Manus, an “agentic” artificial intelligence platform, launched in preview last week, capturing significant attention in the tech community. Developed by Monica, a Chinese startup, Manus promises to revolutionize human-machine collaboration. The platform combines existing and fine-tuned AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude and Alibaba’s Qwen, to create a comprehensive AI tool. Although still in early access, Manus has already attracted over 138,000 members to its Discord server.
The excitement surrounding Manus has reached a fever pitch, with invite codes reportedly selling for thousands of dollars on the Chinese reseller app Xianyu. This demand highlights the anticipation and speculation surrounding its capabilities. Manus outperforms deep research on the popular GAIA benchmark for general AI assistants, which tests an AI’s ability to browse the web, use software, and more.
Manus’ Vision for Human-Machine Collaboration
Yichao “Peak” Ji, a research lead for Manus, described the platform as “a completely autonomous agent that bridges the gap between conception and execution. We see it as the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration.”
Despite its promise, Manus has not been without its criticisms. Comparisons to Chinese AI company DeepSeek have surfaced, though these comparisons may not be entirely accurate. The head of product at Hugging Face praised Manus as “the most impressive AI tool I’ve ever tried,” yet not everyone shares this enthusiasm.
Alexander Doria, co-founder of AI startup Pleias, encountered several issues while testing Manus. He reported error messages and endless loops during his trials. Manus struggled with tasks such as booking a flight from NYC to Japan and reserving a restaurant table. Additionally, it failed to provide a checkout link or complete an ordering process.
Furthermore, Manus sometimes faltered when retrieving easily accessible online information and made mistakes on factual questions, raising concerns about its reliability. Unlike DeepSeek, Monica has not made its technologies openly available, which may contribute to some skepticism.
Author’s Opinion
While Manus certainly holds potential in redefining human-machine collaboration, its early performance issues cannot be overlooked. With critical tasks failing and concerns about its accuracy, it remains to be seen if the platform can truly live up to its lofty promises. Until its reliability improves, Manus may struggle to solidify its place as the next big thing in AI.
Featured image credit: FMT
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