December 31, 2025 Meta is buying Manus, a fast-growing agentic AI startup that already generates subscription revenue, in a deal reportedly worth about $2 billion. The acquisition brings a profitable, task-executing AI system into Meta’s ecosystem as the company races to compete with OpenAI and Google on consumer-facing AI.
Manus, a Singapore-based company with Chinese roots, announced Monday that it will join the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp parent. Unlike conversational tools such as ChatGPT or DeepSeek, Manus focuses on “agentic AI,” systems that can make decisions and complete tasks autonomously with minimal prompting.
That distinction is central to Meta’s interest. Manus sells its software on a subscription basis to small and medium-sized businesses and is already generating revenue, a rarity in a sector where valuations often outpace profits.
According to technology analyst Carmi Levy, the goal is essentially a “brain transplant” for Meta’s platforms. By embedding Manus’s autonomous agents into services like WhatsApp and Instagram, Meta could keep users engaged longer and open up new monetization paths, from commerce to customer support.
The deal comes as Meta intensifies its AI buying spree. Earlier this year, the company acquired Scale AI for more than $14 billion and recruited its leadership to help build a new “superintelligence” unit around Meta’s Llama models. Analysts say buying proven startups is faster than rebuilding Meta’s engineering culture from scratch.
As Levy explained, “So concerns over data integrity and privacy and, of course, geopolitical concerns — those will be prominent throughout the regulatory process, and it is not a given that the U.S. is going to give this deal the green light.”
Manus’s technology has already been integrated into WeChat, a super-app model Meta has long admired. Stock analyst Gil Luria described Manus as a potential foundation for a “friend-slash-assistant” inside WhatsApp – one that handles payments, recommendations, and tasks in a single interface.
However, the acquisition faces regulatory uncertainty. Manus is owned by Beijing-based Butterfly Effect, and its Chinese origins are likely to draw scrutiny from U.S. authorities already wary of data-security risks after the long-running TikTok saga involving ByteDance.
Republican senator John Cornyn has criticized U.S. investment in Manus, warning against subsidizing AI capabilities that could benefit China. Analysts say similar concerns about data access, privacy, and national security will dominate the review process.
