China’s Exclusive AI Agent Manus Takes on OpenAI—Game-Changer or Just Hype?

Manus is the creation of Monica AI, a Beijing-based startup. It promotes itself as a general-purpose AI assistant capable of handling a range of tasks, such as planning trips, analyzing stocks, and comparing insurance options.

According to Global Times' report, Manus is designed to understand instructions, browse the internet, analyze content, and take action without extra user input.

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The platform’s limited access has driven demand, with invitation codes allegedly being sold for as much as 10 million yuan (over $1.3 million) on Chinese marketplaces. However, it is unclear if these transactions are real or simply attempts to create hype and make people fear missing out.

The company claims that Manus has outperformed OpenAI’s models and other AI agents on the GAIA benchmark, which measures how well AI systems handle tasks independently.

Some early testers have called Manus a game-changer. AI researcher Victor Mustar described Manus as the most impressive AI tool he has used, while Menlo Ventures' investor Deedy Das praised it as “the AI agent we were promised”.

However, the platform’s reputation took a hit when scammers launched a cryptocurrency under the same name, leading to Manus’s social media account being temporarily suspended.

Additionally, some users were disappointed to learn that Manus relies on Claude and Qwen models rather than having its own AI foundation. Monica AI’s Jichao Yi admitted that the company fine-tunes existing models instead of building one from scratch.

Alibaba Cloud recently introduced a new AI model, QwQ-32B, which rivals DeepSeek R1 despite having fewer parameters. How? Read the full story.