Manus, a newly launched artificial intelligence (AI) agent in China, has surprised the global technology sector by demonstrating its ability to complete tasks traditionally performed by white-collar workers.
According to its website, Manus, developed by Beijing-based Chinese startup Butterfly Effect, can perform various tasks in seconds, such as planning a trip to Japan, finding a new home overseas and analyzing financial statements.
Peak Ji, chief scientist and co-founder of Butterfly Effect, said the company developed its agentic AI model using Antropic’s Claude and Alibaba’s Qwen.
Claude, developed by the San Francisco-based Antropic, is well known for its strong coding ability. Users can ask Claude to write codes for use in AI agents.
On Tuesday, Alibaba Cloud and Butterfly Effect reached a strategic cooperation agreement to develop AI products for general use.
To understand what Manus offers users, one should first understand the difference between generative AI and agentic AI.
Generative AI models include ChatGPT and DeepSeek, which are large language models (LLMs) that can understand human languages. They can reason, chat with people, read and write and create images, videos, and charts.
LLM is like a brain, while an AI agent can be compared to a human body that can perform tailor-made and repetitive tasks such as extracting and analyzing industry-specified data.
To build an AI agent, a company must ask its experienced staff to write a workflow. It must subscribe to software, and hire programmers to write codes and compile data so analysts can use the database.
This procedure does not require any high-end chips or sophisticated AI training. Still, it is costly to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and is usually not welcomed by staff who don’t want to hand their skills to machines.
Now, Manus offers users a one-click button to complete each task. It claims to be the world’s first fully autonomous AI. Its website slogan is “Leave it to Manus.”
In its promotional footage released on March 5, Butterfly Effect co-founder Xiao Hong demonstrated the AI agent’s abilities to analyze 10 resumes, search a New York property for sale within a given budget, and calculate the correlation of Nvidia, Marvell Technology and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) stocks.
The 32-year-old entrepreneur said Manus beat OpenAI’s Deep Research regarding GAIA, a benchmark for general AI assistants.
“This wouldn’t be possible without the amazing open-source community, which is why we’re committed to giving back,” said Xiao. “Manus operates as a multi-agent system powered by several distinct models. So later this year, we’re going to open source some of these models, specifically post-trained for Manus, inviting everyone to explore this agentic future together.”
‘Mind and hand’
Xiao said the name Manus comes from a famous Latin motto, Mens et Manus, which means “mind and hand.”
“It embodies the belief that knowledge must be applied to make a meaningful impact on the world, and this is precisely the promise of Manus AI – to extend your capabilities, amplify your impact, and be the hand that brings your mind’s vision into reality,” he said.
Within a day of Butterfly Effect’s launching Manus on March 5, the company’s server had been overloaded as global AI fans used Manus to perform various tests.
In a statement, Butterfly Effect co-founder Zhang Tao apologized to the public and said the company underestimated the strong market response to its AI agent. He said Manus is a preliminary product, like a newborn baby, and remains far from what the company wants to deliver.
After graduating from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2015, Xiao founded Nightingale Technology, which received strategic investment from Tencent Holdings and some venture capital funds.
In June 2022, he founded Butterfly Effect with the support of ZhenFund, a Beijing-based venture capital firm founded by New Oriental co-founders Bob Xu and Victor Wang. ZhenFund is one of the largest angel investors in China.
In March 2023, Butterfly Effect launched an all-in-one AI personal assistant called Monica.im. According to its website, Monica.im now connects to OpenAI o3-mini, DeepSeek R1, GPT-4o, Claude 3.7, and Gemini 2.0.
Last year, the company raised new funding from Tencent Holdings and HongShan Capital Group.
Yong Jian is a contributor to the Asia Times. He is a Chinese journalist who specializes in Chinese technology, economy and politics.
