Manus AI: China's New 'Autonomous Agent' Sparks Excitement and Skepticism

Manus probably isn't China's second 'DeepSeek moment' | TechCrunch

Manus, an "agentic" AI platform that launched in preview last week, is generating more hype than a Taylor Swift concert. The head of product at Hugging Face called Manus "the most impressive AI tool I've ever tried." AI policy researcher Dean Ball described Manus as the "most sophisticated computer using AI." The official Discord server for Manus grew to over 138,000 members in just a few days, and invite codes for Manus are reportedly selling for thousands of dollars on Chinese reseller app Xianyu. Manus wasn't developed entirely from scratch. According to reports on social media, the platform uses a combination of existing and fine-tuned AI models, including Anthropic's Claude and Alibaba's Qwen, to perform tasks such as drafting research reports and analyzing financial filings. Yet on its website, Monica -- the Chinese startup behind Manus -- gives a few wild examples of what the platform supposedly can accomplish, from buying real estate to programming video games. In a viral video on X, Yichao "Peak" Ji, a research lead for Manus, implied that the platform was superior to agentic tools such as OpenAI's deep research and Operator. Manus outperforms deep research on a popular benchmark for general AI assistants called GAIA, Ji claimed, which probes an AI's ability to carry out work by browsing the web, using software, and more. "[Manus] isn't just another chatbot or workflow," Ji said in the video. "It's a completely autonomous agent that bridges the gap between conception and execution [...] We see it as the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration." But some early users say that Manus is no panacea. Alexander Doria, the co-founder of AI startup Pleias, said in a post on X that he encountered error messages and endless loops while testing Manus. Other X users pointed out that Manus makes mistakes on factual questions and doesn't consistently cite its work -- and often misses information that's easily found online. Deep Research finished in under 15 minutes. Unfortunately, Manus AI failed after 50 minutes at step 18/20! 😑 It was performing quite well-I was watching Manus' output & it seemed excellent. However, running the same prompt a second time is a bit frustrating as it takes too long! https://t.co/bGtmOI65CP -- Derya Unutmaz, MD (@DeryaTR_) March 8, 2025 My own experience with Manus hasn't been incredibly positive. I asked the platform to handle what seemed to me like a pretty straightforward request: order a fried chicken sandwich from a top-rated fast food joint in my delivery range. After about ten minutes, Manus crashed. On the second attempt, it found a menu item that met my criteria, but Manus couldn't complete the ordering process -- or provide a checkout link, even. Manus similarly whiffed when I asked it to book a flight from NYC to Japan. Given instructions that I thought didn't leave much room for ambiguity (e.g. "look for a business-class flight, prioritizing price and flexible dates"), the best Manus could do was serve up links to fares across several airline websites and airfare search engines like Kayak, some of which were broken. Hoping the next few tasks might be the charm, I told Manus to reserve a table for one at a restaurant within walking distance. It failed after a few minutes. Then I asked the platform to build a Naruto-inspired fighting game. It errored out half an hour in, which is when I decided to throw in the towel. Honest opinion after trying Manus AI for the last 3 days, here's the good and the bad. Good: - The research it does on the internet and the reports it generates are incredible. - Its ability to run scripts behind the scenes to execute tasks is impressive. - The plans it... -- AshutoshShrivastava (@ai_for_success) March 9, 2025 We've reached out to Monica for comment and will update this post if we hear back. So if Manusis is falling short of its technical promises, why did it blow up? A few factors contributed, such as the exclusivity created by a scarcity of invites. Chinese media was quick to tout Manus as an AI breakthrough; publication QQ News called it "the pride of domestic products." Meanwhile, AI influencers on social media spread misinformation about Manus' capabilities. A widely-shared video showed a desktop program, ostensibly Manus, taking action across multiple smartphone apps. Ji confirmed that the video wasn't, in fact, a demo of Manus. Other influential AI accounts on X sought to draw comparisons between Manus and Chinese AI companies DeepSeek -- comparisons not necessarily rooted in fact. Monica didn't develop in-house models, unlike DeepSeek. And while DeepSeek made many of its technologies openly available, Monica hasn't -- at least not quite yet. To be fair to Monica, Manus is in early access. The company claims it's working to scale computing capacity and fix issues as they're reported. But as the platform currently exists, Manus appears to be a case of hype running ahead of technological innovation.

Everyone in AI is talking about Manus. We put it to the test.

Manus claims to be the world's first general AI agent -- leveraging multiple AI models (such as Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet and fine-tuned versions of Alibaba's open-source Qwen), and various independently operating agents to act autonomously on a wide range of tasks. (This is different from AI chatbots, including DeepSeek, that are based on a single large language model family and are primarily designed for conversational interactions.) Despite all the hype, very few people have had a chance to use it. Currently, under 1% of the users on the waitlist have received an invite code. (It's unclear how many people are on this waitlist, but for a sense of how much interest there is, Manus's Discord channel has more than 186,000 members.) MIT Technology Review was able to obtain access to Manus, and when I gave it a test drive, I found that using it feels like collaborating with a highly intelligent and efficient intern: While it occasionally lacks understanding of what it's being asked to do, makes incorrect assumptions, or cuts corners to expedite tasks, it explains its reasoning clearly, is remarkably adaptable, and can improve substantially when provided with detailed instructions or feedback. Ultimately, it's promising but not perfect. Just like its parent company's previous product, an AI assistant called Monica that was released in 2023, Manus is intended for a global audience. English is set as the default language, and its design is clean and minimalist. To get in, a user has to enter a valid invite code. Then the system directs users to a landing page that closely resembles those of ChatGPT or DeepSeek, with historical sessions displayed in a left-hand column and a chat input box in the center. The landing page also features sample tasks curated by the company -- ranging from business strategy development to interactive learning to customized audio meditation sessions. Like other reasoning-based agentic AI tools, such as ChatGPT DeepResearch, Manus is capable of breaking tasks down into steps and autonomously navigating the web to get the information it needs to complete tasks. What sets it apart is the "Manus's Computer" window, which allows users not only to observe what the agent is doing, but also intervene at any point. To put it to the test, I tasked Manus with three assignments: (1) compile a list of notable reporters covering China tech, (2) search for two-bedroom property listings in New York City, and (3) nominate potential candidates for Innovators Under 35, a list created by MIT Technology Review every year. Here's how it did: Task 1: The first list of reporters that Manus gave me contained only five names, with five "honorable mentions" below them. I noticed that it listed some journalists' notable work while not others. I asked Manus why it did this. The reason it offered was hilariously simple: It got lazy. It was "partly due to time constraints as I tried to expedite the research process," the agent told me. When I insisted on consistency and thoroughness, Manus responded with a comprehensive list of 30 journalists, noting their current outlet and listing notable work. (I was glad to see I made the cut, along with many of my beloved peers.)

Chinese general agent 'Manus' arrives with 'future of AI

Prompts see it scour the web for info and turn it into decent documents at reasonable speed Chinese researchers' AI prowess is again a hot topic after a startup called Monica.im last week revealed "Manus", a service it bills as a "general agent" that might improve on tools offered by Western companies. Manus is being compared to OpenAI's Deep Research, which scours online services to source info that's compiled into documents that OpenAI claims "create a comprehensive report at the level of a research analyst" within half an hour. Another point of reference is tools like Anthropic's Computer Use API and OpenAI's Operator Agents, both of which can use a web browser to perform basic tasks like filling in forms and using e-commerce sites. Manus looks like it does all that and more - maybe faster too according to its own benchmarks. A launch video depicts it doing three chores at super-speed: Manus offers the familiar chatbot user interface of an empty text field into which to type a prompt. Early testers have described the experience of using Manus as akin to sitting with someone who is sat at a keyboard and turns vague instructions into precise output at extraordinary speed. The service runs in "Manus's computer" - which appears to be a cloudy Ubuntu workstation. The launch vid states that the service "operates as a multi-agent system powered by several distinct models", some of which will be open sourced later this year. Demos of the service shows that workstation writing its own commands, visiting websites galore, and then delivering a document and the complete code used to produce it. The Register is not impressed by some results. A demo of a Mario-style platformer game created by Manus is crude and crashed. An itinerary for a two-month trip to "Australia, then New Zealand, Argentina (and other parts of South America), and Antarctica" cites just 17 sources for its output, and suggests flying in "luxury" will cost only double the price of budget fares when Business Class nearly always costs at least three times economy fares. The holiday plan also fails to produce a promised full downloadable , and makes odd suggestions for a month spent in Australia: Who comes for a month without visiting Sydney, but goes to Tasmania in winter and spends a week in parts of the Outback that need three days at most? We're already seeing reports of slow performance and unsatisfying output. But we've found plenty of testers who've had happier experiences and report the tool has opened 50 browser windows at a time to source data, then analyzed it in a flash. Developers have marveled at its coding abilities. A lot of commentary we've seen latches onto the term "general agent" used by Monica.im and jumps from there to describe Manus as a step towards artificial general intelligence - software that can perform tasks with human or superhuman skill. We're also seeing plenty of commentary that suggests Manus represents a leap in performance like that achieved by Chinese startup DeepSeek, which created a chatbot that produced fine results and was initially thought to require much less compute power than rival services. That assumption led to something of a panic as it was assumed Chinese AI companies were beating all rivals despite export bans designed to prevent that from happening. Investors also paled as they contemplated hyperscalers' planned mega-spend on AI infrastructure and whether it could be unnecessary and therefore hard to recoup. Both reasons for panic were eventually debunked, as DeepSeek was found to have lousy security that saw it banned by several governments, and to have overstated its claims about requiring only modest hardware. It's also biased: Prompts that would produce a response that show the Communist Party of China in a poor light produce errors. Hyperscalers told investors not to fear, because they're building infrastructure for inferencing and expect that to become a part of almost every application in coming months and years (and are hiking prices for apps that rely on it). The Register has applied for an account on the invitation-only service and hopes to be accepted so we can offer a hands-on evaluation in coming days. ®

China's Manus AI 'agent' could be our 1st glimpse at artificial general intelligence

Chinese startup Butterfly Effect has unveiled what it claims is the first general AI agent capable of acting autonomously. Chinese scientists have unveiled an artificial intelligence (AI) "agent" that makes its own decisions without requiring specific instructions from a human operator. The AI agent, Manus, was developed by Chinese startup Butterfly Effect. Its representatives claim it is the world's first general AI agent -- meaning it demonstrates a level of autonomy that current AI models lack. The scientists who created Manus say it shows a potential glimpse of what artificial general intelligence (AGI) may one day be capable of. This emerging type of AI responds to text prompts, similar to chatbots such as ChatGPT or DeepSeek. However, unlike chatbots, they work on different tasks, without the need for frequent, step-by-step instructions. Manus isn't available to the general public yet, but a limited distribution of invite codes has given a select few access, sparking a flurry of interest online. Some users appear to have created playable video games from simple prompts, while others have used Manus to design and launch websites. Related: New AI model converts your thought into full written speech by harnessing your brain's magnetic signals It's still early days for Manus, however, with some users reporting crashes and other issues such as a tendency to get stuck in an infinite feedback loop. The company is also aware of relatively high failure rates in Manus versus ChatGPT. Chief scientist Peak Ji acknowledged these as part of the teething issues in launching a new tool on the social media platform X. Reporter Caiwei Chen, who had access to Manus for MIT Technology Review, wrote that the experience was "like collaborating with a highly intelligent and efficient intern." However, Chen also noted that Manus sometimes lacked understanding of what it was supposed to do, made incorrect assumptions and cut corners. "Ultimately, it's promising but not perfect," Chen wrote. Manus AI is the second Chinese AI tool to send shock waves through the tech industry this year. In January, DeepSeek changed the landscape of AI by achieving similar or better chatbot results than its American competitors for reportedly a fraction of the cost. Manus, on the other hand, could represent the first of an entirely new generation of AI. Chatbots usually run on a single large language model (LLM), while Manus uses multiple LLMs and other independently operating software to work autonomously on a variety of tasks, MIT Technology Review reported. This is also known as a multi-agent architecture, in which multiple components communicate and collaborate to process tasks. In a head-to-head between Manus and ChatGPT, the agent will often provide more detailed responses than the chatbot -- a claim which the company has reinforced with testing data from the GAIA benchmark. However, Manus also takes a lot longer to provide those responses as it does deeper research, Tom's Guide reported. In other words, Manus will effectively go its own way and figure out what to do in response to a prompt, rather than relying on step-by-step instructions like a chatbot does. It's designed to start tasks on its own and dynamically adjust its approach along the way, Forbes reported. Give Manus a single prompt, and it will navigate the web, write code and analyze data for its reply, without requiring further intervention as a conventional LLM-powered chatbot would. Some examples Manus AI has demonstrated on its website include planning a detailed holiday itinerary, analyzing the stock market and screening job resumes. The difference between this and a tool like ChatGPT is that Manus can break down and complete complex tasks without continuous input. The system works from the cloud, too, so users can close their computers at any time, and Manus will keep working in the background. The arrival of a general AI agent brings a new wave of ethical questions and considerations surrounding the use of AI. Agents behave more like humans, but unlike humans, they can work fast and continuously -- provided they don't crash -- and never get tired.

