The race to build smarter AI systems is shifting. Instead of just training chatbots to write text or generate images, startups are now trying to teach machines how to understand the real, three-dimensional world.
However, that is a hard problem. Most AI systems still struggle to reason about space, depth, movement, and physical interaction. And here’s where World Labs comes into play!
The company, founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, has raised $1 billion in fresh funding to develop what are known as “world models,” AI systems designed to navigate and make decisions in 3D environments.
Autodesk invested $200 million in the round. Other backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The company announced the funding in a blog post on Wednesday.
With the new funding, the startup plans to improve Marble and expand its applications, particularly in robotics and scientific discovery.
Building spatial intelligence technology
The company says it is focused on building spatial intelligence technology that helps AI understand the structure and physics of the real world. Its broader goal is to transform areas such as storytelling, creative design, robotics, and scientific research.
In late 2025, World Labs introduced its first product, Marble. The tool allows users to generate detailed, persistent 3D worlds from images, video, or text prompts. The idea is to create spatially consistent environments that can be explored, modified, and reused.
It’s worth noting that, apart from World Labs, Yann LeCun’s startup, AMI Labs, has drawn strong investor interest for similar work.
Fei-Fei Li is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in artificial intelligence. She helped lead ImageNet, a large academic dataset of millions of labelled images that played a key role in advancing computer vision. That work laid the foundation for many of today’s AI breakthroughs.
