Meta Acquires Assured Robot Intelligence to Bolster Humanoid Robotics Push

Meta has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI), a San Diego-based startup developing AI models for humanoid robots, for an undisclosed sum. ARI's team, including co-founders Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, will join Meta's Superintelligence Labs research division and work closely with Meta Robotics Studio. ARI had raised a seed round from AI seed firm AIX Ventures. Co-founder Xiaolong Wang was previously a researcher at Nvidia, while Pinto was a co-founder of Fauna Robotics before Amazon acquired it in March 2026. Meta's robotics team is developing in-house humanoid hardware and underlying AI, including sensors and software intended to be made available to other companies in the industry. The acquisition positions Meta directly in the rapidly commercializing humanoid robotics sector alongside Tesla, Google, and Amazon.