Manus, a cutting-edge “agentic” AI platform that was recently launched in preview, has been generating enormous excitement and attention, comparable to the hype surrounding a Taylor Swift concert.
The head of product at Hugging Face described Manus as “the most impressive AI tool I’ve ever tried,” while AI policy researcher Dean Ball referred to it as “the most sophisticated computer using AI.” Furthermore, the official Discord server for Manus quickly gained over 138,000 members, and invite codes for the platform are reportedly being sold for thousands of dollars on the Chinese reseller app Xianyu.
However, it is uncertain whether the hype surrounding Manus is justified.
excellent https://t.co/TfeV9QZ1d0
— jack (@jack) March 9, 2025
Manus was not entirely developed from scratch. According to reports on social media, the platform utilizes a combination of existing and fine-tuned AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude and Alibaba’s Qwen, to perform tasks such as drafting research reports and analyzing financial filings.
On its website, Monica, the Chinese startup behind Manus, showcases several examples of the platform’s capabilities, including buying real estate and programming video games.
In a viral video on X, Yichao “Peak” Ji, a research lead for Manus, claimed that the platform outperforms OpenAI’s deep research on a benchmark for general AI assistants called GAIA. Ji stated that Manus is “a completely autonomous agent that bridges the gap between conception and execution” and represents “the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration.”
However, some early users have reported mixed experiences with Manus. Alexander Doria, the co-founder of AI startup Pleias, encountered error messages and endless loops while testing the platform. Other users have pointed out that Manus makes mistakes on factual questions and does not consistently cite its work.
Deep Research finished in under 15 minutes. 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! https://t.co/bGtmOI65CP
— Derya Unutmaz, MD (@DeryaTR_) March 8, 2025
In my own experience with Manus, I asked the platform to handle a few tasks, including ordering a fried chicken sandwich and booking a flight from NYC to Japan. However, Manus was unable to complete these tasks successfully.
Manus also failed to book a flight from NYC to Japan, instead providing links to fares across several airline websites and airfare search engines like Kayak, some of which were broken.
I also asked Manus to reserve a table for one at a restaurant within walking distance, but it failed after a few minutes. Additionally, I asked the platform to build a Naruto-inspired fighting game, which it was unable to complete after half an hour.
Honest opinion after trying Manus AI for the last 3 days, here’s the good and the bad.
Good:
– The research it does on the internet and the reports it generates are incredible.
– Its ability to run scripts behind the scenes to execute tasks is impressive.
– The plans it…— AshutoshShrivastava (@ai_for_success) March 9, 2025
We have reached out to Monica for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
The hype surrounding Manus can be attributed to several factors, including the exclusivity created by a scarcity of invites and the attention it received from Chinese media and AI influencers on social media.
Chinese media outlets, such as QQ News, touted Manus as an AI breakthrough, while AI influencers spread misinformation about its capabilities. A widely-shared video showed a desktop program, ostensibly Manus, taking action across multiple smartphone apps, but this was later confirmed to be a fake demo.
Other influential AI accounts on X drew comparisons between Manus and Chinese AI company DeepSeek, which is not entirely accurate. Unlike DeepSeek, Monica did not develop its models in-house, and the company has not made its technologies openly available.
While Manus is still in early access, the company claims it is working to scale computing capacity and fix issues as they are reported. However, in its current state, Manus appears to be a case of hype running ahead of technological innovation.