Manus: China unveils 'world's first' fully autonomous AI agent

What is also interesting is that Manus comes just over a year after the release of DeepSeek in 2023. That particular AI is widely seen, as Forbes explains, as China's AI "Sputnik Moment." According to some, the emergence of Manus challenges the narrative that the U.S. is the uncontested leader in advanced AI development. It suggests China has caught up and potentially leapfrogged ahead by developing truly autonomous AI agents. Manus is not just an intellectual achievement for the team; it could have critical real-world applications, including recruitment. In this role, Manus can autonomously analyze resumes, cross-reference job market trends, and produce optimal hiring choices, complete with detailed analysis and reports. Another interesting application could be software development, when agents like Manus can quickly build a professional website from scratch. The agent can also scrape necessary information from social media, deploy the website online, and independently resolve technical hosting issues. Unlike other commonly known AIs, Manus could represent a very real threat to human workers, actually being able to replace them rather than just boost their work efficiency. This raises some problematic ethical and regulatory questions about its use.

Manus AI is the new challenger to DeepSeek -- everything you need to know

AI is already changing up the way we handle our daily tasks, with constant ways to apply the ever-growing list of models to discover what works best. Imagine screening a hundred resumes to find the best candidate and even asking the AI to interview the ones with the most potential? Or possibly asking an AI to assemble all of your expenses from the year into one report for taxes, itemized and categorized exactly how you want them. This concept of having AI do work for you without having to type in prompts each time is not just on the horizon -- if you believe the company behind the new Manus AI, it's already here. If you've not come across Manus before, let me explain what it is, what it can do and what it means for the field of artificial intelligence. Specifically, how it's attempting to advance work automation and why some experts are a little skeptical. Agentic AI means there is AI that can do work for you autonomously -- like an agent for an NFL star or a celebrity. The AI has "agency" in that you are empowering and equipping the AI to do work for you even if you are not constantly monitoring the progress. That's what Manus AI is positioning itself as. The best example of this comes from the official video on the Manus.im website. In a product demo conducted by Yichao 'Peak' Ji, the Manus co-founder and chief scientist. In the demo, we can see how the bot can be used to scan resumes and then summarize the best candidates. On the right side of the display when using the tool, you see the results in a panel labelled "Manus's Computer" and can track along with what the AI is doing. The idea is that you don't have to monitor everything the agent does. Let's say you ask Manus to read 100 books and summarize each one. Presumably, that would take quite some time, but you could let the "program" run and come back to it later. (By the way, we might have to come up with new terms for these things. For starters, is Manus really a "computer"? Is summarizing a bunch of resumes a "program"? Not really.) Later in the demo, Manus is instructed to analyze stock prices for three companies over three years. The bot is then asked to build a website showing the results in a dashboard. My thoughts went a few steps beyond what Manus can do today -- that someday, we might have a personal assistant that runs like a cloud computer, analyzing data for us, writing content, developing presentations, and doing other work after providing simple instructions. This agentic assistant might constantly monitor our stock profile and make changes for our benefit, increasing our net worth on a daily basis. It might look for fraud in our financial dealings and block them or challenge charges on our behalf. Manus is making a splash right now similar to when DeepSeek debuted because it seems novel, unique, and powerful. Manus is mostly a proof of concept because it is not widely available yet. To test it, you need an invite code which might be hard to find. (Tom's Guide made a request at the Manus website and through a media request but have not heard back on either yet.) Yet, there's some serious potential here. Experts who are tracking the AI field see Manus is an evolutionary step in the right direction. "Manus will jumpstart the conversation about agents since there is very little in existing AI offerings that can actually function as a 'personal assistant' without a large degree of training," says HP Newquist, the Executive Director of The Relayer Group and author of the book The Brain Makers: Genius, Ego & Greed In The Quest For Machines That Think. "Manus does open the door to out-of-the-box AI assistance. US companies developing agent AI will have to acknowledge that the race is officially on." "From what I have learned, Manus isn't your typical AI tool -- it's taking a meaningful step toward autonomy," adds Pronnoy Goswami, an Engineering Leader at Workday and book author who studies AI infrastructure. "Manus actively initiates tasks in a more agentic way, rather than passively responding to tasks. This evolves from a copilot to a coworker." Goswami says Manus can remember context and can think independently. "It can identify tasks, set goals, and act without continuous human prompts more or less autonomously," he says. That type of coworker is a bit different from well-known bots such as ChatGPT and Claude. Those bots are incredibly helpful and powerful, but they act almost like an MS-DOS prompt from decades ago in that you have to type in a prompt and wait for a response. Yet, as with the DeepSeek chatbot, there are concerns about Manus mostly because of where the AI originates. It was developed by a company called Monica based in China. That means there's very little information to help US users know how their information is stored, if it could be used for nefarious purposes, or even if there's any security at all. "Manus faces the same obstacles that DeepSeek faces, at least in the U.S.," says Newquist. "Since it is a Chinese product that accesses private data, there is the concern about how well that data is protected -- if at all. This is a concern for all AI, regardless of where it is based, but China's disregard for protecting private data is quite troubling to discerning users in the US." Apart from that, it's hard to know how capable Manus will be, especially since the agentic AI is not publicly available yet. It could be extremely powerful and even game-changing, but without testing and evaluating more complex prompts, it could be mostly an elaborate demo. And then there's a more ethical question for each individual about whether they even want to allow so much AI agency into their lives. "This leap in technology comes with its challenges such as: how comfortable are we to hand over significant control to an AI agent?" says Goswami. "Can an autonomous agent like Manus, be trusted with mission-critical decisions? I highly doubt that it would be the case."

Manus AI may be the new DeepSeek, but initial users report problems

A use case gallery shows Manus being used to plan trips and analyse stocks Manus, a new 'agentic' AI tool from Chinese startup Monica, has entered into invite-only preview, and, according to some users, "[redefines] what's possible" for automated AI workflows to achieve. That's according to one Twitter user who asked Manus to 'code a threejs game where you control a plane' and "ended up concluding that Manus is the most impressive AI tool I've ever tried". Manus' own use case gallery (via TechCrunch) lays out some of the possibilities, such as planning a trip to and producing a personalised guidebook for a trip to Japan, accessing a database to sort information from it into tables, analyzing stocks in a human-readable dashboard, and scheduling job candidate interviews without intervention from a real person. AI 'agents', though powered by large language models (LLMs), differ from AI writers in that they utilise systems to automate a workflow based on a user's prompt, rather than produce a single piece of output. Manus isn't offering anything especially new, though it is notable that, up until now, perhaps, AI agents haven't had the best reputation; known for struggling with factual information, and basically being non-functional. Others, however, aren't as impressed. TechCrunch's Kyle Wiggers gave a cohesive account of their experience, reporting crashes, and failures on tasks ranging from simple (booking a table at a restaurant) to the convoluted ("Then I asked the platform to build a Naruto-inspired fighting game)". Comparisons have also been made with DeepSeek's LLMs, though these don't quite add up. Manus and DeepSeek might both hail from China, but DeepSeek is not an agent, and Manus is not open source, and indeed has no release schedule. That said, an open source version, OpenManus, is in active development. Manus coming from a Chinese startup has caused unease, with some circles, Axios notes, worrying China is gaining ground in a so-called "race for AI supremacy". Two industry figures told TechRadar Pro their doubts surrounding agentic AI still remain. Corpora.ai's CEO, Mel Morris, said that "Manus' demonstrations showcase the potential of Agentic AI as a significant step forward. However, granting autonomous AI agents like Manus the ability to perform independent actions raises serious concerns." "We have already witnessed numerous examples of generative AI and so-called reasoning models producing flawed outputs. If given autonomy over high-stakes tasks - such as buying and selling stocks - such imperfections could lead to chaos. The ability to compare stock fundamentals and trading activity in minutes is vastly different from successfully navigating the complexities of the market." Similarly, Copyleaks co-founder and CEO Alon Yamin said that ,"while innovation in AI can drive remarkable efficiency, it also amplifies concerns around transparency, data security, and responsible oversight. Manus' cloud-based operations surface several critical questions about data governance: Who controls the information? Where does it reside? How is the data protected?" "As AI systems become more autonomous, ethical development and regulatory alignment must be prioritized. AI governance solutions that help organizations detect and mitigate AI risks remain critical, ensuring advancements like Manus AI are deployed responsibly and transparently."

What you need to know about Manus, the new AI agentic system from China hailed as a second 'DeepSeek moment'

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Stop me if you've heard this one before: A little-known Chinese startup is making waves globally for an impressive new AI product. No, we're not talking about DeepSeek R1, the AI reasoning model that made waves among Western AI circles earlier this year. Instead, the hot new product du jour is called Manus, and it's a new AI multipurpose agent -- that is, more than an AI model, it's an interface for controlling multiple models that can go off and, on its own, autonomously, complete complicated tasks like generating reports or running dozens of social media accounts on the user's behalf. If it sounds similar to the Deep Research modes offered by OpenAI, Google, and others, as well as OpenAI's Operator agent and Anthropic's Computer Use mode (the latter two of which can, like Manus, take control of a user's computer or programs on it, moving the cursors and typing to perform actions within software), then congrats -- you've understood what it aims to offer. But for action-oriented leaders and decision makers within enterprises here in the West and abroad -- such as chief technology officers, product managers, IT team leaders, and more -- what do they need to know about Manus and the capabilities it offers? Read on to find out. What is Manus and who's behind it? Manus AI was officially announced on March 5, 2025 on the social network X with a post from the company describing it as "the first general AI agent" that autonomously executes complex tasks rather than just generating ideas. According to a South China Morning Post (SCMP) report, Manus was developed by a Chinese company called Butterfly Effect, which has offices in Beijing and Wuhan. The company reportedly has only a few dozen employees but has rapidly gained attention in China's AI landscape. The founding team includes entrepreneurs and experienced product managers, led by Xiao Hong, a 33-year-old serial entrepreneur and 2015 graduate of Wuhan's Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Xiao previously built WeChat-based applications that were acquired by larger companies and later launched Monica.ai, an AI assistant available as a browser extension and mobile app. On its website, Manus is said to be named for the Latin word for "hand," a nod to the fact that users can rely on it to perform actions for them, or, in my words, to "lend them a hand." How does Manus AI work? Manus AI is designed as a multi-agent system, meaning it combines several AI models to handle tasks independently. Unlike AI chatbots that assist users by providing information, Manus can research, analyze data, generate reports, automate workflows, and even write and deploy code. According to X posts by Ji Yichao, co-founder and chief scientist of Manus AI, the system is built on Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet -- a nine-month-old AI model at this point -- and fine-tuned versions of Alibaba's Qwen models. The team is currently testing upgrading Manus to Anthropic's newest and most performant model, Claude 3.7, which is expected to further enhance its reasoning and execution capabilities. Manus AI operates asynchronously, meaning users can assign tasks and walk away while it completes them autonomously. It is currently in private beta, with access granted through invitation codes. How does Manus AI stack up against the U.S.-based competition? One of the biggest reasons Manus AI has gained traction is its strong benchmark performance, beating U.S. firm OpenAI's own o3-powered Deep Research agent and the "previous state-of-the-art" according to a graph posted on the official Manus website. This claim, along with real-world tests, has led some AI power users and early adopters to the conclusion that Manus may be one of the most capable autonomous AI agents available today. Beyond benchmarks, Manus has already proven itself on freelance platforms like Upwork and Fiverr and in Kaggle machine learning challenges, successfully executing complex real-world tasks. AI influencers celebrate Manus's arrival and impressive performance Conversation about Manus in media and AI circles took off late last week when users on the social network X noted that some people were using it to automate the management of up to 50 social accounts at one time, in realtime, showing off its capabilities to create fleets of engagement that businesses could use for reviews. In addition, though this hasn't yet been proven for Manus, the same tech could presumably used for all kinds of marketing and influence campaigns, even political propaganda or disinformation. But for the most part, AI power users and influencers in the West were largely impressed and celebrated Manus's arrival -- awed by their initial tests of it once they received some of the scarce beta invites, or observed the work of others with access to the tool. Rowan Cheung, founder of The Rundown AI newsletter, described Manus AI's launch as a potential turning point for AI agents and said "China's second DeepSeek moment is here," in a post on his LinkedIn account. "This AI agent called 'Manus' is going crazy viral in China right now... It's like Deep Research + Operator + Claude Computer combined, and it's REALLY good." Cheung personally tested Manus and found that it: He received 500 invite codes from the Manus team and has been dolling them out to his subscribers and readers. Former Googler and AI-focused YouTuber Bilawal Sidhu shared a hands-on video review, calling Manus "the closest thing I have seen to an autonomous AI agent." "It's like you're standing over the shoulder of somebody using a computer... asking them what to do at the highest level, and it basically does it for you." Sidhu tested Manus on various tasks, including: Sidhu emphasized that Manus breaks down complex workflows and executes them step-by-step, making it one of the most autonomous AI agents available today. Another AI influencer, Chubby (@kimmonismus on X), claimed that Manus AI outperformed OpenAI's Deep Research: "I do not get paid for promotion. I just tried preview access, and it outperformed OpenAI's Deep Research by a lot! Mind-blowing." Andrew Wilkinson, co-founder of the startup exit provider and acquirer Tiny, wrote on X that "It's absolutely insane. I feel like I just time travelled six months into the future. I threw it a zip file of 20 applicants for a CEO job and it did a deep dive on each, one by one..." Big questions about Manus's future remain Despite the excitement, questions and concerns have emerged about Manus AI's true capabilities. According to the South China Morning Post, very few people have been able to test Manus AI because of severe server shortages following its sudden rise to fame. Zhang Tao, Manus AI's product partner, admitted in a social media post: "The current invite-only mechanism is due to genuinely limited server capacity at this stage... The team underestimated the enthusiasm of the public response, and our server resources were only planned for a demonstration level." This lack of availability has fueled speculation that Manus AI might be using scarcity marketing tactics to generate hype. Invitation codes for Manus were reportedly being sold on China's second-hand marketplace Xianyu, leading to frustration among potential users. In addition, users such as @teortaxesTex on X (the self-described "stan #1", or obsessive fan, of DeepSeek) opined that "it's a product devilishly optimized for influencers, which is why it exploded so much. Generating threadboy content, trip plans and such general interest [mind blown emoji, hand pointing down emoji] stuff - yah. STEM assistance, coding - worse than googling. More LLM than agent." In other words, some believe it's good for influencers looking to build up a following through spammy lists and tips posts, but not as good as other tools at work like development. Even former VentureBeat writer and current TechCrunch-er Kyle Wiggers said in a piece over the weekend, "Manus probably isn't China's second 'DeepSeek moment'." Is Manus AI the real deal? Unlike DeepSeek R1, which developed its own foundation model, Manus AI relies on existing large language models (LLMs), such as Claude and Qwen. This has led some critics to question how much of Manus's technology is truly original. Yichao Ji acknowledged this in the official introduction video, stating: "Manus operates as a multi-agent system powered by several distinct models." Despite this, Ji emphasized that Manus AI is committed to open-source development and will release some of its models to the public later this year. Currently in private beta, Manus AI is only available via invitation codes. The company plans to expand access soon, but server limitations may delay a full public launch. An open-source component is planned, allowing developers to integrate parts of its AI system. While some view Manus AI as a breakthrough in autonomous AI agents, others remain skeptical about its true capabilities, business model, and scalability. As the hype around Manus AI continues to grow, the question remains: Is this the next DeepSeek moment, or just another overhyped AI product?

