Some users who have managed to get limited access to its beta testing invitation codes are selling them for upwards of 50,000 Chinese yuan, even as the waitlist on the platform crosses 1 million. On Xianyu, a platform for second-hand goods, a Manus invitation code was sold for 100,000 yuan ($13,797, or more than Rs 12 lakh), China Daily reported.
Monica.im, the creator of the AI agent, has distributed 100-500 invitation codes to select social media influencers, which netizens called a clever marketing strategy. However, Manus AI partner Zhang Tao said “no marketing budget has ever been invested”, and that the adoption of invitation codes was due to “limited server capacity that could not be avoided”.
The invitation codes distributed by influencers for testing and analysis are being resold by some members of the community. ET interacted with one X account who was offering the code at $1,000.
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Meanwhile, some AI researchers and content creators are offering the access codes only for legitimate testing, by running competitions for best test-cases.
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“DeepSeek initially launched with an open-access model, but server crashes forced a shift to restrict email signups,” said Ritesh Ujjwal, cofounder of Kofluence — a social media influencer management firm.
“Now, Monica.im has captured attention with its waitlisted access approach, a strategy so compelling that some individuals are trading waitlist tokens on secondary markets — potentially a PR approach to heighten interest,” he added.
Manus AI is being called the “second DeepSeek moment” out of China, as the agent is capable to think, plan and execute actions by itself — such as planning a trip, making bookings, etc. — without human intervention. It demonstrates capabilities similar to the combination of OpenAI’s Deep Research, Anthropic’s Computer Use and Perplexity’s web search.
Also Read: Manus AI: China’s second DeepSeek moment
“Manus AI agent appears to be a significant advancement over earlier AI agents unveiled by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and other general-purpose AI developers,” said Suraj Amonkar, chief AI research and platforms officer at AI company Fractal Analytics.
“Its performance on the GAIA benchmark is highly impressive, but even more remarkable is the leap in autonomy with which it operates,” Amonkar said. “The agent’s ability to handle multiple sub-tasks across several screens in parallel is particularly noteworthy, enabling it to accomplish far more complex tasks than previously seen.”
