Meta buys humanoid robot startup Assured Robot Intelligence as 8,000 job cuts loom
Meta Platforms has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a startup developing artificial intelligence systems for humanoid robots, while CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stepped up a major bet on artificial intelligence that he acknowledges has directly contributed to mass layoffs across the company.
Meta Closes Deal for Guaranteed Robot Intelligence to Support Humanoid Robot Propulsion
Meta Platforms has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a startup working on the frontier of robotic AI, and the company confirmed Friday that it is doubling down on Zuckerberg’s vision of bringing humanoid technology into the mainstream. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition was first reported by Bloomberg.
“We have acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a pioneer in robotic intelligence designed to enable robots to understand, predict and adapt to human behavior in complex and dynamic environments,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
Who are the Founders of Guaranteed Robot Intelligence?
The startup was co-founded by researchers Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, who will both join Meta as part of the acquisition. Wang previously worked as a researcher at Nvidia, while Pinto co-founded Fauna Robotics before launching in 2025. Amazon acquired Fauna in March to strengthen its own humanoid robot program. Assured Robot Intelligence’s employees were concentrated in San Diego and New York.
The team will join Meta Superintelligence Labs and work closely with Meta Robotics Studio, an internal division launched last year to develop core technology for humanoid robots.
The spokesperson said the group “will bring deep expertise in how we can design our models and edge capabilities, from robot control and self-learning to full-body humanoid control.”
What Does Meta Plan to Do with Humanoid Robot Technology?
Meta’s passion for robotics extends far beyond a single purchase. The company is developing in-house humanoid hardware as well as the underlying artificial intelligence that will power it, including sensors, software and other core systems that it plans to roll out across the broader industry.
The long-term goal, Bloomberg reported last year, is for Meta to do for the humanoid robot industry what Google’s Android operating system and Qualcomm’s chips have done for the smartphone market: create the foundational platform on which the rest of the industry operates.
The field of humanoid robots is rapidly gaining momentum, with major technology companies such as Tesla, Google and Amazon making significant investments in this field.
Meta’s Artificial Intelligence Expenditures Increased Between $125 Billion and $145 Billion in 2026
The acquisition of Assured Robot Intelligence comes just two days after Meta increased its projected capital spending for 2026 by $10 billion, bringing the range to between $125 billion and $145 billion. The company cited high component prices and additional AI data center costs as the main drivers of the increase.
Meta has diverted significant resources from its augmented reality Metaverse initiative to artificial intelligence in recent years. Last month, the company launched a new large language model called Muse Spark, which Meta positions to compete with leading models from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Investors responded cautiously to the spending plans. Meta shares fell after the company’s earnings release on Wednesday, falling 9.4% over the past five days to close the week at $608.75.
Analysts at Mizuho wrote in a note earlier this week that Zuckerberg’s broad vision is short on details, but its direction has become clear.
“This remains unclear, but we can see his active consumer-focused vision starting to take shape,” the analysts wrote. “The increased confidence from management was evident.”
Zuckerberg Admits AI Spending Led to Meta Layoffs
In a recording of an internal meeting held Thursday, Wall Street MagazineMark Zuckerberg told employees that Meta’s increased investment in AI was directly linked to the company’s decision to reduce its workforce.
He said “compute and infrastructure” and “people-oriented things” were the main cost drivers at Meta, adding: “That means we have to reduce the size of the company a little bit.”
Meta is expected to lay off approximately 8,000 employees, representing about 10% of its workforce, in the coming weeks to offset increased AI spending.
Zuckerberg also touched on the relationship between AI efficiency and team size, telling staff: “If a team used to take on 50 or 100 people and now they’re hiring 10 people, having 50 or 100 people on that team could actually be inefficient in the future, so I think we need to fix that.”
But he added that workforce reductions do not automatically mean layoffs; He suggested that AI could help remaining employees “start more new projects” across the business.
Meta’s Humanoid Robot Bet Comes at a Decisive Moment for the Industry
The acquisition of Assured Robot Intelligence puts Meta in direct competition with some of the most heavily funded humanoid robot programs in the world. Tesla, Amazon and Google are racing to develop robots that can perform physical tasks in human environments, a market that analysts believe could be worth trillions of dollars in the coming decades.
