Manus (AI agent)

Manus (Hand in Latin) is an autonomous artificial intelligence agent developed by startup company Monica, based in Singapore. The agent is designed to independently carry out complex online tasks without direct/continuous human guidance.

Manus

Developer(s)	Monica (also known as Butterfly Effect AI)
Initial release	March 6, 2025; 2 months ago (2025-03-06)
Type	Multimodal Large language model Generative pre-trained transformer Foundation model
License	Proprietary
Website	manus.im

History

Manus was founded to create artificial intelligence agents capable of operating independently, based on large language models (LLM). The official launch of Manus on March 6, 2025, drew international attention. Experts and media described Manus as a major advance because it could autonomously handle complex tasks, including writing and deploying code, without direct human intervention.^[1]

Performance

Manus is claimed as a fully autonomous AI agent, designed to handle tasks like website creation, stock analysis, travel planning, and schedule management.^[2] In practical use, Manus can compile lists, search properties, and nominate candidates, sometimes performing better than competitors like ChatGPT DeepResearch in specific tasks, but it requires user intervention for paywalls and captchas and can take longer, with task times ranging from 30 minutes to over an hour. Its transparency, displaying its process through a side panel, makes it accessible for users regardless of coding experience, and it operates asynchronously in the cloud, allowing tasks to proceed without constant supervision.^[3][4] But it encounters challenges with system stability, including crashes and server overload under high demand, leading to task failures and a higher failure rate than some alternatives. Access is limited, with fewer than 1% of waitlist users receiving invite codes, and its $2 per-task cost is positioned competitively but affected by reliability considerations. While recognized for its capabilities and seen as innovative by some, Manus has received scrutiny for potentially being a wrapper of existing models and for its marketing approach, as server issues and limited availability raise questions.^[5]

See also

• Devin AI