Meta has moved to lock down one of the fastest-rising startups in artificial intelligence, agreeing to acquire Manus to strengthen its focus on autonomous systems that can act, decide and execute with limited human input.
The deal values Manus at between $2 billion and $3 billion, although Meta has chosen not to disclose financial terms. Manus, now based in Singapore, did not respond to requests for comment at the time of writing.
The acquisition gives Meta full control of Manus’s technology, which it plans to operate, sell and embed across its consumer and business products, including Meta AI.
This will help to secure what many in the industry now see as the most valuable layer in AI development, the execution layer, where software agents go beyond conversation to carry out complex tasks on their own.
Manus rose quickly into the global spotlight earlier this year after releasing what it described as a general AI agent. Unlike standard chatbots, the system was designed to make decisions and complete tasks with minimal prompting.
The product went viral on X and was soon compared to DeepResearch, a benchmark tool in the sector. The company has claimed its agent outperforms that system, helping to drive both attention and controversy.
Behind the attention was rapid commercial growth. Manus became the fastest startup to cross $100 million in annual recurring revenue, reaching a $125 million run rate in under eight months.
In 2025 alone, its systems processed 147 trillion tokens and powered around 80 million virtual computers, figures that point to unusual scale for a company so young. That pace made Manus one of the most talked-about AI agent startups globally.
Meta’s interest shows a change in strategy. While the company has spent years building open-source foundation models such as Llama, this deal reveals a goal to own proprietary systems that sit on top of those models and actually do the work.
Autonomous agents that can research, write code and analyse data are now the next battleground, and competition is increasing fast.
The acquisition comes after a year of heavy spending by Meta, including its investment in Scale AI, a deal that valued the data-labelling firm at $29 billion.
Competitors are not standing still. Microsoft is expanding Copilot, Google is pushing Gemini, and OpenAI is developing DeepResearch.
Manus’s background also adds a geopolitical edge to the deal. Founded in China and backed by its parent company, Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology, the startup was once described as China’s next DeepSeek.
It later relocated to Singapore, joining a growing number of Chinese tech firms seeking to reduce exposure to Sino-US tensions. Singapore’s neutral stance and trade-friendly policies have made it a preferred base for global expansion.
Beijing had shown interest in supporting Manus, and the company maintains a strategic partnership with Alibaba to collaborate on AI models.
Meta’s acquisition changes ownership firmly to a U.S. technology giant, a development that is likely to be closely watched in both Washington and Beijing.
