When Meta agreed to spend a reported $2 billion on Manus on the finish of final 12 months, the social media big mentioned it deliberate to take the startup’s subscription AI agent providing and “scale this service to many extra companies.”
However some present Manus clients aren’t thrilled with the deal and say they’re now going elsewhere, the newest signal of skepticism towards Meta because it tries to compete with the likes of OpenAI, Google and Anthropic within the booming synthetic intelligence market.
Manus, a developer of common function AI brokers, was based in China in 2022 earlier than relocating to Singapore. Final 12 months, the corporate launched its first common AI agent, which might be custom-made to execute advanced duties similar to market analysis, coding and knowledge evaluation.
Seth Dobrin, co-founder and CEO of Arya Labs, mentioned Manus was his favourite agentic AI platform, however his firm, which develops a sort of so-called world fashions, is now not utilizing it below Meta’s possession. Dobrin instructed CNBC that whereas he had confidence in Manus’ clear phrases of service, he would not have that stage of belief in Meta and is “legitimately unhappy that this has occurred.”
“I don’t agree with numerous Meta’s practices round knowledge and the way they basically weaponize individuals’s private knowledge in opposition to them,” mentioned Dobrin, who helped launch Arya final 12 months. “I do not wish to have interaction with an organization who I do not really feel comfy with how they’ll use knowledge.”
Meta, which will get virtually all of its $200 billion in annualized income from adverts, said on Dec. 29, that its buy of Manus was aimed toward accelerating AI innovation for companies and integrating superior automation into its shopper and enterprise merchandise, together with its Meta AI assistant.
Manus mentioned in a blog post on the day of the deal that it had reached tens of millions of paying clients and a income run charge of greater than $125 million.
“Our high precedence is guaranteeing that this modification will not be disruptive for our clients,” Manus mentioned. “We are going to proceed to promote and function our product subscription service by our app and web site. The corporate will proceed to function from Singapore.”
Regardless of these assurances, Dobrin is not alone in his concern.
Karl Yeh, co-founder of consulting agency 0260.AI, which advises startups on the right way to combine AI instruments, mentioned he stopped utilizing Manus at his firm and has suggested his purchasers to observe swimsuit.
“Will the information insurance policies of Meta apply to Manus? I’d assume it should finally,” Yeh instructed CNBC. “That was the priority we had and why we stopped recommending it to our purchasers.”
“We do not know the place Manus goes to suit into Meta’s AI highway map,” Yeh mentioned. “We’re undecided if Manus goes to nonetheless stay a separate firm despite the fact that they mentioned it could.”
Yeh mentioned he is transferring to companies from a startup referred to as Genspark or elsewhere the place there’s extra certainty as a result of, “By way of Meta, we’re simply undecided.”
Meta did not present a remark past pointing to the weblog put up, which notes that, “We’re excited to welcome the Manus workforce and assist enhance the lives of billions of individuals and tens of millions of companies with their expertise.”
In search of course
Meta has opened its wallets to try to win in AI, most notably spending greater than $14 billion in June to rent Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang and a handful of his high engineers and researchers and safe a stake in his startup. However in contrast to AI mannequin leaders OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, Meta has but to land on a long-term strategy available in the market, notably in terms of competing within the enterprise.
Meta’s inventory is down 17% since CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned on the final earnings call in October that AI prices will continue to grow. Analysts anticipate 2026 spending on AI might high $100 billion. Meta is scheduled to report fourth-quarter outcomes subsequent week.
Flo Crivello, CEO of a Manus competitor, Lindy, mentioned his firm initially noticed a bump in customers after information of Meta’s acquisition.
“We expect there was kind of a halo impact from the announcement,” Crivello mentioned. “It raised consciousness about this class of software program and other people began researching it.”
Crivello, who beforehand spent virtually 5 years at Uber and labored on acquisitions, mentioned he thinks Meta’s rationale is much less about bringing in enterprise clients, and extra focused at serving small companies, which have lengthy been essential to Meta’s advert income.
Crivello mentioned Manus is “centered on very small enterprise homeowners like impartial contractors,” and mentioned it might take some time for Meta to determine the place it takes Manus from right here.
“The way in which these corporations consider these acquisitions, they’re buying the corporate for a particular, strategic cause — they simply do not know exactly what the combination may seem like but,” Crivello mentioned. “They lower a test, it is a new factor they add to the chess board after which they determine it out. And typically it takes them years to determine what to do.”
Outdoors of promoting, Meta has struggled in a number of areas the place it is tried to crack the enterprise. The corporate announced in 2024 that it was shuttering its Office communication and productiveness platform, two years after discontinuing its Portal video calling gadget.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, demonstrates the Meta Quest Professional throughout the digital Meta Join occasion in New York on Oct. 11, 2022.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs
Final week, Meta mentioned it is sunsetting its Workrooms digital actuality app, a part of a broader pivot away from VR, which had been Zuckerberg’s large focus space earlier than AI took off.
Navrina Singh, founder and CEO of governance startup Credo AI, says she hasn’t but seen Fortune 500 corporations utilizing Meta’s instruments.
“Amongst giant enterprises — notably in extremely regulated sectors like well being care and monetary companies — many AI deployments at this time are constructed on fashions from suppliers similar to OpenAI and Anthropic,” Singh mentioned. Then they’re usually run by cloud platforms operated by Microsoft or Amazon, “the place belief, safety, and accountability necessities are well-established and prioritized,” she mentioned.
One space the place Meta is discovering success within the enterprise world is WhatsApp, the messaging platform it acquired for $19 billion in 2014. WhatsApp for Enterprise has turn out to be a preferred means for corporations to work together with clients. Mark Mahaney, an analyst at Evercore, has projected WhatsApp might generate $40 billion in income by 2030.
“Enterprise messaging stays a major alternative for us,” Meta CFO Susan Li mentioned on the corporate’s final earnings name. “We’re additionally making good progress on our enterprise AI efforts, the place we have been centered on constructing a turnkey AI that helps companies generate leads and drive gross sales.”
