Meta buys its way into the AI agent race with Manus AI acquisition

Meta is buying Singapore-based AI startup Manus AI. The autonomous AI agent will be integrated into Meta products, potentially reaching billions of users.

Meta announced the acquisition of AI agent startup Manus AI. The company builds a general-purpose agent AI system on top of existing models, designed to handle complex tasks like market research, programming, and data analysis on its own.

According to Meta, the Manus service will keep running and remain available for purchase. The company also plans to integrate the technology into its own products, including Meta AI. Going forward, the Manus team will focus on developing AI agents for Meta's consumer and business products. Manus CEO Xiao Hong is taking on a Vice President role at Meta.

Meta isn't sharing specific numbers about Manus AI's success or the acquisition price. According to Bloomberg, the deal is worth more than two billion dollars. At the time of the acquisition, Manus was reportedly generating 125 million dollars in annual recurring revenue.

Since launching earlier this year, the agent has reportedly processed more than 147 trillion tokens and spun up more than 80 million virtual computers. On the technical side, Manus launched in March running on a multi-agent architecture with Anthropic's Claude Sonnet and various open source tools like Browser Use.

Manus positions itself as AI's "execution layer"

In its own press release, Manus frames the acquisition as validation of its work in general AI agents. The company describes itself as an "execution layer" that turns advanced AI capabilities into scalable systems for real-world use.

Xiao Hong says the way Manus works and makes decisions won't change. The subscription service will stay available through the app and website, and the company will continue operating from Singapore. The long-term goal is to bring the service to the millions of businesses and billions of people on Meta's platforms.

Microsoft integrated Manus just before Meta's takeover

Manus recently rolled out version 1.5, which reportedly cuts task processing time from 15 minutes to 4 minutes in some cases while improving result quality by 15 percent. The system can reportedly build complete web applications, including backend and database.

Microsoft recently integrated Manus into Windows Explorer, even though similar products from OpenAI were already available. Users could automatically create websites by right-clicking on local files. Now the startup is joining one of Microsoft's competitors.

From Chinese browser extension to Meta

Manus traces back to 2022, when Xiao Hong founded Butterfly Effect and launched a browser extension called Monica. The AI assistant worked with several major language models, including ChatGPT and Claude, and targeted international markets from the start. By 2024, Monica had more than ten million users and was profitable. The startup raised funding from ZhenFund and Tencent.

The founding team includes CEO Xiao Hong, Chief Scientist Ji Yichao, and Product Partner Zhang Tao. Ji Yichao dropped out of school and made a name for himself at 17 by building the Mammoth Browser before later developing the Magi search engine. Manus was announced on X on March 5, 2025, and officially launched the next day.

After launch, Butterfly Effect raised another 75 million dollars in April 2025 in a round led by Benchmark, valuing the company at around 500 million dollars. The US Treasury Department later reviewed the investment over potential violations of 2023 restrictions on investments in Chinese AI companies.

In May 2025, the three founders and other executives relocated from China to Singapore, where the company set up its new headquarters. By July 2025, Butterfly Effect had shut down its entire China team to reduce geopolitical risks, according to reports. The company had employed several dozen staff in China until shortly before the shutdown. Butterfly Effect has since opened offices in San Mateo and Tokyo and is hiring in Singapore, the US, and Japan.

Meta fills a gap in its AI strategy

The acquisition comes at a critical moment for Meta. The company's homegrown Llama model family has lost ground recently, while OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google dominate AI headlines with their models. Investors are increasingly skeptical about whether Meta's massive AI spending will translate into meaningful revenue anytime soon. Manus, with its working subscription model, could deliver returns faster.

In the growing AI agent market, which many see as the next major evolution beyond chatbots, Meta hasn't had much to show. With Manus, the company is buying a working agent system and an experienced team rather than building from scratch. How well the technology will integrate into Meta's ecosystem of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp remains to be seen.

The deal also brings in a product built on competitor models. Alongside the Manus acquisition, Meta is developing new AI models for text, images, and video under the codenames "Mango" and "Avocado," planned for the first half of 2026. Reports suggest Meta is also using external models here, including Google's Gemma and Alibaba's Qwen. This reflects growing competitive pressure in generative AI and mixed internal reviews of earlier models like Llama 4.

Development is happening in the newly created "Meta Superintelligence Labs" unit, led by Alexandr Wang. Reports indicate Meta plans to release "Avocado" as a closed model, a significant break from its previous open source strategy.