Meta’s Moltbook deal points to a future built around AI agents | TechCrunch

Last day to exhibit your breakthrough to 10,000+ tech leaders at Disrupt is on Oct 2. Book Exhibit Table Now. Disrupt doors open Oct. 13. Get your pass and bring someone with you at 50% off. REGISTER NOW. When news broke Tuesday morning that Meta bought Moltbook, the social network for AI agents, it may have left some people scratching their heads. What on earth would Meta — an ad-supported company — want with a social network where the users are bots? Bots, after all, are not the target audience of brand marketers and advertisers. Meta isn’t saying much. Its only official comment was a brief statement that the Moltbook team was joining Meta Superintelligence Labs, which would open up “new ways for AI agents to work with people and businesses.” Reading between the lines, this was an acqui-hire. A network built for bots isn’t exactly a natural home for brand advertising — even if Moltbook was never entirely non-human. What Meta really wanted was the talent behind it — people who are having fun brainstorming and experimenting with AI agent ecosystems. And that, counterintuitively, could be a boon for its advertising business. As Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last year, he believes in