INTRODUCTION
Let’s talk about the hottest topic in the AI space right now, a brand-new autonomous agent called Manus.
If you’ve been following the hype around AI lately, you might have heard people throwing around terms like GPT moment or deep seek moment, in turn that never sleeps or the universal hand.
All those catchphrases are pointing to this new product from a Chinese startup called Monica, and believe me, it’s been all over social media and tech sites in the past few days.
So, what exactly is Manus?
Well in short, it’s being called the world’s first truly general AI agent.
There are plenty of AI assistants and chatbots out there, chatbots that can answer questions, generate text or even give you code suggestions.
But Manus supposedly takes things a step further by planning tasks, executing them and delivering results.
Think of it as an intern who not only brainstorms ideas, but also finishes all the grunt work for you, from writing code to browsing websites and analyzing data.
Menus is built by a company called Monica and their site is Monica.im. But the star is this new AI agent, also described as your universal hand.
If you’ve heard the phrase men at Manus, from Latin, it means mind and hand, which is basically the motto behind the product.
Knowledge shouldn’t just be stored in the AI’s brain; it should be actively used to get results in the real world.
Now, how did it suddenly become so famous?
On March 6, 2025, Monica officially launched an early preview for Manus.
That caused a massive wave of people staying up all night, just to snag an invitation code, no joke.
Most even tried reselling codes on various secondhand platforms for anywhere from $999 yuan, around $137 US dollars, to a sky high, $100,000 yuan, nearly $14,000 US dollars.
Most of the codes up for resell were at least several hundred, or a few thousand bucks, all because the demand exploded faster than the team expected.
The reason for such excitement comes from the advanced capabilities that Manus demonstrates.
According to the official site, it’s got a multiple agent structure.
That essentially means different sub-agents inside the system handle distinct parts of a task.
One agent might do the planning, another might do the actual execution, like writing a Python script or visiting a specific website, and yet another one might verify the accuracy of the result.
This multi-agent collaboration supposedly mirrors the way a human team works.
One person can strategize, another person does the coding, and so forth.
The synergy of these sub-agents is apparently what allows Manus to accomplish super complex tasks.
We’re talking everything from screening resumes for an open job position, to analyzing real estate listings based on your income and neighborhood preferences,
To analyzing stock data from multiple companies, building a dashboard or summarizing an entire set of financial statements.
In one demonstration, a user needed to pick a house in New York with a safe community, a solid school district, and a price range that matched their budget.
Real-World AI Capabilities: Manus Plans Trips, Analyzes Stocks, and Creates Educational Content
This systematically searched online for safety data, looked at property prices, did budget calculations with Python scripts, and finally presented a polished report, complete with a recommended list of properties.
That’s more than just a cute chatbot answer. It’s an entire workflow that ends with a finished product.
People have also tested Manus by having it plan a trip to Japan in April.
Do thorough Tesla stock analyses, create interactive course materials for a middle school teacher who wants to explain momentum theories, and even compile a list of B2B companies from YC’s W25 batch.
State-of-the-Art AI: Manus Surpasses OpenAI on Gaia Benchmark, Backed by Monica’s Visionary Founder
Manus doesn’t just spit out bullet points either.
It can write code, generate visual dashboards, and lay everything out in a table or Excel doc, if that’s what you prefer.
Part of what makes this so impressive is how Manus apparently achieved new state-of-the-art performance on something called the Gaia Benchmark.
Gaia, from what we know, measures how well a general AI assistant can solve real-world tasks.
According to the team, Manus surpasses other systems like OpenAI’s deep research on all three levels of Gaia’s difficulty ratings.
The specifics of those tests aren’t widely detailed, but the hype is real, especially with big claims like, we surpass OpenAI’s best models at the same level.
Now, Monica is a company founded by Shihong, who is a serial entrepreneur and graduated from Wajong University of Science and Technology back in 2015.
There’s also mention of a co-founder and chief scientist named GE Chao, who did a demonstration video that got hundreds of thousands of views on social platforms within about 20 hours.
‘Sputnik Moment’ for Manus? Overwhelming Interest, Investment, and DeepSeek Comparisons
Another partner, Zhang Tao, popped up online saying they’ve had to limit invites because their servers can’t keep up.
Interestingly, the company had changes in its shareholder structure in 2024.
We even see that at 1.0.10 venture capital arm invested in them, and so did Zen Fund in July of 2022.
Not a lot of official corporate structure details are out there, but that’s standard for many startups trying to scale quickly.
There’s also chatter about how Manus might become the next deep seat.
Some people are comparing that big moment in January to what’s happening now with Manus.
The local media and social platforms in China are calling it another Sputnik moment, or another GPT moment referencing how chat GPT shook up the world.
Regardless, you can see it’s made enough waves to get coverage from outlets like Global Times, China Daily, Malay Mail, Newsweek, and so on.
China’s AI Revolution: Introducing Manus, the Digital AGI Agent
People are noticing China’s many AI breakthroughs this year, from big language models to general AI agents.
Manus stands out from typical generative AI because it aims for what we often call artificial general intelligence.
It won’t pick up your kids from school or do your laundry in the real world, but online.
it can handle complex tasks you’d give to an assistant or intern.
We’ve heard from some sources that by January 2024 at least 21% of companies had already started using AI agents in some way.
Gartner thinks this number will go up to over 80% by 2026, which means if Manus does well, it’s right in the middle of a hot market.
AI agents could make a big difference for businesses by fully automating jobs like B2B sourcing looking at Amazon store data or coming up with ways to boost store sales.
The Manus website showcases how it can search nearby information for a BBQ joint in Texas to help boost their sales.
It also demonstrates its ability to take part in coding contests writing programs that rank in the top 10%.
How do you get access?
Right now, it’s invitation only, and that’s caused this crazy shortage of invites.
People are literally flipping them on second-hand marketplaces for thousands of dollars.
According to the folks behind Manus, they’re working on scaling up their servers to allow more open access.
They say it’ll hopefully be free to use at some point, but no official date is confirmed.
Critics are already asking whether Manus is truly autonomous or just combining existing tech in a slick package.
Monica’s known for creating useful AI-based solutions, especially through their popular browser plug-in for chat GPT.
With a history of rapid user acquisition, they might see similar success with this practical AI agent.
Regardless of the skepticism, Manus has definitely shaken the AI scene,especially in China, seeing it unzip files,
Sift through resumes, run Python scripts, and compile real estate data all by itself goes beyond typical chatbot abilities.
And then there’s its so-called autonomous learning, where it retains your preferences, like table-formatted results for future tasks.
There’s also the question of competition.
Giants like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google have all teased or introduced agent-like systems that can do more than just talk,
but we haven’t seen many workable agent demos as thorough as Manus.
The focus now is on Manus’s scalability and whether it can live up to its future agent promise.
Only time will tell if it’s another deep-seek moment, a fleeting hype train, or the next evolution in AI.
Thoughts on Manus? Just a toolset or a path to true AI? Let us know below.