Meta is making its biggest play for “autonomous” AI yet. On Monday, December 29, 2025, the social media giant announced it is acquiring Manus, a Singapore-based startup with Chinese roots that’s being called “the world’s first general AI agent.”
The thing is, this isn’t just another chatbot. Or nothing. Let’s be real, while Meta AI is great for writing poems, Manus is built to actually do things—like screening thousands of resumes, booking travel, or analyzing entire stock portfolios while you’re offline. Those too.
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The “Manus” Acquisition: Quick Field Notes
Mark Zuckerberg is clearly done playing second fiddle to OpenAI. Here’s the breakdown of the deal:
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The Price Tag: Meta hasn’t officially disclosed the numbers, but sources say the deal values Manus between $2 billion and $3 billion.
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The “Next DeepSeek”: Manus went viral earlier this year for outperforming OpenAI’s DeepResearch on benchmarks. It doesn’t just suggest a plan; it opens a virtual machine, runs code, and finishes the task.
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The Geopolitical Dance: Founded by the Beijing-based Butterfly Effect, the startup moved to Singapore recently to avoid the crossfire of US-China tech tensions. And here’s the kicker: it’s Meta’s third-largest deal ever, trailing only WhatsApp and their massive investment in Scale AI.
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What This Means for You
It’s an ongoing situation where your “Meta AI” button on WhatsApp is about to get a lot more capable.
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Digital Employees: Meta plans to sell Manus as a standalone subscription ($20/month) for businesses.
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Autonomous Assistants: Expect a version of Manus to be woven into Instagram and WhatsApp, allowing the AI to handle complex multi-step workflows for you.
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Revenue Shift: Meta is moving away from just “open-source models” to selling high-end, task-oriented software.
The Controversy
And here’s the kicker: this deal is likely to face a massive “regulatory headache.” Washington is already twitchy about US giants buying tech with Chinese origins, and Beijing has been eyeing Manus as a “national champion.” It’s a messy situation where Zuckerberg himself was reportedly a “long-time user” of the tool before he decided to just buy the whole company.
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