New Chinese AI agent Manus draws DeepSeek comparison

Driving the news: Manus AI, named after the Latin word for hand, is billed as "a general AI agent that turns your thoughts into actions." Ji's demo shows Manus handling three separate tasks, sorting through resumes, identifying correlations in various stocks and searching through New York real estate -- rating nearby schools and assessing how much the user can realistically afford. Why it matters: As with DeepSeek, the advent of Manus is alarming some U.S. observers who worry that China is catching up in what is often cast as a race for AI supremacy. Yes, but: For now, Manus is in invitation-only private testing. What they're saying: Manus has sparked a flurry of online discussion, with enthusiasm for its capabilities, critiques of its limitations, and warnings about its implications for privacy and security. The other side: Skeptics are already questioning whether Manus can live up to the claims being made for it. Between the lines: Manus arrives at a moment of growing concern over dangers autonomous AI agents might pose.

What is Manus AI? The autonomous assistant that wants to do the work for you

Ironically, you almost need AI assistance to keep up with the breakneck pace of advancements in AI models, chatbots, and software. It was much simpler times when ChatGPT still had that new-car scent, and we could all happily and simply point to that as the shining example of what an AI assistant is. However, the times, they are a-changing -- and they're changing quite fast. Unfortunately for OpenAI, and anyone trying to tread water in an ever-widening gyre of AI news, the wider AI landscape is now crowded with several large and competitive models all vying to be crowned the current AI meta -- from Anthropic's best-kept-secret Claude to Google's Gemini underdog, the established Microsoft Copilot to the fledgling Apple Intelligence, and the unleashed Grok to the cheap (and steeped in controversy) DeepSeek. And that's just the "mainstream" crowd. Beyond them lies a tidal wave of proactive AI agents, chatbots that don't just reply, but react with thought, reason, planning, and eventually execution. These aren't just AI coaches shouting from the sidelines, they're charging into the end-zone, ball in hand, and scoring you the winning goal. In theory, at least. Enter Manus, an autonomous "general agent" from Chinese AI startup Monica. Currently enjoying a swell of hype and fervor online, Manus is positioned by some as the future of the AI assistant, with Hugging Face's head of product, Victor Mustar, calling it the "most impressive AI tool I've ever tried." It's this kind of hype that has led to invite codes to the freshly released tool being highly sought after, with some users even taking to eBay to cash in on their Manus accounts for up to $1,000 a pop. The hype is undeniable. But what exactly is Manus? Is an AI agent ready to take the wheel, or is this just another bot donning a shiny new buzzword? Let's take a closer look. Manus is an autonomous AI agent developed by Monica, a Chinese AI startup, that relies on Claude Sonnet and Qwen finetunes models over a proprietary option to handle complex tasks with minimal human oversight. Manus is claimed to be the world's first fully autonomous AI agent. To put it simply, Manus can take a single vague input, say a request to help book a trip, and break it down into subtasks to execute step by step. Hopefully, when it returns to you, it does so with a full itinerary of potential destinations, flights, prices, and more. As Manus Co-founder and Chief Scientist Yichao "Peak" Ji puts it, in the Introducing Manus: The General AI Agent video (shown below) published to YouTube on March 5, "This isn't just another chatbot or workflow, it's a truly autonomous agent that bridges the gap between conception and execution. While other AIs stop at generating ideas, Manus delivers results." So, we know what Manus is set up to be, but why is it important? One of the key words from Manus' introduction to pay attention to is autonomous. Manus is designed to not only offer solutions to problems but to work them out on behalf of the user without any hand-holding. This is known also as agentic AI, with models capable of acting independently to achieve an outcome. Showcasing the potential of these models, "Peak" goes through three demos in the introducing Manus video. The first revealed how the AI can be used for screening resumes contained within a .zip file and presenting a spreadsheet of the results. The second example saw Manus researching properties in New York based on certain criteria before writing its own Python program to calculate the user's budget and find suitable accommodation before providing a final report. The third saw Manus manage stock analysis, interacting with APIs to complete its analysis before publishing the results as a website with interactable charts directly to the internet. Each example is triggered by a simple user prompt. In the hands of users, Manus has even been used to create Threejs games like rudimentary flight sims, Crossy Road/Frogger clones or endless runners, vibrant animations with p5js, edit podcasts, and even design entire websites. Manus is praised for its ability to take action on user prompts and deliver outcomes, rather than be another chatbot that just summarizes the popular opinions and methods found within Reddit threads and websites across the internet -- and it helps that its developers have claimed that it surpasses even OpenAI's Deep Research in the GAIA (General AI Assistants) benchmark. Manus' importance comes from the fact that it allows users to achieve complex results with little knowledge of how to execute them, in a fraction of the time it would take even skilled users to achieve. Right now, Manus is in private beta, with access to the tool limited to those with an invite. As mentioned, this hard turned Manus invites and accounts into something of a hot commodity online with accounts offering access to Manus being resold online -- capitalizing on the hype surrounding the tool as its exclusivity creates an aura of FOMO (fear of missing out) in the tech world. Users interested in checking out Manus for themselves can join the waitlist for the private beta by visiting the Manus.im homepage, and applying for access. That said, Manus has been reverse-engineered already, and an invite-free version of the tool called OpenManus has appeared on GitHub for all users to make use of -- assuming you have a powerful enough GPU, at least 200GB of storage available, and the patience to set it up. As to be expected with any powerful tool such as Manus emanating from China (see: DeepSeek), there are the standard concerns about transparency and data privacy. However, Manus is also generating some level of notoriety surrounding the likelihood of Monica's overpromising of its capabilities with Forbes contributor Lutz Finger calling the tool "far from novel," "overhyped," and "just another large language model executing scripted workflows," claiming that Manus will face the same limitations of OpenAI's DeepResearch model -- offering "plausible-sounding but fundamentally flawed insights." Another piece of controversy surrounding the tool is its extensive use of AI influencers to signal its arrival, many of whom are circulating the same examples of its successes. Meanwhile, other users have found the tool to be buggy, initiating endless loops, giving out factual errors, and even failing basic tasks. Manus is undeniably intriguing and offers a glimpse of what a truly autonomous AI agent can accomplish. That said, we've been burned by bold claims before, and until this tool exits private beta, it's best to take it for what it is: promising but not yet fully proven. Whether Manus turns out to be the revolutionary breakthrough that its introductory video claims it to be remains to be seen. However, it is an exciting step toward that breakthrough, even if it is still a little rough around the edges.

Debut of Manus AI digital assistant from China causes stir

A new Chinese artificial intelligence agent billed as able to work independently from humans has sent insiders buzzing -- some with concern and others with disappointment. The Butterfly Effect startup has been working quietly for the past year on its AI digital assistant Manus, co-founder Yichao "Peak" Ji said in a launch video posted on YouTube. "We see it as the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration, and potentially a glimpse into AGI," he said, referencing general artificial intelligence that aims to think the way humans do. Manus launched in an invitation-only phase last week, with tickets tough to come by. Reviews surfacing on social media ranged from sensational to lackluster. "Got access and it's true... Manus is the most impressive AI tool I've ever tried," Hugging Face's head of product design Victor Mustar said in a post on X. "The agentic capabilities are mind-blowing, redefining what's possible." Criticism included those saying Manus stumbles on simple tasks such as booking a flight, or that they ran into error messages or endless loops. And since the AI processing is hosted in the cloud, users worried about the security of their data. Whether Chinese companies are taking the lead on AI has been a hot topic since China-based DeepSeek burst onto the scene in January. DeepSeek's model challenges those created by OpenAI, Google, and other US rivals but operates at a fraction of the cost. The latest artificial intelligence trend has been digital "agents" specialized for specific tasks or fields. Anthropic and OpenAI have both added such capabilities to their AI platforms since late last year. Butterfly Effect described Manus as being able to carry out tasks such as buying property in New York or editing a podcast. But TechCrunch journalist Kyle Wiggers wrote of Manus failing when asked to order him a sandwich or find him a plane ticket to Japan during a tryout. China's rapid advances in AI despite US restrictions on exports of cutting-edge computer chips worry Silicon Valley. And unleashing AI agents on the internet without tight regulation raises concerns about mishaps or abuses, like stock market chaos caused by digital agents that make factual errors. Corpora.ai chief executive Mel Morris did not see Manus as a "revolutionary leap" from existing AI models but saw its ability to access remote computer servers as a potential risk to data confidentiality.

