Manus probably isn’t China’s second ‘DeepSeek moment’
Manus, an “agent” AI platform launched in Preview last week, generates more hype than a Taylor Swift concert.
The head of the product when hugging Manus called “The most impressive AI tool I have ever tried.” AI policy researcher Dean Ball described Manus as the “most advanced computer using AI.” The Official Discord Server Because Manus grew to more than 138,000 members in just a few days, and invite codes to manus Reportedly Selling for thousands of dollars on the Chinese reseller app Xianyu.
But it is not clear that the hype is justified.
excellent https://t.co/TFEV9QZ1D0
– Jack (@Jack) March 9, 2025
Manus is not completely redesigned. According to reports On social media, the platform uses a combination of existing and refined AI models, including Claude van Anthropic and Qwen from Alibaba, to perform tasks such as the preparation of research reports and analyzing financial archives.
But on her website, Monica – the Chinese startup behind Manus – gives a few wild examples of what the platform could achieve, From buying real estate to programming video games.
In one viral video On X, Yichao implied “Peak” Ji, a research leader for Manus, that the platform was superior to agent aids such as OpenAi’s deep research and operator. Manus surpasses deep research into a popular benchmark for general AI assistants called GAIA, claimed Ji, who investigates the ability of an AI to perform work by leaving the internet, using software and more.
‘[Manus] Is not just another chatbot of workflow, “Ji said in the video. “It is a completely autonomous agent that bridges the gap between conception and implementation […] We see it as the next paradigm of cooperation between people and machine. “
But some early users say that Manus is not a panacea.
Alexander Doria, the co-founder of AI Startup Pleias, said in a message on x That he encountered error messages and endless loops while testing Manus. Other X users Be aware that Manus makes mistakes about factual questions And Does not consistently quote his work – and often misses information that is easily found online.
Deep research ended in less than 15 minutes. Unfortunately, Manus Ai failed after 50 minutes at Step 18/20! 😑 It performed very well to view Manus’s output and it seemed excellent. However, it is a bit frustrating to perform the same prompt a second time, because it takes too long! https://t.co/bgtmoi65CP
– Derya Unutmaz, MD (@Deryatr_) March 8, 2025
My own experience with Manus has not been incredibly positive.
I asked the platform to handle what seemed to me as a fairly simple request: order a sandwich fried chickens at a top food joint in my delivery election. After about ten minutes, Manus crashed. During the second attempt it found a menu item that met my criteria, but Manus could not complete the ordering process -or even offer a cash register.
Manus sniffed in the same way when I asked to book a flight from NYC to Japan. Given the instructions that I thought it did not have much room for ambiguity (for example “looking for a flight from the business class, prioritize price and flexible dates”), the best Manus was to serve on rates on various aircraft websites and flight tickets such as Kayak, some of which were broken.
Hoping that the next few tasks might be the charm, I told Manus to reserve a table for one in a restaurant within walking distance. It failed after a few minutes. Then I asked the platform to build a fighting game inspired by Naruto. It lost half an hour, then I decided to throw the towel in the towel.
Honest opinion after trying of Manus Ai during the past 3 days, here is the good and the bad.
Good:
– The research that it does on the internet and the reports it generates are incredible.
– The ability to perform scripts behind the scenes to perform tasks is impressive.
– The plans …– Ashutoshrivastava (@ai_for_success) March 9, 2025
We have contacted Monica for comments and will update this message when we hear again.
So if Manusis falls short in his technical promises, why is it blown? A few factors have contributed, such as exclusivity created by a Scarcity of invitations.
Chinese media were quick to promote Manus as a breakthrough of AI; Publication QQ News called it “The pride of domestic products.” In the meantime, AI influencers spread wrong information on the possibilities of Manus on social media. A wide -ranging video showed a desktop program, apparently Manus, who took action in multiple smartphone apps. Ji confirmed That the video was in fact not a demo of Manus.
Other influential Ai accounts On X wanted to make comparisons between Manus and Chinese AI Company Deepseek – comparisons not necessarily rooted. Monica did not develop internal models, in contrast to Deepseek. And while Deepseek has made many of his technologies openly available, Monica does not have – At least not quite yet.
To be honest with Monica, Manus is early access. The company claims that it works to scale the computer capacity and to solve problems as they are reported. But because the platform currently exists, Manus seems like a case of hype that runs for technological innovation.
