On April 2, 2026, World Labs, founded by Fei‑Fei Li, quietly released Marble 1.1 and Marble 1.1 Plus model updates. This marks an important iteration following Marble's commercial launch in November 2025. Marble 1.1 is positioned as the new default model, delivering significant improvements in lighting, contrast and overall visual consistency while greatly reducing visual defects. Marble 1.1 Plus is designed for large, complex scenes and can automatically expand 3D spatial coverage to generate larger, richer world environments. Both models are available now on the Marble platform and the World API for developers to call.
World Labs, led by Fei‑Fei Li as CEO, focuses on building infrastructure for spatial intelligence. The Marble series is its core product and can transform text, images, video or 3D layouts into explorable, editable and persistent 3D worlds. The series emphasizes “object permanence” and physical consistency, aiming to advance AI from “understanding the world” to “generating and interacting with the world.”
Marble 1.1: quality upgrade with stable fixed cost
Marble 1.1 is the recommended default in this release. The company describes it as a “higher‑quality, more stable” generation version. Major improvements include:
- Enhanced lighting and contrast: more natural light and shadow, more realistic transitions between bright and dark areas, reducing the previously common “flat” or “overexposed” issues.
- Fewer visual defects: crisper object edges, improved texture consistency, and an overall image that is more realistic and artistically expressive.
- Fixed cost: the cost per single world generation remains 1500 credits, suitable for most everyday creation needs.
World Labs recommends new users start with Marble 1.1; it provides an out‑of‑the‑box quality improvement while keeping existing workflows unchanged. The prior standard model is now labeled Marble 1.0 and remains available.
Marble 1.1 Plus: scale breakthrough with variable cost for extra‑large worlds
Marble 1.1 Plus is the highlight of this update, designed specifically for creating large, complex environments. Its core innovation is an automatic spatial expansion mechanism: when a scene requires it, the model dynamically increases 3D spatial coverage to generate worlds that extend beyond the initial boundaries rather than being limited to a fixed space.
Pricing uses a hybrid model:
- Base fee: 1500 credits
- Variable fee: an additional 0–1500 credits charged based on the number of dynamically expanded “cubes” (dynamic cube)
This design lets users flexibly control costs according to actual needs while supporting scenes far larger than previous versions—for example, full city blocks, large interior structures, or expansive natural landscapes. Marble 1.1 Plus is especially suited for game development, architectural visualization, film previsualization and virtual reality applications that require large‑scale environments.
Technical and ecosystem significance: spatial intelligence moves from concept to practical use
The rapid iteration of both models reflects World Labs’ continued investment in 3D world generation technology. The Marble series leverages advanced techniques such as 3D Gaussian Splatting to generate high‑fidelity, persistent and interactive 3D environments, supports exporting meshes for Unity, Unreal Engine and Blender, and is compatible with XR devices such as Vision Pro and Quest 3.
Fei‑Fei Li's team emphasizes that spatial intelligence is the next frontier for AI. The Marble 1.1 series not only improves generation quality and scale but also lowers the barrier for developers through API access. Marble now supports multimodal inputs, AI‑native editing tools (Chisel), and world expansion and composition features, enabling users to easily create, edit and share 3D worlds.
For the industry, this update accelerates the deployment of spatial intelligence:
- Creators and designers: can rapidly generate editable 3D environments, significantly reducing production time and cost.
- Games and film: support large‑scale scene generation and real‑time interaction, offering new tools for virtual production and metaverse applications.
- Robotics and embodied intelligence: provide robots with more reliable internal world models to improve navigation and manipulation.
- Architecture and urban planning: help planners build proportionally accurate digital twins.
After completing a $1 billion financing round in February 2026, World Labs' valuation rose significantly, reflecting strong investor confidence in the spatial intelligence track. The release of the Marble 1.1 series further consolidates World Labs' leading position in 3D world generation.
Challenges and outlook
Despite strong performance, the Marble 1.1 series still faces challenges such as computational cost, large‑scale generalization and physical accuracy. World Labs says it will continue to iterate the models and plans to open more API features and open‑source components in the coming months to foster co‑construction of the spatial intelligence ecosystem.
Fei‑Fei Li has repeatedly stated that spatial intelligence will reshape how humans interact with digital worlds. From Marble's first commercial release to the rapid upgrade to the 1.1 series, World Labs is steadily turning that vision into reality. As more companies and developers join, AI‑generated 3D worlds may become, like today's large language models, fundamental infrastructure for everyday creation and production.
The launch of Marble 1.1 and 1.1 Plus is not only a technical iteration for World Labs but also an important signal that the spatial intelligence era is accelerating. It brings the idea that “anyone can build a world” closer to practical reality.
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