Meta reportedly planning for investing heavily into AI-powered humanoid robots

After pushing into augmented reality and artificial intelligence, Meta Platforms is eyeing its next big bet -  AI-powered humanoid robots.

The company is making a significant investment into the category — futuristic robots that can act like humans and assist with physical tasks. Towards this end, the company is also forming a new team within its Reality Labs hardware division to conduct the work.

Meta plans to work on its own humanoid robot hardware, with an initial focus on household chores. It’s bigger ambition is to make the underlying AI, sensors and software for robots that will be manufactured and sold by a range of companies.

Meta has already started discussing its plan with robotics companies, including Unitree Robotics and Figure AI Inc. It doesn’t, for the time being, plan to build a Meta-branded robot, something that could directly rival Tesla Inc.’s Optimus. But it may consider doing so in the future.

The humanoid effort mirrors exploratory projects at other technology giants, including Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google Deepmind division.

Meta confirmed the creation of the new team to employees on Friday. The new team will reportedly be led by Marc Whitten, who resigned as chief executive officer of General Motors Co.’s Cruise self-driving car division earlier this month. He was previously an executive at gaming company Unity Software Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.