York.
Following the acquisition, the team will join Meta Superintelligence Labs and collaborate closely with Meta Robotics Studio, an internal division launched last year to build foundational technologies for humanoid robots. Moreover, the spokesperson stated that the team “will bring a deep expertise in how we can design our models and frontier capabilities for robot control and self-learning to whole-body humanoid control.”
Importantly, Meta continues to expand its robotics ambitions beyond a single acquisition. The company is actively developing in-house humanoid hardware alongside the underlying AI stack, including sensors, software, and core systems that it plans to make available across the broader robotics ecosystem. According to earlier reports, Meta aims to replicate the role of Google’s Android and Qualcomm’s chip ecosystem in smartphones by building a foundational platform for the humanoid robotics industry.
At the same time, the humanoid robotics space continues to gain rapid momentum, with major players such as Tesla, Google, and Amazon significantly increasing investments in robotic automation and AI-driven systems. Consequently, Meta’s latest move intensifies competition in what analysts view as a potentially trillion-dollar market over the coming decades.
Furthermore, the acquisition comes just two days after Meta raised its projected capital expenditure for 2026 by $10 billion, bringing the total range to between $125 billion and $145 billion. The company attributed the increase to rising component costs and additional investments in AI data centres. In recent years, Meta has also redirected substantial resources away from its augmented reality metaverse initiative toward artificial intelligence. Recently, the company launched a new large language model, Muse Spark, positioning it against offerings from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
However, investors have responded cautiously to Meta’s aggressive spending strategy. The company’s shares declined following its earnings announcement and dropped 9.4% over the past five days, closing the week at $608.75. Analysts at Mizuho noted that while Zuckerberg’s long-term vision still lacks detailed clarity, its direction is becoming increasingly evident. “It remains vague, but we can see his agentic, consumer-focused vision start to take shape,” the analysts wrote. “The improving confidence from management was palpable.”
Meanwhile, in an internal meeting reported by The Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg directly linked Meta’s rising AI investments to workforce reductions. He explained that “compute and infrastructure” alongside “people-oriented things” represent the company’s primary cost drivers, adding, “That means that we do need to take down the size of the company somewhat.”
As a result, Meta is expected to cut approximately 8,000 jobs, representing around 10% of its workforce, in the coming weeks to offset escalating AI-related expenditures. Zuckerberg further elaborated on the relationship between AI efficiency and workforce size, stating, “If a team used to take 50 or 100 people and now it takes 10, having 50 or 100 people on that team can actually be counterproductive going forward, so I think we need to fix that.”
Nevertheless, he clarified that workforce reductions do not necessarily translate into fewer opportunities, suggesting that AI could enable remaining employees to “spin up more new projects” across the organization.
As Meta continues to invest heavily in AI infrastructure and robotics platforms, the company is positioning itself to play a foundational role in shaping the future of intelligent automation and next-generation technology ecosystems.
