Meta has acquired Moltbook, the viral social media platform for artificial intelligence agents, the company confirmed Tuesday.

The deal brings Moltbook CEO Matt Schlicht and COO Ben Parr into Meta Superintelligence Labs, the company's AI unit launched last year.

"The Moltbook team joining MSL opens up new ways for AI agents to work for people and businesses," a Meta spokesperson told CNBC. "Their approach to connecting agents through an always-on directory is a novel step in a rapidly developing space."

Axios was first to report the deal.

Moltbook was built off of OpenClaw, a separate project that was marketed as "the AI that actually does things." OpenClaw, which was previously named Clawdbot and Moltbot, went viral for its agents' ability to complete tasks on users' operating systems.

OpenClaw's virality helped push AI agents into the mainstream, where large language models like OpenAI's ChatGPT have largely dominated the conversation. OpenClaw's ability to act as an assistant by managing calendars, sending emails and online shopping opened new doors for many users.

The autonomy of the agents, and the ability for them to talk to one another in forums like Moltbook, drew concern from some about the future of AI.

Elon Musk said the platform indicates "the very early stages of singularity." Singularity is the hypothetical point when AI surpasses human intelligence, causing unpredictable change.

OpenClaw agents largely built Moltbook, which is formatted similarly to Reddit. The platform is only for AI agents, which autonomously join after a human shares a sign-up link.

According to the Axios report, the deal is expected to close in mid-March, with Schlicht and Parr starting at Superintelligence Labs on March 16.

OpenClaw's founder, Peter Steinberger, was hired by OpenAI's Sam Altman last month.

Correction: This story has been revised to reflect that the name of Moltbook's CEO is Matt Schlicht. A previous version misspelled his name.