Imagine an AI that doesn’t just answer your questions—it rolls up its digital sleeves and gets things done. No waiting for commands, no back-and-forth clarifications. You give it a task, and it figures out the rest.  That’s Manus AI, a new kind of artificial intelligence that claims to be the world’s first true General AI agent.

Since its March 6 launch, Manus has been making headlines for one simple reason: it doesn’t just assist—it acts. Unlike chatbots that wait for your every prompt, Manus can plan, research, and execute tasks independently. 

Developed by Monica, a subsidiary of China-based Butterfly Effect, Manus has been called “China’s second DeepSeek moment”, hinting at its groundbreaking potential. The hype around Manus is undeniable. Tech leaders and AI researchers have taken notice, with influential voices such as Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey and Hugging Face product lead Victor Mustar publicly praising its performance.

Unlike traditional AI models that rely on a single large language model (LLM), Manus orchestrates multiple AI models—including Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Alibaba’s fine-tuned Qwen—allowing it to work autonomously on a wide range of complex tasks.

So, in this blog, we’ll explore everything about what makes Manus AI unique, how it works, what people are saying about it, and whether it truly lives up to the hype.

What is Manus AI and How Does It Work?

 

Manus AI, introduced by its co-founder and senior scientist Yichao “Peak” Ji, presents itself as the world’s first general AI agent—an AI system that doesn’t just follow instructions but operates autonomously, breaking down complex tasks, making decisions, and adapting to new information in real time.

What is a General AI Agent?

A general AI agent (or AGI—Artificial General Intelligence) refers to an AI system capable of reasoning, learning, and performing a wide range of tasks across different domains, much like a human. 

Unlike traditional AI, which is often specialized for a single function (e.g., trading bots or customer support chatbots), general AI agents can handle diverse and complex workflows without predefined instructions.

How Manus AI Works

Manus is more than just a chatbot—it operates like an executive managing a team of specialized AI sub-agents, each designed for specific tasks. Its multi-agent architecture allows it to:

• Break down complex tasks into smaller, manageable steps.
• Deploy specialized sub-agents (like planners, researchers, and coders) to complete different parts of a task.
• Browse the web, interact with APIs, and run scripts—giving it real-world usability beyond simple text-based interactions.
• Work asynchronously in the cloud, meaning users can shut down their computers, and Manus will continue working in the background, notifying them when the task is done.

Unlike OpenAI’s Operator or ChatGPT, which require continuous user input, Manus is designed to take initiative, adapt its approach based on new information, and operate independently—bringing it closer to true AGI.

Key Use Cases of Manus AI

Most AI tools out there promise to “change the game,” but let’s be honest—many just end up playing the same old game with slightly better graphics. Manus AI, however, is different. It doesn’t just summarize articles or spit out generic responses. It thinks, researches, strategizes, and executes in ways that are both unexpected and incredibly useful.

From building interactive courses to finding the best B2B suppliers, Manus AI doesn’t limit itself to the usual AI tasks. It goes deep into real-world applications, tackling problems with intelligence, precision, and a dash of genius. 

Some of its use cases? Absolutely mind-blowing. Others? So niche that you might not have even thought about them before—but once you see them, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them.

Of course, we won’t keep you guessing. Below are some of the coolest ways people have used Manus AI. And if you’re hungry for more details (trust us, you will be), you can always check out the full Use Case Gallery on the Manus AI website.

1. Personalized Travel Planning

Planning a trip can be overwhelming, but Manus AI streamlines the process. When organizing a trip to Japan in April, Manus integrates diverse travel data to curate a tailored itinerary. It even generates a custom travel handbook, ensuring a smooth and personalized experience.

2. Advanced Stock Market Analysis

Investors and analysts can rely on Manus for deep stock analysis. For example, when analyzing Tesla stocks, Manus creates visually compelling dashboards that present market trends, financial outlooks, and key performance indicators—helping users make informed decisions.

3. Interactive Educational Content

Educators can enhance learning experiences with Manus AI. For instance, it develops engaging video presentations for middle school teachers to explain complex concepts like the Momentum Theorem, making lessons interactive and accessible.

4. Insurance Policy Comparisons

Choosing the right insurance policy can be challenging. Manus AI simplifies the decision-making process by generating structured comparison tables, presenting key policy details, and offering tailored recommendations.

5. Intelligent B2B Supplier Sourcing

Businesses looking for reliable suppliers can leverage Manus AI’s extensive research capabilities. It identifies the most suitable B2B suppliers, ensuring quality and efficiency while acting as a dedicated procurement agent in the user’s best interest.

6. AI Research for the Fashion Industry

AI is reshaping retail, and Manus AI contributes by conducting comprehensive research on AI search products for the clothing industry. It provides product analyses, competitive positioning, and strategic insights.

