World Labs builds 3D world models, and in September 2026 it agreed to join AMD. Its Marble app and World API are still sold as before, but no one has said how the deal changes them. Anyone paying for Marble should watch for terms updates before the close.
Started by Fei-Fei Li and three co-founders, World Labs builds 3D world models in San Francisco. Its products are Marble, a generator of editable 3D worlds, a credit-priced World API and the Atlas model. AMD announced in September 2026 that it will acquire the company for stock.
Founded: 2024 · HQ: San Francisco, CA, USA · Team: 51-200 · CEO: Fei-Fei Li · Funding: About $1B round announced in 2026 (investors include AMD, Autodesk, Emerson Collective, Fidelity, NVIDIA, Sea), after earlier rounds led by a16z, NEA and Radical Ventures · Valuation: AMD all-stock acquisition valued at about $8.2B (announced 2026-09-28, expected to close by end of 2026)
About World Labs
World Labs is a San Francisco spatial-intelligence company started by Fei-Fei Li, Justin Johnson, Christoph Lassner and Ben Mildenhall. Li, the creator of the ImageNet dataset and a Stanford professor, is CEO. Johnson worked on generative models at Stanford, Lassner built the Pulsar renderer at Meta Reality Labs and Epic Games, and Mildenhall co-created Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) at Google Research. The shared thesis is that AI became strong at language and flat images but still cannot perceive or reason about three-dimensional space.
The biggest change this year is ownership. On 28 September 2026 World Labs said it had signed a definitive agreement to join AMD, and AMD's newsroom put the all-stock deal at about $8.2 billion, expected to close by the end of 2026 subject to regulatory approvals. Li will become an AMD executive vice president and chief scientist reporting to CEO Lisa Su, while Johnson and Mildenhall continue to lead the World Labs team. AMD was already a funder and had partnered with the company on model training and inference on AMD GPUs. Neither announcement says what happens to the products, so HokAI's analysis of the deal separates what is confirmed from what is open for people who pay for Marble.
The product line has two public faces and one new model. Marble turns text, images, video, panoramas or rough 3D layouts into persistent 3D worlds that can be edited and exported, with plans that run from a free tier capped at four world generations to a Max tier at 75. The World API sells the same generation engine to developers at a fixed $1.00 per 1,250 credits, with a $5 minimum purchase and credits that do not expire. API credits and Marble app credits are separate pools and cannot be swapped. On 1 September 2026 the company introduced Atlas, an omni world model it pretrained from scratch on text, images, video and 3D, which can produce up to one minute of 1440p video with explicit camera control and reconstruct scenes from sparse photos. Atlas is in early access through a request form, and the vendor says it will power future versions of Marble.
Robotics is the other direction. On 21 July 2026 SceniX, a robotics simulation company, joined World Labs; its real-to-sim-to-real engine turns one physical task into many controllable simulated worlds for training and testing robot policies. The company also maintains Spark, a renderer for 3D Gaussian Splatting that reached version 2.0 in April 2026 with streamable level-of-detail support.
Funding came in a roughly $1 billion round announced in 2026 with AMD, Autodesk, Emerson Collective, Fidelity Management & Research Company, NVIDIA and Sea among the investors, after earlier rounds led by Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates and Radical Ventures. The acquisition price is the only valuation either side has put in writing. No revenue figure has been published.
The closest rivals are Google's Project Genie, which generates interactive worlds from Google DeepMind's research, and Runway for generative video. Open 3D world models come from Tencent, while adjacent video and 3D generation comes from OpenAI and Stability AI. Those alternatives win when you need a mature video-first workflow, a self-hostable model or a broader product line; World Labs wins when persistent, exportable 3D scenes are the deliverable. The trade-off to weigh now is continuity: a research team inside a chip company can ship faster on hardware, but buyers get no public commitment on Marble pricing or API terms until the deal closes.
On safety and governance, World Labs has not published a responsible scaling policy or model cards. According to the November 2025 version of the policy, user-submitted content may be used for model training, benchmarking and development, with an opt-out mechanism described in the policy. Its security page shows neither a SOC 2 report nor an ISO 27001 certificate; it covers responsible disclosure and states that there is no public bug bounty. Anyone sending sensitive footage or client assets to Marble should read the terms and the subprocessor list first.
Mission
Advance spatial intelligence so AI can perceive, generate, reason about, and interact with the 3D world, not just 2D pixels and text.
Products
- Marble (Generative 3D world model (consumer/creator product)): https://marble.worldlabs.ai
- World API (Developer API for 3D world generation): https://platform.worldlabs.ai
- Atlas (Omni world model, early access): https://www.worldlabs.ai/blog/atlas
- Spark (3D Gaussian Splatting renderer): https://sparkjs.dev
Links
Frequently Asked Questions
What is happening to World Labs after the AMD deal?
World Labs signed a definitive agreement to join AMD on 28 September 2026, and AMD's release puts the price near $8.2 billion in stock, with regulators still to approve and closing targeted before year-end. Fei-Fei Li becomes AMD's chief scientist as an executive vice president; Justin Johnson and Ben Mildenhall keep leading the World Labs team. Neither company has said what changes for Marble or the World API, so treat pricing and terms as unchanged only until a closing notice says otherwise.
When was World Labs founded, and how big is the team?
World Labs dates to 2024: SiliconANGLE reported in July 2024 that Fei-Fei Li had launched it that April with Justin Johnson, Christoph Lassner and Ben Mildenhall, and TechCrunch covered its exit from stealth on 13 September 2024. Its LinkedIn company page, checked on 21 October 2026, lists 51-200 employees, with 105 members naming it as their employer, and gives 2023 as the founding year, a date no announcement repeats. The company has never published an exact headcount.
What are World Labs' pricing plans in 2026?
Marble runs on four subscription tiers: Free (up to 4 world generations, no commercial rights), Standard (up to 12), Pro (up to 25, adds commercial rights and textured mesh export) and Max (up to 75), plus custom enterprise plans; current dollar prices sit on the Marble pricing page. The World API is billed separately: 1,250 credits for each dollar, a $5 minimum purchase, and credits that never expire. A Marble subscription gives no API credits, and API credits cannot be spent in the app.
Does World Labs train on your uploads?
Its privacy policy, last updated 12 November 2025, says uploads can feed the company's model training, benchmarking and product development, and it describes an opt-out mechanism. It adds that content used for training may be kept longer than other data. The security page offers a disclosure email and says there is no public bug bounty; it shows no audit reports of any kind.
Which tools compete with World Labs in 2026?
Google's Project Genie generates interactive worlds and suits people already inside Google's ecosystem. Runway is the pick when the output is video rather than an explorable scene. Tencent's open 3D world models appeal to teams that want to self-host. Marble's edge is exporting persistent 3D scenes to game engines and headsets, which video-first tools do not do.
Top Alternatives
- Stability AI: Pick World Labs when the deliverable is a persistent, exportable 3D scene; pick Stability AI for broader 2D image and open-weight generation.
HokAI guides covering World Labs
- AMD Buys World Labs for $8.2B: What It Means for Marble Users: AMD will buy World Labs for about $8.2B in stock, yet neither side mentions Marble. What subscribers and API users should export, cap and test before closing.