Microsoft just introduced Magma, a new artificial intelligence model designed to help robots see, understand and act more intelligently. Unlike traditional AI models, Magma processes different types of data all at once -- an effort Microsoft is calling a big leap toward "agentic AI,

The newly-announced Magma is a multimodal AI enabling agentic tasks ranging from UI navigation to robotics manipulation.

Facebook parent Meta is joining the race to field humanoid robotics. Meta Platforms is establishing a new division within its Reality Labs unit to develop AI-powered humanoid robots that can assist with physical tasks, according to an internal company memo viewed by Reuters on Friday.

Yet in the tech sector the humanoid robot is the cultural handmaiden to another holy grail: artificial general intelligence. This week, Meta was reported to be following Tesla, Apple, and Nvidia in planning a big investment into AI-powered humanoid robots.