China has a new 'completely autonomous' AI agent. Here's what to know about Manus

In the past year, artificial intelligence leaders have talked about the advent of agents that can do work autonomously. Now, China says it has developed the world's first. Last week, Chinese researchers launched an early preview of Manus AI, which they said is "the first general AI agent." "This isn't just another chatbot or workflow," Yichao "Peak" Ji, chief scientist for Manus AI, said in an introductory video. "It's a truly autonomous agent that bridges the gap between conception and execution." While other AI agents are useful for idea generation, Ji said Manus AI "delivers results" without much human prompting. The agent's name comes from the Latin motto "Mens et Manus," which translates to "Mind and Hand." "We see it as the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration, and potentially a glimpse into AGI," Ji said, referring to artificial general intelligence -- the point when AI will be believed to have reached and surpassed human-level intelligence. According to the Manus AI website, the agent can perform real-world tasks such as providing custom travel plans, researching real estate properties for affordability, and performing correlation analyses between stocks. Ji demonstrated Manus screening 15 resumes, then providing its ranking suggestions and evaluation of each candidate. He then instructed the agent to put the information into a spreadsheet. "Manus has its own knowledge and memory, so I can teach Manus that the next time it handles a similar task, it will deliver a spreadsheet right away," Ji said Because Manus works asynchronously in the cloud, Ji said, users can close their laptop while it completes tasks. The agent can also receive new instructions while it is working. On the GAIA Benchmark, which evaluates general AI assistants, Ji said Manus has achieved state-of-the-art performance alongside OpenAI's Deep Research agent. The agent is already performing tasks on freelance work platforms such as Upwork (UPWK-2.43%) and Fiverr (FVRR-2.10%), Ji said. Ji said the agent's capabilities "wouldn't be possible without" the open-source community, which means its code, datasets, and parameters are available for anyone to access and build upon. The agent "operates as a multi-agent system," and is powered by different AI models, Ji said, adding that the team plans to open-source some of the models later this year. According to Hugging Face, Manus was developed by a Chinese AI startup called Monica.im, which is developing next-generation autonomous agents. However, other reports say Manus was built by a Chinese firm called Butterfly Effect. Dean Ball, an AI research fellow at George Mason University, said in a post on X that it was "wrong" to compare Manus to China's breakthrough AI moment with DeepSeek earlier this year. "Deepseek was about replication of capabilities already publicly achieved by American firms," Ball said. "Manus is actually advancing the frontier." Victor Mustar, head of product at Hugging Face, called Manus "the most impressive AI tool I've ever tried," in a post on X. Mustar said Manus's "agentic capabilities are mind-blowing, redefining what's possible." However, other AI researchers were not so impressed. Alexander Doria, co-founder of French AI lab PlelAs, said in a post on X that despite liking the agent's user-interface, "it's fundamentally a workflow" and "not an actual agent (at least nothing really beyond the built-in agentic capacities of Claude)." Professor and researcher Derya Unutmaz said in a post on X that he ran OpenAI's Deep Research alongside Manus. While Deep Research completed Unutmaz's task in under 15 minutes, Manus failed after 50 minutes, and didn't finish all the necessary steps.

China's Manus AI Challenges OpenAI's $200 Agent -- If You Can Get an Invite - Decrypt

A new AI agent platform from China called Manus is rapidly becoming a darling among tech enthusiasts and, if the hype is to be believed, could be a credible rival to OpenAI's Deep Research and Operator agents. Of course, whether the hype is true remains to be seen since access to the platform remains closely held and is available by invite only with some people supposedly paying astronomical sums of money to get an invitation. And even among those who have apparently accessed the model, there's debate about whether it's as revolutionary as some users claim. The agent-focused platform was launched earlier this month by startup Monica AI, which is reportedly headquartered in Beijing. Manus bills itself as a "general AI agent" able to book trips, analyze stocks, create educational content, compare insurance policies and more. The platform is designed to do tasks without the user having to configure APIs, or set up complex environments. It's supposed to understand a prompt, go to the web, analyze what's on the screen, and execute tasks autonomously. OpenAI charges $200 monthly for access to its advanced agents, which are supposedly comparable. Manus is currently free, though will charge a modest monthly fee once it fully rolls out. Access scarcity -- due to server load -- has created a secondary market for invitation codes on Chinese marketplace Xianyu where prices for a beta account have allegedly reached 10 million yuan (over $1.3M). That said, if such a link was on Xianyu it is no longer available and the transaction could have been designed to create FOMO, or fear of missing out. As of now, mentions to codes for Manus have been banned from the app. Manus has yet to respond to a request from Decrypt for comment. Manus derives its name from the Latin word for "hand," positioning itself as a "universal hand" for users. The company claims it achieved state-of-the-art performance on the GAIA benchmark (a test that measures how good models are at agentic capabilities) across all difficulty levels, outperforming OpenAI's models and other agentic technologies by a wide margin. Some users have already tried the model and the reactions were mixed. "It's absolutely insane. I feel like I just time travelled six months into the future," Andrew Wilkinson, co-founder of technology holding company Tiny wrote after its first tests. Others agree. "Manus is the most impressive AI tool I've ever tried," AI researcher Victor Mustar wrote. "The agentic capabilities are mind-blowing, redefining what's possible." And Deedy Das, an investor at Menlo Ventures, also hyped the model. "This is the AI agent we were promised," he tweeted, noting that it features "Deep Research+Operator+Computer Use+Lovable+Memory." That said, skepticism has been mounting since scammers created a crypto token with the same name, leading to Manus's X account being temporarily suspended. "Manus AI didn't do anything except being too popular all of a sudden to the point where their name was used by the same-name cryptocurrency with high scam risk. That led to their X account being banned," app developer AlvinWeb3 wrote. Indeed, a number of users claim that the platform is predominantly a marketing stunt: "Manus seems to have enlisted many Chinese AI influencers to praise it... Chinese netizens realized that this was a huge marketing scam, and Manus's reputation in China has been ruined," tweeted one user . Others found Manus' performance underwhelming. After giving the agent some complex tasks, users noticed it was slow, fell into loops, and sometimes failed at executing what was required. "After giving Manus a spin I conclude it's a product devilishly optimized for influencers, which is why it exploded so much," pseudonymous user Teortaxes tweeted last week. "Generating threadboy content, trip plans and such general interest stuff-yah. STEM assistance, coding-worse than googling. More LLM than agent." Others seemed disappointed by the fact that Manus AI relies on Claude and is not really an agent with a proprietary foundational model. "We use Claude and different Qwen-finetunes," Monica AI's Jichao Yi admitted. The company employs its own fine-tuned models and proprietary techniques, but its core services appear to rely primarily on those two models. Some users speculated that since Monica AI used third party models, it would be possible to come up with an open source alternative soon -- and they were right. For those unwilling to shell out $200 or wait for a Manus invitation, OpenManus, an open-source project created by contributors from the MetaGPT community may be a good option. This free alternative allows users to run AI agents locally using any model they want. "Compared to Manus, which requires an invitation code, OpenManus does not require any entry barrier, and users only need to clone the code and configure the LLM API to get started quickly," the model's card on AI Share Net reads. OpenManus has gained a lot of traction, with its GitHub repository amassing nearly 25,000 stars in just a few days. The project continues to develop, with plans for web-based access and optimized configurations. AI agents are a rapidly growing market, valued at $5.4 billion in 2024 with projected annual growth of 45.8% through 2030 according to Grand View Research. These autonomous programs are being used in industries from healthcare to retail, streamlining processes previously requiring human intervention. Though AI agents are a promising idea, they are not yet provably successful at executing truly complex tasks. OpenAI seems to be working on specialized agents that can fulfil these requirements -- for $20,000 a month. For now, the race to build your perfect AI helper boils down to three choices: pay up, wait in line, or build it yourself.

What is Manus AI and is it having a DeepSeek moment?

A new Chinese AI platform is causing a frenzy. But is it worth the hype? Euronews Next takes a look. A new Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) platform called Manus AI claims to have developed the world's first fully autonomous AI agent, which is making waves globally as a new impressive AI benchmark that follows the success of fellow Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek. Its release was announced on March 5 on the social media platform X by the start-up Butterfly Effect, which built Manus. The company called it "the first general AI agent" that autonomously executes complex tasks. But it has already drawn criticism from experts who warn about data privacy. Here is all we know about Manus AI and what it can do. Tech companies are battling it out to develop AI agents, which do not have a specific definition but can generally be explained as having some degree of autonomy, meaning they can perform tasks such as ordering groceries, analysing data, and generating reports following the instructions of a human rather than just providing information. Manus AI says on its website that it was named after the Latin word for hand and is "a general AI agent that turns your thoughts into actions". The platform shows on its website that it can supposedly perform tasks such as buying property, programming video games, analysing stocks, and planning travel itineraries. Manus' creator said in a video that it is more than "just another chatbot or workflow... It's a completely autonomous agent". "We see it as the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration and potentially a glimpse into AGI," Manus AI chief scientist Yichao "Peak" Ji said, referring to artificial general intelligence, a type of AI that matches or surpasses human cognitive capabilities and that we could lose control of. The platform was not developed entirely from scratch, as it relies on existing large language models (LLMs) such as Anthropic's Claude and Alibaba's Qwen. But Manus AI has gained attention because of its claims about its strong benchmark performance, which shows it beat OpenAI's o3-powered Deep Research agent, according to a graph posted on the official Manus website. Some AI experts have said Manus AI is "China's second DeepSeek moment," according to Rowan Cheung, founder of The Rundown AI newsletter, in a LinkedIn post, who later tested the platform. "This AI agent called 'Manus' is going crazy viral in China right now... It's like Deep Research + Operator + Claude Computer combined, and it's REALLY good," he added. But other experts said that despite being heralded as another major AI breakthrough, Manus is unlikely to live up to the hype. "From what we've seen through demonstrations of Manus so far, there is plenty of evidence that Manus doesn't get things right on the first try or gets stuck in infinite loops," Bradford Levy, assistant professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in the US, told Euronews Next. "Overall, there's a notable lack of transparency around what Manus is really capable of doing, which would suggest that for all the talk around Manus, there's a good chance it won't meet expectations," he added. Levy also warned that users should be wary of the data they are feeding to platforms such as Manus and question the ties it has to the Chinese Communist Party. China's National Intelligence Law states that companies must "support, assist and cooperate" with state intelligence agencies, meaning that any data shared on mobile and web apps can be accessed by those agencies. "At this point, it is well established that Beijing is actively working to covertly collect sensitive information on people around the globe. What better way to achieve that end than to provide a shiny app where people willingly turn over sensitive information?" said Levy. Other Manus AI users said there were error messages and that it made mistakes and missed information that could be found easily online. "Unfortunately, Manus AI failed after 50 minutes at step 18/20! It was performing quite well-I was watching Manus' output & it seemed excellent. However, running the same prompt a second time is a bit frustrating as it takes too long," said Pierre-Carl Langlais, the co-founder of AI startup Pleias, in a post on X. Manus is in invitation-only private testing for the moment. "The current invite-only mechanism is due to genuinely limited server capacity at this stage," Zhang Tao, Manus AI's product partner, said in a social media post. "The team underestimated the enthusiasm of the public response, and our server resources were only planned for a demonstration level," he added.

China's new AI agent Manus calls its own shots

The concept is simple, and Manus is far from the first to try it. You may remember that last year we had Devin, which was marketed as a junior software engineering employee. It was an AI agent that you interacted with via Slack to give tasks, and which it would then work on achieving without further human input except, ideally, of the kind a human employee might occasionally need. The economic incentives to build something like Manus or Devin are overwhelming. Tech companies pay junior software engineers as much as $100,000 a year or more. An AI that could actually provide that value would be stunningly profitable. Travel agents, curriculum developers, personal assistants -- these are all fairly well-paid jobs, and an AI agent could in principle be able to do the work at a fraction of the cost, without needing breaks, benefits or vacations.

