Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li's AI startup just became a unicorn

Business Nov 24, 2025

Stanford's Dr. Fei-Fei Li has taken her AI company, World Labs, past the $1 billion mark in valuation.
The startup stands out for its work on "world models," which help AI better understand and navigate real-world spaces—a big step forward for smarter tech that could actually help people.

How Li got here—and what makes World Labs different

Li first made waves with ImageNet, a project that changed how computers see images.
Now at World Labs, she's pushing boundaries again with Marble, a tool that builds 3D environments from all kinds of media.
This is way beyond standard language models and could open new doors in creativity, robotics, and science.
Under her leadership, World Labs is developing world models that aim to advance AI capabilities.