7. YC Company Database Navigation

Startups and investors often need well-structured company data. Manus AI efficiently scans and organizes data from platforms like the YC W25 database, delivering detailed lists of B2B companies for market analysis.

8. Amazon Store Performance Optimization

E-commerce sellers can maximize their success with Manus AI. By analyzing Amazon sales data, it delivers actionable insights, detailed visualizations, and customized sales strategies to boost online store performance.

9. Historical Campaign Visualization

Manus AI enhances history education by creating custom-designed visualization maps. For example, it brings events like the Battle of Lexington to life, helping students grasp historical concepts through intuitive visual storytelling.

10. Automated Candidate Interview Scheduling

HR teams can optimize recruitment with Manus AI. By organizing interviews for 40+ candidates, it ensures efficient scheduling and time optimization, improving the hiring workflow.

11. Targeted B2B Customer Discovery

Manus AI helps businesses find potential customers by mapping out B2B customer profiles. Based on a company’s business model, it identifies the ideal target audience for optimized outreach.

12. Smart Teleprompter for Presentations

Public speakers, content creators, and professionals can use Manus AI’s professional teleprompter for seamless presentations. With adjustable speed, scalable fonts, and enhanced readability, it ensures flawless delivery every time.

A Sneak Peek Into Manus AI’s Capabilities

Seeing is believing, right? While we could go on and on about how impressive Manus AI is, nothing beats watching it in action. Luckily, the folks at Manus have given us a sneak peek into its capabilities through their official YouTube demo—where this AI doesn’t just talk the talk, it walks the walk… and maybe even codes the code.

Let’s break down three completely different tasks that Manus AI handles with the grace of a seasoned pro and the efficiency of a caffeine-fueled intern.

1. Resume Screening: Your AI-Powered Hiring Assistant

Hiring managers, take note—Manus AI can screen resumes like a total pro. Here’s how it does it:

• It starts by unzipping a file containing 10 resumes (yep, it even does the tedious stuff).
• Then, it reads each resume page by page, records key details, and ranks the candidates based on evaluation criteria.
• Not satisfied with the results? No problem. You can send in more resumes mid-task, and Manus will seamlessly update the rankings in real-time.
• Prefer a spreadsheet instead? Just say the word, and Manus will learn from your preferences—so next time, you get a spreadsheet by default. (No more repeated instructions. Ever.)

2. Real Estate Research: Finding the Perfect Property

Imagine house-hunting without the headaches. Manus AI takes on complex real estate research like a champ:

• First, it breaks the problem down into a to-do list, ensuring a structured approach.
• It then searches and reads articles to find the safest neighborhoods in New York.
• Next, it researches middle schools (because quality education is key).
• Then, it writes a Python program to calculate an optimal budget based on financial constraints.
• Finally, it filters real estate listings and compiles everything into a detailed report—so you get all the insights in one place.

Basically, Manus does the hard work so you don’t have to—all while delivering a highly organized, data-driven report.

3. Advanced Stock Market Analysis: AI Meets Finance

Stock traders and data scientists, this one’s for you. Manus AI takes financial analysis to a whole new level:

• It accesses authoritative financial data sources through APIs.
• After validating the data, it writes code to perform advanced correlation analysis between different stocks.
• It then generates data visualizations—so you can spot trends, patterns, and insights instantly.
• Want an interactive dashboard instead of static charts? Just ask, and Manus AI will build a website with dynamic visualizations—because plain graphs are so last season.

How Well Does Manus AI Actually Perform?

With all the buzz surrounding Manus AI, one question remains: Is it truly revolutionary, or just another overhyped AI tool?

To get an insider’s perspective, MIT Technology Review’s Caiwei Chen gained exclusive access to Manus AI and put it to the test. The verdict? It’s like working with a highly capable but sometimes unpredictable intern—sharp, adaptable, and efficient, but occasionally prone to cutting corners or making assumptions.

Here’s a closer look at how Manus AI performed in real-world tasks and where it still has room to grow.

Difficult to Access, But Highly Anticipated

Despite the growing excitement around Manus AI, very few people have actually had the chance to use it. Fewer than 1% of users on the waitlist have received access, though the official Discord community already has over 186,000 members—a clear indication of the demand.

To use Manus, an invite code is required. Once inside, the interface is clean and minimalist, similar to ChatGPT or DeepSeek. Past sessions are displayed on the left, while the main chat interface takes center stage. The system also provides sample tasks, ranging from business strategy development to interactive learning modules.

A Smart and Adaptive Intern—With Some Quirks

When tested on real-world research tasks, Manus AI demonstrated a strong ability to analyze, adapt, and improve its outputs based on user feedback. However, it also exhibited some amusing yet frustrating tendencies, such as rushing through tasks, misinterpreting vague instructions, or occasionally making incorrect assumptions.

