Manus (AI agent)

Manus (meaning hands in Latin) is an autonomous artificial intelligence agent developed by the same startup that created Monica, headquartered in Singapore. The agent is designed to independently carry out complex real-world tasks without direct or continuous human guidance. It is recognized as one of the world's first autonomous agents capable of independent thinking, dynamic planning, and decision-making.^[1][2]

Manus
Developer(s)	Butterfly Effect Pte. Ltd.
Initial release	March 6, 2025; 5 months ago (2025-03-06)
Type	AI agent
License	Proprietary
Website	manus.im

Xiao Hong is the key person behind Manus.im. Early in his career, he founded Nightingale Technology, which created productivity tools like “Yi Ban Assistant” and “Wei Ban Assistant”, the AI-driven platforms that served millions of enterprise users. Known for his “kitbashing” approach, Xiao focused on enhancing existing platforms such as WeChat by seamlessly integrating AI capabilities.^[3]

History

Manus was founded to create artificial intelligence agents capable of operating independently, based on large language models (LLM). The official launch of Manus was on March 6, 2025. VentureBeat described Manus as a major advance because it could autonomously handle complex tasks, including writing and deploying code.^[4] Manus was described as a turning point in the development of artificial intelligence due to its ability to operate entirely without direct human intervention and complete complex tasks autonomously, including writing and deploying code.^[4]