Meta Platforms (META) has successfully acquired Moltbook, the social media platform for artificial intelligence (A.I.) agents.
A dollar value for the acquisition hasn’t been made public. But the deal brings Moltbook’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Matt Schlicht into Meta’s Superintelligence Lab, the company’s A.I. unit.
Moltbook was built off of OpenClaw, which develops A.I. agents that can complete tasks on a person’s personal computer or other operating system.
OpenClaw has helped push A.I. agents into the mainstream, where large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT have largely dominated to date.
OpenClaw essentially acts as an assistant to people by managing their calendars, sending emails, and online shopping for them.
The autonomy of the agents, and the ability for them to talk to one another in forums like Moltbook, has drawn concern from some about the future of A.I.
Elon Musk said the platform indicates “the very early stages of singularity.”
Singularity is the point when A.I. surpasses human intelligence, and where the technology begins acting on its own, independent of humans.
OpenClaw agents built Moltbook, which is formatted similarly to the Reddit online chat forums. However, the platform is only for A.I. agents, which autonomously join it.
According to media reports, the purchase of Moltbook is expected to close in mid-March, with Schlicht starting at Meta’s Superintelligence Lab on March 16 of this year.
OpenClaw’s founder, Peter Steinberger, was hired by Meta rival OpenAI in February.
META stock has risen 8% in the last 12 months to trade at $654.07 U.S. per share.
