China’s Manus AI is being hyped as the next big leap in agentic AI—maybe even a “DeepSeek moment”—but early testers say the platform might be more sizzle than substance.
What Happened: Developed by Chinese startup Monica, the daughter company of The Butterfly Effect, Manus is billed as an “autonomous agent” capable of handling complex tasks like booking flights, ordering food, and even programming video games.
Its invite-only beta sparked massive buzz, with over 130,000 users joining its Discord server and invite codes reportedly selling for thousands of dollars on Chinese reselling app Xianyu, reported TechCrunch.
Some influencers and tech executives praised Manus as revolutionary. Hugging Face’s head of product called it “the most impressive AI tool I’ve ever tried,” while AI researcher Dean Ball dubbed it “the most sophisticated computer using AI.”