What to know about Manus, China's latest AI assistant

Beijing (AFP) - A powerful new AI tool Manus is making waves in China, fuelling hopes that it could replicate the success of DeepSeek, which earlier this year rattled the global tech industry with its state-of-the-art chatbot. Manus, an AI agent generally considered more advanced than a chatbot, can do everything from analysing the stock market to creating a personalised travel handbook for a trip with simple instructions from users, its website says. Manus was released last week by Chinese startup Butterfly Effect. In a now viral introductory video posted online, co-founder Yichao "Peak" Ji hailed it as "the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration, and potentially a glimpse into AGI," referencing artificial general intelligence that aims to think the way humans do. Currently accessible only by invitation, Manus has quickly gained traction, with its official Discord server growing to more than 170,000 members. Its name comes from the Latin motto "Mens et Manus", meaning "mind and hand" -- a nod to its integration of knowledge and practical application. Exclusive access Manus is a "system that can carry out tasks autonomously on behalf of users", said Manoj Harjani, a research fellow at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). "DeepSeek and ChatGPT differ from Manus in that they provide responses to prompts from users through a chat-style interface, whereas Manus is able to execute tasks such as booking tickets and sorting through resumes," he explained. And while DeepSeek was quietly developed behind the scenes before rising to prominence, Manus is taking a different route -- limiting access to an invite-only beta and targeting enterprise-level clients, one analyst said. "While this exclusivity can generate buzz, it may also impede widespread adoption," said Marina Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney's Australia-China Relations Institute. She warned Manus may not cultivate the same broad appeal as DeepSeek, which built a large community through open-source engagement, if it continues to retain a closed ecosystem. When AFP tested Manus with an invitation code given by the company, the AI assistant took significantly longer than DeepSeek to generate responses. But it was able to complete more difficult tasks compared to its Chinese rival or ChatGPT, like creating custom websites. Touchy topics And while DeepSeek said it was "programmed" to provide answers that toe the government line on topics considered politically sensitive in China, Manus was able to give accurate, non-censored responses. On the topic of the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Manus responded by stating that "the Chinese government carried out a violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing", followed by six more paragraphs detailing the incident. It also gave a comprehensive answer when asked about allegations of human rights abuses by Beijing in Xinjiang. Asked about its uncensored replies, the programme said it does not "intentionally censor factual information". "When discussing sensitive topics like historical events or human rights issues, I aim to provide balanced, objective information that helps users understand complex subjects," it added. This could likely be because Manus "is focused on tasks and the team didn't build content control as thoroughly as chatbots like DeepSeek and ChatGPT", said Li Jianggan, founder of Momentum Works, a Singapore-based consultancy focused on tech companies. - Next DeepSeek? - Whether Manus can achieve mainstream success like DeepSeek will depend on its ability to scale to meet demand, RSIS's Harjani told AFP. But Manus is unlikely to be the next DeepSeek as they are different types of AI applications, he added. Its ability to grow would rely on "adequate computing power and effective handling of potential challenges such as technical stability and ethical or regulatory considerations", Zhang told AFP. "If Manus can successfully address these issues... it could indeed be a major player in the enterprise automation space," she said. But it remains "far from perfect" and is likely not open to the wider public yet as the team may still want to make improvements to the programme, Li said. "It is dealing with real world problems and executing real world tasks, which are diverse and complex," he told AFP.

China's newest AI agent Manus gets global attention for its autonomous smarts - SiliconANGLE

China's newest AI agent Manus gets global attention for its autonomous smarts Just weeks after Chinese AI developer DeepSeek Ltd. shocked the world with its low-cost alternative to ChatGPT, another Chinese startup is making similar noise, having released what it claims is one of the most advanced autonomous artificial intelligence systems yet available. It's called Manus AI, and it's said to be a next-level AI system that "bridges minds and actions", by not just processing information but delivering complete results on behalf of its users. Created by a company called Monica, it was launched on March 6 and has already gotten global attention, with its creators saying it surpasses OpenAI's DeepResearch model on the GAIA benchmark. Whereas AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Grok and Google's Gemini require human input to perform tasks, Manus is able to make decisions progressively and complete various tasks independently, its creators claim. As such, it doesn't need to wait for the user to provide it with instructions before it goes and does something. As an example, if a user asks it to "find me an apartment", Manus will not just look through various real estate listings, but also research and evaluate multiple factors such as crime rates, weather and commute times to provide more specific recommendations. Manus doesn't use one specific model. In fact, it uses multiple sub-agents that are specialized in different areas, which allows it to perform complex, multistep workflows with ease. In addition, it works asynchronously, which means it runs in the background, notifying users only when its output is ready. Media reports have been ablaze with stories of how Manus is a game-changer, representing a shift towards fully independent AI systems that can operate without humans guiding them. It raises exciting possibilities, and also increases fears about AI replacing human workers and, perhaps, taking on too much responsibility. In a glowing report, Forbes claims that Manus promises to "change everything" by trampling on the idea that the U.S. is the uncontested leader in AI development. It says Manus is proof that China has not only caught up with the U.S., but potentially overtaken its rival in the race to develop fully autonomous AI agents. There's no doubt that Manus has some interesting real-world applications. For instance, Manus has the ability to autonomously analyze resumes, cross-reference job market trends and produce the most desirable candidates out of a pool of job applicants, complete with a detailed report on each one. Manus can also lend itself to software development, quickly generating a website from scratch, its creators say. Once it has a design in place, it can even deploy that website online, resolving any technical issues with hosting etc. Such capabilities suggest Manus could represent a real threat to human workers, as it has the ability to actually replace some roles rather than just improving their efficiency. In turn, this raises ethical questions and also regulatory concerns. For instance, beyond causing mass unemployment, what would happen if an autonomous AI agent makes a costly mistake that causes a business to lose millions of dollars? Who would be responsible for that? At present, regulators seem unequipped to deal with the prospect of independent AI agents. Then again, it may be that Manus doesn't live up to the hype. For now, the AI agent is only available to use to select beta testers, with access being invite-only. The creators of Manus say they're still working to scale Manus and iron out any issues reported by users, but multiple reports suggest they may have their hands full. Among other things, there have been claims of numerous error messages and endless loops from users testing Manus, reports of mistakes on factual questions, a failure to cite its results and schoolboy errors such as this one: TechCrunch's Kyle Wiggers, who has early access, also reported multiple instances where Manus failed to perform seemingly trivial tasks such as ordering a sandwich, booking a hotel room or developing a Naruto-inspired fighting game. That said, others have been thoroughly impressed with Manus, and it's undeniably the case that it took the internet by storm over the weekend, with reports of astounded users popping up all over the place. It remains to be seen if the creators can fix the initial teething problems, but in any case the arrival of Manus is set to further challenge the assumption that Silicon Valley's leading tech companies will have it all their own way in the race to dominate AI.

Manus is a Wrapper of Anthropic's Claude, and It's Okay

"Manus didn't just slap an API on a model. They built an autonomous system that can execute deep research, deep thinking, and multi-step tasks in a way that no other AI have." Over the last few days, the AI ecosystem has been struck by a familiar sense of déjà vu, echoing the DeepSeek phenomenon, as a new Chinese startup enters the fast-evolving territory of AI agents. Manus, based out of Shenzen in China, has built what they call a 'general purpose AI agent'. The general agent can plan, execute and deliver complete results autonomously while browsing websites in real time, processing and generating multiple data types. It also uses multiple tools to deliver results. Despite Manus being available invite-only, its capabilities blew up quickly. Deedy Das, principal at Menlo Ventures said, "Manus, the new AI product that everyone's talking about, is worth the hype. This is the AI agent we were promised." He highlighted that the agent could complete two weeks worth of professional work in around an hour. Andrew Wilkinson, co-founder of technology holding company Tiny, said, "I feel like I just time travelled six months into the future." He even went on to say he got Manus to build and replace a software his company currently spends $6,000 annually on. The company also showcased various capabilities such as creating detailed itineraries, in-depth data analysis of stocks and businesses, research reports on various topics, designing games, interactive educational courses, etc. Users are also calling it a combination of deep research tools, autonomous operator and computer use functionality, and a coding agent equipped with memory. Besides Manus' agentic "mind-blowing capabilities", the platform has also garnered praise for its overall user experience (UX). "The UX is what so many others promised, but this time it just works," Victor Mustar, head of product at Hugging Face, said. Besides, Manus also necessitates human work to grant various permissions and approvals. Manus also evaluated the agent in the GAIA benchmark, which tests general AI assistants on solving real-world problems. As per the results, Manus outperformed OpenAI's Deep Research. Source: Manus AI However, a few days later, X users discovered that Manus was running on top of Anthropic's Claude Sonnet model, along with many other tools like Browser Use. Some users were quick to express their disappointment. As a result, some even say that Manus has no 'moat', or advantage in the market to begin with. To achieve its capabilities, Manus is a 'wrapper' of the best AI models in the ecosystem. This practice is associated with a strange negative connotation on social media. At the end of the day, Manus has been successful in building a well-designed interface to leverage the agentic capabilities of a foundational AI model. Aidan McLaughlin, a professional at OpenAI, mentioned on X, that he doesn't care about the fact that it is a wrapper. "If it created value, it deserves my respect. Care about capabilities, not architecture." Besides, preliminary reviews of Manus also underscore the power of the current AI models today; abilities even the labs making them haven't been able to unleash. "Manus didn't just slap an API on a model. They built an autonomous system that can execute deep research, deep thinking, and multi-step tasks in a way that no other AI have," said Richardson Dackam, founder at GitGlance.co. Moreover, if Manus was built on top of existing models from the United States, why would they not be able to ship these capabilities themselves? "I assume every US lab has these capabilities or better behind the scenes and isn't shipping them due to risk aversion, some of which comes from regulatory risk," revealed Dean W Ball, an AI researcher. However, on the brighter side, Manus is built on top of existing LLMs. This indicates that its capabilities can be replicated. This led to a wave of anticipation among several users on X, many of whom hoped to see an open source version. It seems these wishes were granted sooner than expected. A few developers on GitHub have already developed an open source alternative for Manus called 'OpenManus'. This project is now available on GitHub. However, Manus has received its fair share of criticism as well. Users reported that Manus took an excessive time to perform the task and failed to finish them altogether. Derya Unutmaz, a biomedical scientist, compared it to OpenAI's Deep Research and revealed that while the former finished the task in 15 minutes, Manus AI failed after 50 minutes at step 18/20. Simon Smith, EVP of generative AI at Klick Health, attributed these issues to the fact that Manus' underlying model may not be as good as OpenAI's Deep Research. Further, he added that because Manus is using multiple models underneath, it might take longer than Deep Research to produce a full report. Another user pointed out that Manus gets stuck on web searches, "breaks in between" due to context issues on code-based tasks, and was generally slow. Some users also critiqued Manus' invite-only approach for gaining access, and how they were handed out to influencers on social media to churn up the hype. Granted that Manus is still in its early stage, it will likely refine its capabilities. However, one critical question remains. How long until OpenAI, Anthropic or even Google step up, and ship a more accessible version of what Manus can do?

Manus: China just launched an AI that works autonomously

Shenzhen-based company The Butterfly Effect launched Manus, a fully autonomous AI agent capable of independent thought and action, sparking significant discussion in the global AI community about the implications of AI making its own decisions. Manus distinguishes itself as the world's first fully autonomous AI agent, functioning not merely to assist humans but to replace them. It can analyze financial transactions, screen job candidates, and execute tasks across various industries without oversight, performing these tasks with speed and precision that surpasses seasoned professionals. Manus's capabilities mark a departure from existing AI models like OpenAI's ChatGPT-4 and Google's Gemini, which rely on human prompts. Instead, Manus autonomously initiates tasks, assesses new information, and adjusts its approach accordingly. For instance, when provided with a zip file of resumes, Manus not only ranks candidates but also evaluates relevant skills in relation to job market trends, presenting a fully optimized hiring decision with an accompanying Excel report. In property searches, it analyzes crime statistics, rental trends, and weather patterns to generate tailored recommendations. China's Zuchongzhi-3 just crushed Google's quantum computing supremacy The infrastructure of Manus relies on a multi-agent architecture, operating like an executive that oversees specialized sub-agents. This allows Manus to handle complex tasks by dividing them into manageable components, effectively tackling workflows that previously required multiple AI tools. Furthermore, Manus operates asynchronously in the cloud, processing tasks in the background without the need for constant user engagement. Tech writer Rowan Cheung successfully had Manus generate his biography and create a personal website in minutes, showcasing its potential for handling complex tasks without further user input. However, other users, including Alexander Doria from AI startup Pleias, encountered various issues such as error messages and the inability to execute simple tasks effectively, indicating that Manus is still in need of improvement. Despite its initial teething problems, Manus has garnered significant excitement. The official Discord server quickly amassed over 138,000 members, and invite codes are reportedly selling for thousands on the Chinese resale market Xianyu. Prominent figures in the AI community have praised Manus, with some calling it the most sophisticated AI tool available. However, some experts have pointed out that Manus is not developed from scratch but combines existing AI models. As its capabilities are tested in real-world applications, Manus raises important ethical and regulatory questions. For instance, if it makes decisions that lead to significant financial losses, the question of responsibility arises. Current regulatory frameworks, especially in the U.S., are based on the assumption that AI requires human oversight, which Manus challenges. The Butterfly Effect has stated its commitment to improving Manus, addressing reported issues from users as part of a closed beta testing phase. Nevertheless, the emergence of Manus has prompted a reassessment of the competitive landscape in artificial intelligence, suggesting that the race for AI supremacy now includes strong players from China.