Chen described working with Manus AI as similar to collaborating with a bright but impatient assistant—one that explains its reasoning, accepts feedback, and iterates on its work when prompted.

Putting Manus AI to the Test: Three Real-World Assignments

Task 1: Identifying Tech Journalists

The first challenge was to compile a list of notable journalists covering China’s tech industry.

• First Attempt: Manus provided only five names, plus five “honorable mentions.” When asked why the list wasn’t more comprehensive, it admitted that it had rushed through the task to save time.
• After Feedback: Upon receiving further instructions, Manus expanded the list to 30 journalists, including details on their notable work and current media affiliations.
• Final Assessment: The AI’s ability to take high-level feedback and refine its results was impressive. Additionally, the final output was downloadable as a Word or Excel file, making it easy to share and edit.

However, Manus struggled with paywalled content, frequently encountering captchas or being blocked by media sites. While users could manually intervene, it highlighted an area where improvements are needed.

Task 2: Searching for Apartments in New York City

The next test was more complex: finding two-bedroom apartments in New York that met a detailed set of criteria, including a budget range, proximity to a major train station, and outdoor space.

• Initial Results: Manus interpreted the requirement for “some kind of outdoor space” too literally, excluding listings unless they had private balconies or terraces.
• After Refinement: Once given clarification, it expanded the search and categorized listings into tiers, such as “best overall,” “best value,” and “luxury option.”

This process, including back-and-forth adjustments, took under 30 minutes—significantly faster than the journalist search. The structured nature of real estate listings likely made the task easier for Manus to handle.

Task 3: Nominating Innovators Under 35

The final challenge was the most demanding: identifying 50 potential candidates for MIT Technology Review’s annual Innovators Under 35 list.

• Step-by-Step Approach: Manus broke the task into phases, including reviewing past lists, defining selection criteria, and developing a search strategy.
• Execution Challenges: It struggled with sourcing candidates across diverse industries and geographic regions, initially overrepresenting a handful of academic institutions.
• Final Outcome: After three hours, Manus produced a complete list, but further refinements were necessary. When asked to balance representation by including five candidates from China, it was able to deliver, though the results were skewed toward high-profile figures.

While Manus performed well in structuring the search, the process was slow and sometimes inefficient. Additionally, as the workload increased, the AI issued a warning that its performance might decline, suggesting limitations in handling large-scale research tasks.

Manus AI and the GAIA Benchmark

One of its biggest achievements is its performance on the General AI Assistant (GAIA) benchmark, a specialized test designed to assess how well AI agents handle complex, real-world tasks.

• State-of-the-Art Performance: Manus has outperformed OpenAI’s DeepResearch tool across all three difficulty levels of GAIA, setting a new benchmark for AI assistance.
• Real-World Problem Solving: Beyond benchmarks, Manus has successfully completed tasks on freelancing platforms like Upwork and Fiverr, showcasing its ability to assist with research, automation, and decision-making.
• Proven in Data Science: Manus has also demonstrated its capabilities in Kaggle competitions, tackling complex data-driven challenges.

The team behind Manus attributes much of this success to the open-source community and is committed to contributing back.

• Later this year, they plan to open-source some of Manus’s models, particularly those related to its multi-agent system.
• This will allow developers, researchers, and AI enthusiasts to explore and contribute to the evolution of agentic AI.

The Future of AI: A New Era of Autonomous Intelligence

For years, the AI race has been led by U.S. tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Meta, all focused on building increasingly advanced language models. The assumption was that whoever developed the most sophisticated chatbot would control the future of AI. But as Forbes highlights, Manus AI challenges this belief by shifting from passive assistance to full autonomy.

This has sparked unease in Silicon Valley, where experts recognize that China’s rapid progress in autonomous AI could give it a competitive edge in sectors like finance, software development, and research.

The Regulatory and Ethical Challenge

• Manus AI raises pressing questions about responsibility and accountability.
  • Who is liable if an AI agent makes a costly financial error?
  • How should governments regulate AI systems that function without human supervision?
• As Forbes points out, Western regulators operate under the assumption that AI must be overseen by humans—an assumption that Manus directly challenges.
• In contrast, China has historically been more open to experimenting with AI autonomy, potentially accelerating Manus AI’s real-world deployment.

Final Thoughts

Manus AI is more than just another AI breakthrough—it’s a bold step into a future where machines don’t just assist but think, act, and adapt on their own. 

By redefining what it means to be an AI agent, it challenges long-held assumptions about automation, human oversight, and the very nature of intelligence itself.

As the world grapples with the implications of fully autonomous AI, one thing is clear: this technology is no longer just theoretical—it’s here, and it’s evolving fast. 

Whether it sparks innovation or concern, Manus AI signals the dawn of a new era, one where intelligent systems could reshape industries, redefine work, and push the boundaries of what AI can achieve.