Meta is betting big on humanoid AI-powered robots, Bloomberg reports.
The company has reportedly formed a new division within its Reality Labs unit, which developed the Meta Quest VR headsets, that will initially focus on developing hardware for robots that can assist with physical tasks like household chores.
The division will be led by Marc Whitten, former CEO of General Motors’ self-driving car division Cruise, and it will look to hire 100 engineers in 2025. The company has reportedly already begun talks with robotics companies like Chinese firm Unitree Robotics and US startup Figure AI.
But rather than directly launching a branded robot, like Tesla’s Optimus, Meta plans to develop AI systems, sensors, and software for robots that will then be manufactured and sold by a range of companies, much like how smartphone manufacturers use Google’s Android operating system. Meta is reportedly aiming for its upcoming LLaMA language model to become “a foundation for robotics researchers around the world.”
Meta still plans on building prototypes, using existing components, for testing purposes, Bloomberg says, and hasn’t ruled out one day launching a consumer-facing robot.
Rather than working separately from its AR and VR projects, Meta executives reportedly hope that the division will be able to leverage data collected from the firm’s augmented and virtual reality devices to spur advances in robotics. This shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise; Meta has been open about its plans to use data collected from its Quest VR headsets to improve its products.
But robotics aficionados shouldn’t get their hopes up, at least in the short term. A source with knowledge of the project tells Bloomberg that it “could be years” before Meta’s platform is ready to power third-party robotics.
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It’s not just Meta turning its eye toward humanoid robotics. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple is “exploring both humanoid and non-humanoid robots for its future smart home ecosystem, though the products are still early proof-of-concept (POC) stage internally.”
Meanwhile, Nvidia has also been bullish on the future of robotics and physical AI. At CES 2025, CEO Jensen Huang predicted the market for humanoid robotics could hit $38 billion in the coming decades, saying that “the ChatGPT moment for general robotics is just around the corner.”
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About Will McCurdy
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