Meta Acquires Stilla.ai to Expand Business AI Agent Capabilities

Meta has acquired Stilla.ai, a Swedish AI startup founded in 2024, as part of its broader strategy to commercialize artificial intelligence agents for business customers. The acquisition will bring Stilla.ai's team and technology into Meta's existing agentic AI infrastructure, according to Axios.

The move directly supports Meta's Business Agent platform, which launched in June and enables brands to automate customer responses across WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram direct messages. The platform has already attracted more than one million business users, signaling substantial early adoption of Meta's AI-powered customer service tools.

Why it matters

Meta is betting billions on AI agents as a revenue stream beyond advertising, but the investment is straining near-term profitability. The company reported a 91% year-over-year decline in free cash flow during its second quarter of 2026 earnings, driven largely by AI development costs. Acquiring specialized startups like Stilla.ai allows Meta to accelerate product development without building every capability in-house—a critical advantage as competition from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google intensifies in the enterprise AI space.

Revenue diversification through AI subscriptions

The Business Agent represents Meta's attempt to diversify beyond its advertising-dominated business model. The company is marketing "Meta One" subscriptions—tiered plans designed for businesses and creators who want to leverage Meta AI across the platform ecosystem.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has articulated an ambitious vision for these tools, suggesting that as Meta's models improve, businesses will eventually be able to use AI agents to manage their "whole business." This positions the Business Agent as an entry point for a much broader suite of automated business management capabilities.

Strategic expansion in Sweden

Stilla.ai raised $5 million in pre-seed funding before the acquisition. While the startup is relatively small, Meta views the deal as an opportunity to expand its presence in Sweden's AI ecosystem, which has produced several notable machine learning companies in recent years.

The acquisition comes as Meta faces mounting pressure to demonstrate return on investment for its AI infrastructure spending. By targeting merchant adoption in the messaging space—where customer conversations can directly drive conversions—Meta is focusing on use cases with clear commercial value rather than purely experimental AI applications.

Details of the acquisition were first reported by Axios.