Meta is making another “AR size bet” and plans to invest billions of dollars in building humanoid robots. While the company is working on a “Metabot”, its goal is bigger than just making hardware.
The software backbone for humanoid robots is Meta’s next big goal
Meta has started what it calls a “research effort” in robotics earlier this year, and despite building a humanoid robot, that’s not its main goal. The company’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, said in an interview with Sources’ Alex Heath that his vision is for a software platform that could be licensed to other companies that manufacture the hardware.
That idea would function similarly to how Google provides Android to smartphone manufacturers. Meta wants to develop a software blueprint that any company that builds a robot with certain specs could use. Bosworth says that software is the bigger challenge to robotics.
I don’t think the hardware is the hard part. I’m not saying the hardware isn’t also hard, but it’s not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is the software.
Andrew Bosworth, Meta CTO, September 2025
To solve the challenges humanoid robots face, Bosworth’s team is collaborating with the Superintelligence AI lab at Meta. They’re building what he calls a “world model”, which would help “do the software simulation required to animate a dexterous hand.”
He explained that one of the biggest issues for robotics is building a hand that could pick up a glass of water or take a set of keys out of a pocket. Unlike walking and doing backflips, these actions require operating with an unstable object, which proves challenging for current humanoid robots. There’s no “sensor loop” for that task, so the company will have to build a data set for it, Bosworth said.
Another big bet from Meta
Tesla's Optimus robot | Image Credit – Tesla
To give some context about the scale of this effort, Meta has reportedly invested over $100 billion in Reality Labs, its augmented and virtual reality division. As a result, we’ve seen the recently announced Meta Ray-Ban Display and the prototype of Project Orion. The company has also spent billions on its Superintelligence AI lab, including a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI.
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Would you trust Meta software to power a humanoid robot in your home?
Yes
33.33%
Maybe, if the software is good
0%
No
66.67%
It doesn’t matter, such a thing is never happening
0%
The company is not the only one that is pursuing robotics. Apple is reportedly working on home robots, and Tesla has demoed versions of its Optimus robot.
One more thing to wait for
Long gone are the days when such announcements made me excited. Meta has been talking about its big plans for a long time, and it even changed its name because of its ambition. Four years later, we’re as far from living in a metaverse as ever, and the promises of augmented reality and artificial intelligence appear just as empty.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a robot that could fold the laundry for me. As much as I hate laundry, I just don’t believe that will happen anytime soon, just like the metaverse went nowhere.
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Ilia, a tech journalist at PhoneArena, has been covering the mobile industry since 2011, with experience at outlets like Forbes Bulgaria. Passionate about smartphones, tablets, and consumer tech, he blends deep industry knowledge with a personal fascination that began with his first Nokia and Sony Ericsson devices. Originally from Bulgaria and now based in Lima, Peru, Ilia balances his tech obsessions with walking his dog, training at the gym, and slowly mastering Spanish.
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