What is Manus AI and is it having a DeepSeek moment?
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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.
What can Manus AI 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.
How does Manus AI work?
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.
What do AI experts have to say about it?
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.
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'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.
Related Estonia announces new AI initiative with OpenAI to roll out chatbots in schools
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.
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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.
Who can use Manus AI?
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.
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'The team underestimated the enthusiasm of the public response, and our server resources were only planned for a demonstration level,' he added.
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