Meta buys startup identified for its AI job automation brokers

Meta has acquired an AI startup referred to as Manus — identified for its customized analysis and website-building brokers — in a deal valued at greater than $2 billion, based onThe Wall Street Journal. It is reportedly one of many largest acquisitions but involving a startup nurtured in China’s AI ecosystem.

Manus arrived in March 2025, shortly after one other Chinese language AI startup, DeepSeek appeared on the scene. The corporate (referred to as Butterfly Impact on the time) initially described it as “the primary basic AI agent” to carry out advanced duties autonomously, moderately than simply producing concepts. It attracts from a number of third-party fashions, notably Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet and variations of Alibaba’s Qwen.

Manus is designed to automate sure duties, like market analysis, coding, gross sales knowledge evaluation and web site cloning and creation. (Nonetheless, one skeptic called it “a product devilishly optimized for influencers, which is why it exploded a lot.”) The corporate claims that Manu is “already serving the every day wants of thousands and thousands of customers and companies” and has an annualized common income of greater than $100 million solely eight months after launch.

Manus laid off most of its Beijing workers this summer time earlier than transferring its headquarters to Singapore in an effort to broaden globally.The corporate was reportedly searching for a funding spherical that might have valued it at $2 billion when it was approached by Meta. “Becoming a member of Meta permits us to construct on a stronger, extra sustainable basis with out altering how Manus works or how choices are made,” mentioned Manus CEO Xiao Hong in a company news release.