Meta acquires Assured Robot Intelligence to accelerate humanoid AI development

Meta acquired Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI), a ~20-person San Diego startup developing AI foundation models for humanoid robots. ARI's co-founders Lerrel Pinto (formerly NYU, co-founder of Fauna Robotics) and Xiaolong Wang (formerly UC San Diego, Nvidia researcher) will join Meta's Superintelligence Labs. ARI focuses on enabling robots to understand, predict, and adapt to human behaviors in complex environments. Meta has been building its Robotics Studio within Reality Labs since 2025. The acquisition terms were undisclosed; ARI had raised a seed round from AIX Ventures. This move places Meta alongside Tesla, Google, and Amazon in the race to develop humanoid robotics, reflecting the broader industry thesis that training AI in the physical world is a path toward AGI.