AI Agent Manus Might Be China's Second DeepSeek Moment

Manus AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) agent developed by the AI firm Monica, was introduced last week. China based 'The Butterfly Effect' is Monica's parent company, and called Manus a general AI agent that can handle a wide range of tasks of high complexity. After a video showcasing the capabilities of the AI agent was shared on social media platforms, Manus was given the accolade of "China's second DeepSeek moment." Notably, the system operates using multiple large language models (LLMs). Information about the Manus AI agent is available on its dedicated website. The company calls it a "general AI agent" that "excels at various tasks in work and life." While there are several AI agents available in the market, including the likes of OpenAI's Operator, Google's Gemini Deep Research, and Salesforce's Agentforce, these are largely limited to domain-specific tasks. Instead, the company claims that Manus can complete tasks such as planning a trip, analysing stocks and portfolios, conducting research, and even purchasing products online. It comes equipped with a sandboxed computer environment where it can perform tasks and the processing occurs asynchronously in the cloud. In the video, Yichao "Peak" Ji, a research lead working on Manus highlighted that the AI agent is powered by several AI models, but did not disclose any details about them. Based on internal testing, the AI firm also highlighted that Manus outperforms OpenAI's DeepResearch tool on the General AI Assistant (GAIA) benchmark. Currently, the AI agent is only available to some testers, and it is unclear when the platform will be accessible to the general population. The research lead also stated in the video that the company will soon share more details about the AI models to contribute to the open-source community. However, no details about the AI agent itself are available or have been announced to be made public. This has raised some concerns over the capability claims made by Monica. Some of those who have received early access to Manus have shared contradictory opinions about the AI agent. Victor Mustar, the Head of Product at Hugging Face called it the "most impressive AI tool I've ever tried" in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter). However, Alexander Doria, the Co-Founder of the AI startup Pleias, claimed to have encountered errors on a regular basis while testing the model.

Manus AI invite codes selling for a fortune on social media

The frenzy over the new Chinese AI agent Manus has created a parallel trading market on social media platforms and some websites selling second-hand items. Some users who have managed to get limited access to its beta testing invitation codes are selling them for upwards of 50,000 Chinese yuan, even as the waitlist on the platform crosses 1 million. On Xianyu, a platform for second-hand goods, a Manus invitation code was sold for 100,000 yuan ($13,797, or more than Rs 12 lakh), China Daily reported. Monica.im, the creator of the AI agent, has distributed 100-500 invitation codes to select social media influencers, which netizens called a clever marketing strategy. However, Manus AI partner Zhang Tao said "no marketing budget has ever been invested", and that the adoption of invitation codes was due to "limited server capacity that could not be avoided". The invitation codes distributed by influencers for testing and analysis are being resold by some members of the community. ET interacted with one X account who was offering the code at $1,000. Meanwhile, some AI researchers and content creators are offering the access codes only for legitimate testing, by running competitions for best test-cases. "DeepSeek initially launched with an open-access model, but server crashes forced a shift to restrict email signups," said Ritesh Ujjwal, cofounder of Kofluence -- a social media influencer management firm. "Now, Monica.im has captured attention with its waitlisted access approach, a strategy so compelling that some individuals are trading waitlist tokens on secondary markets -- potentially a PR approach to heighten interest," he added. Manus AI is being called the "second DeepSeek moment" out of China, as the agent is capable to think, plan and execute actions by itself -- such as planning a trip, making bookings, etc. -- without human intervention. It demonstrates capabilities similar to the combination of OpenAI's Deep Research, Anthropic's Computer Use and Perplexity's web search. Also Read: Manus AI: China's second DeepSeek moment "Manus AI agent appears to be a significant advancement over earlier AI agents unveiled by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and other general-purpose AI developers," said Suraj Amonkar, chief AI research and platforms officer at AI company Fractal Analytics. "Its performance on the GAIA benchmark is highly impressive, but even more remarkable is the leap in autonomy with which it operates," Amonkar said. "The agent's ability to handle multiple sub-tasks across several screens in parallel is particularly noteworthy, enabling it to accomplish far more complex tasks than previously seen."

Manus AI: China's second DeepSeek moment

While DeepSeek signalled China's progress in large language models, Manus is a leap into AI autonomy, capable of executing multi-step workflows, accessing authoritative data sources through application programming interfaces (API).The launch of Manus AI, a general AI agent that claims to bridge minds and actions, is considered China's "second DeepSeek moment". In January, the country had released DeepSeek, a rival to OpenAI's GPT-4. Yichao 'Peak' Ji, a 33-year-old Chinese entrepreneur and tech enthusiast known for creating the mobile browser Mammoth and founding Peak Labs in the US, is the cofounder and chief scientist of Manus AI. While DeepSeek signalled China's progress in large language models, Manus is a leap into AI autonomy, capable of executing multi-step workflows, accessing authoritative data sources through application programming interfaces (API). Yichao Ji calls Manus "the first general AI agent" with the potential to solve real world problems. "We see it as the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration and potentially a glimpse into artificial general intelligence (AGI)," he said. Autonomous AI agent Backed by Chinese investors and developer Monica.im, Manus is currently available as an invitation-only web preview. From screening resumes, to conducting research or correlation analysis between stocks, it has varied use cases. Towards AI autonomy GAIA serves as a benchmark for assessing General AI Assistants in tackling real-world challenges. Manus has achieved new state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance across all its three difficulty levels. The AI was evaluated using the same configuration as its production version for reproducibility. "This isn't just another chatbot or workflow. It's a truly autonomous agent that bridges that gap between conception and execution. While other AIs stop at generating ideas, Manus delivers results," Yichao Ji said while presenting the demonstration. For instance, when given a prompt like "find me an apartment in San Francisco," Manus analyses crime rates, rental trends, and user preferences to create an optimised shortlist without needing further input, as per use cases cited by the company. The second DeepSeek moment The launch of DeepSeek was seen as a "Sputnik moment" due to China's ability to create efficient large language models (LLMs) at a fraction of the cost of its American counterparts. Industry leaders in Silicon Valley quietly recognise that China's aggressive advancements in autonomous systems could grant it a first-mover advantage in key sectors. Manus AI further proves that such progress can be replicated. It follows the battle between OpenAI and DeepSeek, the most cost-efficient reasoning model. The open-source availability of Chinese models allows more industries, including governments, healthcare, banking, and insurance, to adopt AI as they now have an on-premise alternative. Implications for India During the second day of his Microsoft India AI Tour in January, CEO Satya Nadella said that India can do great work in the area of Indic languages and transforming its industries using artificial intelligence. As many as 91% of India-based companies will use half or more of their data to train AI models in 2024, ET reported. While training neural networks on extensive natural-language data requires significant computational power and engineering expertise, relying solely on APIs to connect clients with existing products is a cautious approach, as per a Bloomberg report. Now is the moment to adopt a more ambitious approach, say experts -- one that moves beyond merely customizing OpenAI's GPT-4, China's DeepSeek, Google's Bard, or Meta's LLaMA with specialised data for a fee. India's pragmatic approach India will emerge as one of the key players not only in providing services but also as a major technology creator in the age of artificial intelligence, Union minister for information and broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw said at the 25th ET Awards for Corporate Excellence. "We should have three foundational models by the end of this year. Developing our own GPU... we should be having in the next three to four years. Just a couple of days ago, we launched the 14,000 GPU common compute facility. That's a common compute facility available for all startups, academia, entrepreneurs, researchers, everybody, Vaishnaw said. ET reported earlier this month that the government is currently evaluating 67 applications for an Indian foundational model, of which 22 are large language models. While challenges remain, noting the use cases for AI, India has a unique opportunity to leverage AI for social entrepreneurship in areas like agriculture and healthcare to solve key challenges of the developing world.

What to know about Manus, China's latest AI assistant

A powerful new AI tool Manus is making waves in China, fuelling hopes that it could replicate the success of DeepSeek, which earlier this year rattled the global tech industry with its state-of-the-art chatbot. - Whether Manus can achieve mainstream success like DeepSeek will depend on its ability to scale to meet demand, RSIS's Harjani told AFP. But Manus is unlikely to be the next DeepSeek as they are different types of AI applications, he added.A powerful new AI tool Manus is making waves in China, fuelling hopes that it could replicate the success of DeepSeek, which earlier this year rattled the global tech industry with its state-of-the-art chatbot. Manus, an AI agent generally considered more advanced than a chatbot, can do everything from analysing the stock market to creating a personalised travel handbook for a trip with simple instructions from users, its website says. Here's what you need to know about Manus: Rapid rise Manus was released last week by Chinese startup Butterfly Effect. In a now viral introductory video posted online, co-founder Yichao "Peak" Ji hailed it as "the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration, and potentially a glimpse into AGI," referencing artificial general intelligence that aims to think the way humans do. Currently accessible only by invitation, Manus has quickly gained traction, with its official Discord server growing to more than 170,000 members. Its name comes from the Latin motto "Mens et Manus", meaning "mind and hand" -- a nod to its integration of knowledge and practical application. Exclusive access Manus is a "system that can carry out tasks autonomously on behalf of users", said Manoj Harjani, a research fellow at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). "DeepSeek and ChatGPT differ from Manus in that they provide responses to prompts from users through a chat-style interface, whereas Manus is able to execute tasks such as booking tickets and sorting through resumes," he explained. And while DeepSeek was quietly developed behind the scenes before rising to prominence, Manus is taking a different route -- limiting access to an invite-only beta and targeting enterprise-level clients, one analyst said. "While this exclusivity can generate buzz, it may also impede widespread adoption," said Marina Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney's Australia-China Relations Institute. She warned Manus may not cultivate the same broad appeal as DeepSeek, which built a large community through open-source engagement, if it continues to retain a closed ecosystem. When AFP tested Manus with an invitation code given by the company, the AI assistant took significantly longer than DeepSeek to generate responses. But it was able to complete more difficult tasks compared to its Chinese rival or ChatGPT, like creating custom websites. Touchy topics And while DeepSeek said it was "programmed" to provide answers that toe the government line on topics considered politically sensitive in China, Manus was able to give accurate, non-censored responses. On the topic of the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Manus responded by stating that "the Chinese government carried out a violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing", followed by six more paragraphs detailing the incident. It also gave a comprehensive answer when asked about allegations of human rights abuses by Beijing in Xinjiang. Asked about its uncensored replies, the programme said it does not "intentionally censor factual information". "When discussing sensitive topics like historical events or human rights issues, I aim to provide balanced, objective information that helps users understand complex subjects," it added. This could likely be because Manus "is focused on tasks and the team didn't build content control as thoroughly as chatbots like DeepSeek and ChatGPT", said Li Jianggan, founder of Momentum Works, a Singapore-based consultancy focused on tech companies. Next DeepSeek? Whether Manus can achieve mainstream success like DeepSeek will depend on its ability to scale to meet demand, RSIS's Harjani told AFP. But Manus is unlikely to be the next DeepSeek as they are different types of AI applications, he added. Its ability to grow would rely on "adequate computing power and effective handling of potential challenges such as technical stability and ethical or regulatory considerations", Zhang told AFP. "If Manus can successfully address these issues... it could indeed be a major player in the enterprise automation space," she said. But it remains "far from perfect" and is likely not open to the wider public yet as the team may still want to make improvements to the programme, Li said. "It is dealing with real world problems and executing real world tasks, which are diverse and complex," he told AFP. Its success remains a "big question mark".

Debut of Manus AI digital assistant from China causes stir

A new Chinese artificial intelligence agent billed as able to work independently from humans has sent insiders buzzing -- some with concern and others with disappointment. "We see it as the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration, and potentially a glimpse into AGI," he said, referencing general artificial intelligence that aims to think the way humans do.A new Chinese artificial intelligence agent billed as able to work independently from humans has sent insiders buzzing -- some with concern and others with disappointment. The Butterfly Effect startup has been working quietly for the past year on its AI digital assistant Manus, co-founder Yichao "Peak" Ji said in a launch video posted on YouTube. "We see it as the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration, and potentially a glimpse into AGI," he said, referencing general artificial intelligence that aims to think the way humans do. Manus launched in an invitation-only phase last week, with tickets tough to come by. Reviews surfacing on social media ranged from sensational to lackluster. "Got access and it's true... Manus is the most impressive AI tool I've ever tried," Hugging Face's head of product design Victor Mustar said in a post on X. "The agentic capabilities are mind-blowing, redefining what's possible." Criticism included those saying Manus stumbles on simple tasks such as booking a flight, or that they ran into error messages or endless loops. And since the AI processing is hosted in the cloud, users worried about the security of their data. Whether Chinese companies are taking the lead on AI has been a hot topic since China-based DeepSeek burst onto the scene in January. DeepSeek's model challenges those created by OpenAI, Google, and other US rivals but operates at a fraction of the cost. The latest artificial intelligence trend has been digital "agents" specialized for specific tasks or fields. Anthropic and OpenAI have both added such capabilities to their AI platforms since late last year. Butterfly Effect described Manus as being able to carry out tasks such as buying property in New York or editing a podcast. But TechCrunch journalist Kyle Wiggers wrote of Manus failing when asked to order him a sandwich or find him a plane ticket to Japan during a tryout. China's rapid advances in AI despite US restrictions on exports of cutting-edge computer chips worry Silicon Valley. And unleashing AI agents on the internet without tight regulation raises concerns about mishaps or abuses, like stock market chaos caused by digital agents that make factual errors. Corpora.ai chief executive Mel Morris did not see Manus as a "revolutionary leap" from existing AI models but saw its ability to access remote computer servers as a potential risk to data confidentiality.

Manus AI: China's new AI agent can plan your Japan trip and offer analysis of stocks. 10-point explainer

Weeks after Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek caused a whirlwind with its DeepSeek-R1 model, a new Chinese artificial intelligence agent, Manus, has rapidly captured the attention of the AI community with its ability to handle complex, real-world tasks. Just like DeepSeek, Manus is currently capturing the attention of people across the globe. Some publications have already monikered it as 'yet another DeepSeek moment' for China. -Chinese startup Monica, which developed Manus, introduced this new AI agent as a platform which "bridges minds and actions: it doesn't just think, it delivers results". It is reportedly grabbing eyeballs owing to its ability to handle complex real-world tasks. -Manus, launched on March 6, quickly captured global attention within days of its release, drawing comparisons to the excitement surrounding DeepSeek's R1 model just weeks earlier. According to its creators, Manus even surpasses OpenAI's DeepResearch on the GAIA benchmark. ALSO READ: 'Maybe they'll fall in love': Trump's bizarre remark on NASA's Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore stuck in space -The company posted the demo video on X Wednesday night, and by Thursday afternoon, it had amassed over 200,000 views. Many users were spotted requesting invitation codes to try out the AI agent. Just weeks earlier, a similar buzz surrounded DeepSeek R1 -- DeepSeek AI's model -- which was reportedly developed at a fraction of the cost of leading models from OpenAI, Meta, and Google. -According to media reports, Manus is an advanced AI agent designed to think, plan, and execute real-world tasks on its own. It can come up with an itinerary for a trip to Japan, offering an in-depth analysis of stocks, creating interactive coursework for school teachers, analysing different insurance policies, etc- just with a single prompt. -Unlike standard AI chatbots, which can provide answers, Manus takes full action to complete tasks. For instance, when asked to create a report on climate change, it will independently research, draft the report, generate charts, and compile a comprehensive final document without requiring additional instructions. ALSO READ: What is a strategic bitcoin reserve and why did Trump establish it? Story in 10 points -Developed by a low-profile team and backed by Chinese investors and developers, Manus is currently available as an invitation-only web preview. A demonstration video on its website, manus.im, showcases its ability to create a custom website through a step-by-step process. -Dubbed as the world's first truly general AI agent, Manus can also outperform OpenAI's DeepResearch based on the GAIA benchmark -- a third-party benchmark to assess general AI assistants. -Manus AI has been designed to autonomously perform complex tasks across various industries, according to its makers. Its key features include autonomous operations and asynchronous cloud-based functionality, enabling users to assign tasks and disconnect their devices. -China has been at the helm of several AI breakthroughs in 2025. Despite limited information about its corporate structure, team, and underlying models, Manus has generated significant interest. -Ever since Manus made it to the internet, several users have been sharing clips of its jaw-dropping demonstrations. One of the demos shows the AI agent controlling 50 different screens simultaneously. The AI agent can be seen using various online platforms like X, Telegram, and many others all at once in a demonstration of unparalleled level of automation. ALSO READ: 'They voted for me in heavy numbers, so I like them even more': Trump's big announcement on Irish-Americans It's not that difficult to getting started with this new AI. Like in another AI chatbot, one can begin by using a prompt. For example, if you request a 7-day travel itinerary to Bali within a specific budget, Manus will research and compile real-time data to create a structured plan. Manu AI can also generate files, browse the web actively, interact with web pages, capture screenshots, and record browsing activity for future reference.

Move Over DeepSeek? Not So Fast: China's Manus AI Goes Viral, But Early Users Say It Crashes, Loops, And Fumbles The Basics - NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

China's Manus AI is being hyped as the next big leap in agentic AI -- maybe even a "DeepSeek moment" -- but early testers say the platform might be more sizzle than substance. What Happened: Developed by Chinese startup Monica, the daughter company of The Butterfly Effect, Manus is billed as an "autonomous agent" capable of handling complex tasks like booking flights, ordering food, and even programming video games. Its invite-only beta sparked massive buzz, with over 130,000 users joining its Discord server and invite codes reportedly selling for thousands of dollars on Chinese reselling app Xianyu, reported TechCrunch. Some influencers and tech executives praised Manus as revolutionary. Hugging Face's head of product called it "the most impressive AI tool I've ever tried," while AI researcher Dean Ball dubbed it "the most sophisticated computer using AI." See Also: 'Fire The Intel Board,' Says Former CEO Craig Barrett As He Pushes Back On Breakup Plans, Urges Focus On Chipmaking Wins But some user experience tells a different story. Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox. Alexander Doria, co-founder of AI startup Pleias, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he encountered "endless loops" and errors. Zengyi Qin, a generative AI researcher, also took to X and shared his views saying, "Manus is NOT a technology breakthrough," because it mainly follows pre-defined workflows to perform tasks and operates within fairly limited environments. Manus' website makes lofty claims -- like buying real estate or building apps autonomously -- but some of the platform's core functions reportedly rely on fine-tuned versions of existing models like Anthropic's Claude and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s (NYSE BABA) Qwen. Yichao "Peak" Ji, a research lead for Manus, called the tool a "completely autonomous agent" and claimed it outperforms OpenAI's Deep Research on the GAIA benchmark. But a viral video touting Manus' capabilities was later confirmed by Ji to not be a real demo. Why It's Important: The rise of Manus comes at a time when the AI landscape in China is rapidly evolving. DeepSeek, another Chinese AI firm, has been under scrutiny by the U.S. government, which is considering restrictions on its operations. DeepSeek's AI models have been made open-source, allowing them to be freely downloaded and copied. In January 2025, DeepSeek's assertion that its AI model was developed at a fraction of the cost compared to its U.S. competitors resulted in Nvidia Corp NVDA losing $600 billion in market value in just one day. Moreover, a study by Copyleaks revealed that 74% of DeepSeek's output mimics OpenAI's ChatGPT, raising questions about its development process. Meanwhile, earlier this month, Tencent's Yuanbao AI has surpassed DeepSeek as the most downloaded iPhone app in China. Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link. Read Next: MrBeast Lost Millions On Amazon's 'Beast Games' -- Now He's Looking To Raise Hundreds Of Millions To Take His Brand To The Next Level Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo courtesy: Shutterstock NVDANVIDIA Corp$110.28-2.14%Stock Score Locked: Edge Members Only Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Unlock RankingsEdge RankingsMomentum83.77Growth88.54Quality97.93Value7.44Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewMarket News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Manus AI's Strengths and Weaknesses Explored in Real-World Challenges

The new Manus, autonomous AI agent, was rigorously tested across three distinct challenges by All About AI to assess its capabilities in coding, data analysis, and email management. These evaluations aimed to determine its ability to independently execute complex tasks while identifying areas for refinement. This detailed assessment explores Manus AI's strengths, limitations, and potential applications, offering insights into its current performance and future possibilities. Imagine a world where the most tedious parts of your workday -- coding repetitive scripts, analyzing data, or managing an overflowing inbox -- could be handled seamlessly by an AI. Whether you're a tech enthusiast curious about the future of automation or someone simply looking for ways to lighten your workload, this evaluation offers valuable insights. From writing Python scripts to analyzing career trends and even managing emails, Manus AI's journey reveals not just what it can do today, but what it might achieve tomorrow. The first challenge tested Manus AI's programming proficiency. The task, sourced from Upwork, required the agent to analyze JSON data and generate an Excel file using Python. Manus AI autonomously interpreted the job requirements, wrote a Python script, and completed the task successfully. By using Python libraries, it parsed the JSON data and formatted the output into an Excel file that adhered to the specified criteria. Key takeaways from this challenge: This challenge underscored Manus AI's alignment with the increasing demand for automation in software development. While its performance in basic coding tasks was commendable, its capabilities in advanced programming remain to be fully explored. The second evaluation focused on Manus AI's data analysis and reporting abilities. The task involved analyzing a CSV file containing post-college salary data to recommend the top three careers based on technological, geopolitical, and macroeconomic trends. Manus AI approached the challenge by integrating external research, creating data visualizations, and compiling an MDX report to present its findings. The agent's recommendations included: Manus AI demonstrated an ability to synthesize data and produce actionable insights. However, the report's formatting and presentation lacked the professional polish expected in high-stakes data analysis tasks. Enhancing these aspects could significantly improve its utility in professional environments, particularly for decision-making and strategic planning. Here are additional guides from our expansive article library that you may find useful on Manus and other AI models. The final test assessed Manus AI's email management skills. The agent was tasked with logging into ProtonMail, responding to an email, researching geopolitical news, and sending a newsletter. Manus AI successfully navigated the email interface, composed a functional response, and attempted to format and send a newsletter. However, minor issues arose with formatting and attachment handling. Key observations from this challenge: While Manus AI showed promise in managing routine email operations, its usability in more demanding scenarios requires improvement to meet the expectations of professional users. Across all three challenges, Manus AI exhibited strong autonomous capabilities, particularly in interpreting requirements, using external tools, and integrating data sources. Its performance in coding and data analysis was especially noteworthy, demonstrating its potential for technical and analytical roles. However, several limitations were identified that highlight areas for improvement. Key limitations observed: Despite these challenges, Manus AI's performance highlights its promise as a versatile tool for diverse tasks. With further refinement, it could evolve into a more robust solution for professionals across industries. Enhancing its usability, output quality, and adaptability will be critical to unlocking its full potential. Future development priorities: As AI technology continues to advance, Manus AI represents a significant step toward autonomous and efficient task management. Its ability to handle coding, data analysis, and email management tasks demonstrates the practical potential of AI in modern workflows. With ongoing improvements, Manus AI could play a pivotal role in shaping the future of automation and productivity, offering professionals a powerful tool to streamline operations and enhance decision-making.

What Is China's Manus AI Agent? Explained

It has been revealed that Manus AI is powered by Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Browser Use, and several fine-tuned versions of Qwen models. The release of China's Manus AI agent is being hailed as the "second DeepSeek moment." Unlike standalone AI agents, Manus is a general AI agent that can accomplish a broad range of tasks you throw at it. However, if you're curious how Manu AI works and who the people behind it are, then keep reading. To better understand China's latest AI agent, go through this detailed explainer on Manus AI, its technologies, and more. Manus is a general AI agent that can autonomously browse the web, run code, and interact with a computer to complete a wide range of tasks. It has been developed by a Chinese company called Butterfly Effect, which is headquartered in Wuhan. Butterfly Effect is a relatively small company with only dozens of employees, based out of Wuhan and Beijing. Currently, Manus AI is in closed beta phase, and it's only available via invitation. What is unique about Manus is that it has integrated a lot of tools into a single workflow. For example, OpenAI's Operator agent is a Computer-using agent that can interact with a cloud computer, however, it's available as a separate product. Similarly, OpenAI's Deep Research agent can browse the web to generate a comprehensive report. Again, it's a separate product. Now, what Manus AI is doing is clubbing all these agents and tools to create a single "general" AI agent that can perform deep web research, find information, generate a detailed plan, operate a computer, and run code in an isolated session. OpenAI has also said that GPT-5 will be a unified system, integrating ChatGPT's tools into a single AI system. However, China's Manus AI has taken the lead in this direction before ChatGPT. Now, this begs the question, what powers the Manus general AI agent? The chief scientist of Manus, Yichao 'Peak' Ji revealed in an X post that Manus uses Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet model and various fine-tuned versions of Alibaba's Qwen models. In addition, it uses the open-source Browser Use AI agent (GitHub) to interact with websites in a web browser. There are also reports saying that Manus has access to 29 different tools. Manus is internally testing Anthropic's latest Claude 3.7 Sonnet unified model, which will improve the agent even further. In addition, Reuters reports that Manus has partnered with Alibaba's Qwen team to expand its general AI agent. While we don't have access to Manus AI agent right now, the company has listed various use cases on its website. It can book flight tickets, reserve a table at a restaurant, analyze stocks and earnings reports of companies, perform data analysis, and more. Moreover, Manus can sort through resumes and analyze all the files, generating a report with candidate profiles and ranking suggestions. You can also download files in Excel or Word documents on your local computer. By the way, the Manus AI agent has access to its own computer environment where it can preview files, interact with them, use a web browser, run Python code, and more. It breaks down the tasks into small steps and then goes to the web to accomplish them one by one. You can see what the agent is doing and also intervene in case the agent takes a wrong turn. Once the task is done, you are notified on your computer or smartphone. The Manus AI agent has been benchmarked on GAIA (General AI Assistants), which is a rigorous benchmark that challenges AI agents to solve real-world questions. It requires "a set of fundamental abilities such as reasoning, multi-modality handling, web browsing, and generally tool-use proficiency." On GAIA, Manus achieved the highest score of 86.5% in Level 1 tasks, outperforming OpenAI's Deep Research agent, which scores 74.3%. By the way, we humans score around 92% on GAIA tasks. Manus did better than OpenAI's Deep Research agent on Level 2 and Level 3 tasks as well. Overall, the Manus general AI agent marks a promising step toward an agentic future. While some of the hype may be blown out of proportion, the Manus team has done a good job integrating a lot of tools. Remember that Manus is still in closed beta and the team has assured that it will be improved significantly before the AI agent becomes available to the general public. It looks like OpenAI has a new competitor in the AI agent space, besides DeepSeek, and both hail from China.

How Manus AI is Redefining Task Automation and Workflow Management

Manus AI is reshaping the landscape of artificial intelligence as a fully autonomous AI agent. With advanced capabilities in automating tasks, conducting research, coding, and creating content, it is emerging as a powerful tool for professionals and developers. Although its potential is vast, there are notable limitations. This overview by Wes Roth provides a comprehensive perspective on its features, applications, strengths, and challenges within the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem. As with any innovative technology, Manus AI comes with quirks and growing pains. It sometimes struggles with highly intricate tasks and occasional hiccups in external integrations. What makes it truly exciting is not just what it can do today but also the potential it holds for tomorrow. In this article, we explore its capabilities and real-world applications that are already turning heads. Manus AI stands out as the first fully autonomous AI agent capable of managing intricate workflows with minimal user intervention. Its innovative multi-agent architecture is central to its functionality. This system comprises specialized sub-agents that collaborate under the supervision of an executive agent. By autonomously breaking down tasks, executing them, and addressing errors, Manus AI offers a streamlined approach to workflow management. This architecture not only enhances efficiency but also reduces the need for constant user oversight, making it a valuable asset for complex projects. Manus AI is equipped with a diverse range of features that make it a versatile tool across various industries. Its core capabilities include: These features position Manus AI as a robust solution for professionals seeking to optimize their workflows and achieve greater efficiency. Expand your understanding of Autonomous AI Agents with additional resources from our extensive library of articles. Manus AI has demonstrated its versatility through various real-world applications, showcasing its ability to adapt to different domains. Some notable examples include: These examples illustrate the broad scope of Manus AI's capabilities while also highlighting areas where further refinement is needed. Manus AI offers several key advantages that make it a valuable tool for users across different fields. Its primary strengths include: These strengths underscore Manus AI's potential to transform how professionals approach task management and automation. Despite its many strengths, Manus AI is not without its challenges. Some of its key limitations include: These challenges reflect the current limitations of Manus AI and point to opportunities for further development and refinement. The future of Manus AI is promising, with its anticipated open source release in 2025 marking a significant milestone. Open-sourcing will empower users to integrate more advanced language models, enhancing its performance and adaptability. Additionally, its modular design allows for customization and upgrades, allowing users to tailor the platform to their specific needs. These developments position Manus AI as a key player in the advancement of AI-powered automation and productivity tools. As it continues to evolve, Manus AI has the potential to drive innovation across industries, offering new possibilities for task automation, research, and creative workflows. Its ability to adapt and integrate with innovative technologies ensures that it will remain a valuable resource for professionals and developers alike.

Can Manush be China's Next DeepSeek?

In China's fast-moving tech landscape, innovation rarely hits pause. Just weeks after DeepSeek's R1 model stirred the AI waters, a new player has stepped into the spotlight, Manus. Developed by the Chinese startup Monica, Manus is already drawing comparisons to DeepSeek and shaking up discussions about the future of autonomous AI. But the real question is: Could Manus be China's next DeepSeek? Let's dive deep. Launched on March 6, 2025, Manus isn't just another digital assistant. It's a fully autonomous that doesn't just follow instructions; it plans, executes, and delivers complete results on its own. Whether it's creating a website, analyzing stock trends, planning trips, or automating workflow tasks, Manus is designed to take a single prompt and run with it, literally. And it's not stopping until the job is done. Even if a user disconnects, continues processing tasks in the cloud, working independently until completion. But what's truly setting Manus apart isn't just its autonomy. It's how Manus interacts with its environment in real-time, displaying its workflow live, switching between multiple tasks, gathering data from various platforms like X and , and even capturing screenshots or recording its activities for review. Manus isn't just about text or simple answers; it delivers end-to-end, actionable solutions. Whether it's a comprehensive investment report or a detailed 7-day travel itinerary, Manus not only researches but also creates supporting materials like PDFs, charts, and presentations. And yes, it learns from users over time, refining its responses for better personalization.

A new rival to DeepSeek emerges: Everything you need to know about Manus AI - Softonic

Manus AI is an autonomous AI agent designed to execute tasks independently, offering a new approach to automation. Its capabilities are impressive, but concerns about data security remain. Artificial intelligence is advancing at an unprecedented pace, and a new player has entered the scene -- Manus AI. This agentic AI tool is designed to automate tasks without constant human input, making it a potential game-changer in the field of AI-driven work automation. But what exactly is Manus AI, and how does it compare to other tools like DeepSeek? Manus AI is an autonomous AI agent that can execute tasks without requiring continuous user intervention. Unlike traditional AI models that rely on direct prompts, Manus is designed to operate more like a digital assistant capable of independent decision-making. In demonstrations, it has been shown analyzing stock prices, scanning resumes, and even building websites, all with minimal human oversight. This represents a significant shift from tools like ChatGPT, which require users to issue commands for every interaction. With Manus AI, users can delegate complex projects and return to see the completed results, making it a more hands-off approach to AI-driven productivity. One of the main reasons for the buzz around Manus AI is its ability to act proactively rather than reactively. It doesn't just respond to queries -- it identifies tasks, sets goals, and executes them autonomously. This level of independence could redefine how businesses and individuals integrate AI into their workflows, pushing the boundaries of efficiency and automation. However, as with any cutting-edge AI tool, Manus AI is not without controversy. Since it was developed by a Chinese company, concerns have been raised about data security and transparency. Experts warn that, while its capabilities are impressive, there are still many unanswered questions regarding its reliability and ethical implications.

New Chinese AI agent Manus sparks industry buzz - VnExpress International

Launched on Mar. 6, Manus has been dubbed the "second DeepSeek moment" by media outlets, referring to its potential for groundbreaking innovation similar to the earlier success of a Chinese tech company this year. In a video posted on X, which garnered over 200,000 views shortly after its release, Manus was introduced as "an autonomous agent that bridges the gap between conception and execution, not only generating ideas but also delivering results." Forbes called Manus "the world's first fully autonomous AI agent, a system that doesn't just assist humans -- it replaces them." Capable of thinking, planning and executing tasks independently, Manus operates seamlessly in the real world, functioning like a human intern with an unlimited attention span. Unlike other AI systems, which typically require human input or are limited to specific tasks, Manus performs end-to-end results without prompts, creating a truly self-directed experience. The key to Manus' power lies in its multi-agent architecture. Rather than relying on a single neural network, Manus functions like an executive overseeing a team of specialized sub-agents. When tasked with complex problems, it divides the issue into manageable components, assigns them to the appropriate sub-agents, and monitors their progress. This enables Manus to handle multi-step workflows that would typically require multiple AI tools to be manually combined. Manus is developed by Butterfly Effect, a tech company based in Beijing and Wuhan with a team of several dozen employees, according to the South China Morning Post. The company's founders, including influential entrepreneurs and product managers, are credited with helping the product gain rapid popularity. The project is led by Yichao "Peak" Ji, a 33-year-old entrepreneur and co-founder of Peak Labs, who created the mobile browser Mammoth. The team also includes Xiao Hong, a 33-year-old entrepreneur known for developing popular WeChat plug-in apps. In 2022 Xiao launched Monica.ai, a widely used AI assistant available as a browser extension and mobile app. Manus has generated significant demand, with users clamoring for access despite being available by invitation only. Manus AI's product partner, Zhang Tao, admitted that the team underestimated public enthusiasm. Initially they planned to share only the AI agent's achievements, expecting limited demand, and so server resources were set up to handle demonstration-level traffic, he explained. "The current version of Manus is still in its infancy, far from what we aim to deliver in our final product."

All about Manus, China's latest AI assistant

BEIJING (AFP) - A powerful new artificial intelligence (AI) tool Manus is making waves in China, fuelling hopes that it could replicate the success of DeepSeek, which earlier this year rattled the global tech industry with its state-of-the-art chatbot. Manus, an AI agent generally considered more advanced than a chatbot, can do everything from analysing the stock market to creating a personalised travel handbook for a trip with simple instructions from users, its website said. Here's what you need to know about Manus: Manus was released last week by Chinese startup Butterfly Effect. In a now viral introductory video posted online, co-founder Yichao 'Peak' Ji hailed it as "the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration, and potentially a glimpse into AGI", referencing artificial general intelligence that aims to think the way humans do. Currently accessible only by invitation, Manus has quickly gained traction, with its official Discord server growing to more than 170,000 members. Its name comes from the Latin motto 'Mens et Manus', meaning 'mind and hand' - a nod to its integration of knowledge and practical application. Manus is a "system that can carry out tasks autonomously on behalf of users", said research fellow at Singapore's S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) Manoj Harjani. "DeepSeek and ChatGPT differ from Manus in that they provide responses to prompts from users through a chat-style interface, whereas Manus is able to execute tasks such as booking tickets and sorting through resumes," he explained. And while DeepSeek was quietly developed behind the scenes before rising to prominence, Manus is taking a different route - limiting access to an invite-only beta and targeting enterprise-level clients, one analyst said. "While this exclusivity can generate buzz, it may also impede widespread adoption," said associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney's Australia-China Relations Institute Marina Zhang. She warned Manus may not cultivate the same broad appeal as DeepSeek, which built a large community through open-source engagement, if it continues to retain a closed ecosystem. When AFP tested Manus with an invitation code given by the company, the AI assistant took significantly longer than DeepSeek to generate responses. But it was able to complete more difficult tasks compared to its Chinese rival or ChatGPT, like creating custom websites. And while DeepSeek said it was "programmed" to provide answers that toe the government line on topics considered politically sensitive in China, Manus was able to give accurate, non-censored responses. Asked about its uncensored replies, the programme said it does not "intentionally censor factual information". "When discussing sensitive topics like historical events or human rights issues, I aim to provide balanced, objective information that helps users understand complex subjects," it added. This could likely be because Manus "is focused on tasks and the team didn't build content control as thoroughly as chatbots like DeepSeek and ChatGPT", said founder of Momentum Works Li Jianggan, a Singapore-based consultancy focused on tech companies. Whether Manus can achieve mainstream success like DeepSeek will depend on its ability to scale to meet demand, RSIS's Harjani told AFP. But Manus is unlikely to be the next DeepSeek as they are different types of AI applications, he added. Its ability to grow would rely on "adequate computing power and effective handling of potential challenges such as technical stability and ethical or regulatory considerations", Zhang told AFP. "If Manus can successfully address these issues... it could indeed be a major player in the enterprise automation space," she said. But it remains "far from perfect" and is likely not open to the wider public yet as the team may still want to make improvements to the programme, Li said. "It is dealing with real world problems and executing real world tasks, which are diverse and complex," he told AFP.

After DeepSeek, China unveils Manus AI Agent: Here's what it does and how it works

Once you give Manus a task, it continues working in the cloud, even if you turn off your device. It seems like every other week, a new AI system is making waves in the tech world. Recently, DeepSeek caught everyone's attention, and now another Chinese AI model called Manus is creating a buzz. Developed by a startup named Monica, Manus is being compared to some of the most advanced AI agents built by companies like OpenAI and Google. Let's delve into the details of Manus. Manus is an AI agent designed to think, plan, and carry out tasks on its own. Whether you want to build a website, plan a trip, or analyse stock trends, Manus can do it all from a single prompt. It doesn't just generate text; it actively works through tasks step by step, without needing constant input. Launched earlier this month, Manus quickly gained global attention. In fact, Monica claims that Manus outperforms OpenAI's DeepResearch on the GAIA benchmark. Also read: DeepSeek data breach: A grim warning for AI security Currently, Manus is available through an invitation-only web preview, and there is no official public release date yet. However, given the excitement around it, a wider rollout could happen soon. It will be interesting to see how it evolves and competes with other big names in the AI space.