Is Manus the AI Savior We’ve Been Waiting For? My Take After a Deep Dive

Manus probably isn’t China’s second ‘DeepSeek moment’

let’s talk about Manus. You’ve probably heard the buzz. This “agentic” AI platform launched in preview last week and it’s been generating more hype than a new iPhone release. The Head of Product at Hugging Face is singing its praises, some AI policy researcher called it the “most sophisticated computer using AI” and its Discord server exploded faster than my brain trying to understand the latest AI paper.

But as someone who’s spent more time wrestling with AI than I care to admit, I had to ask: is this hype justified?

Under the Hood: What is Manus REALLY?

Here’s the deal: Manus wasn’t built in a vacuum. Reports are saying that the platform uses a mix of existing and fine-tuned AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude and Alibaba’s Qwen. Nothing wrong with that, in theory, but it’s worth noting that Monica–the startup behind Manus–is making some wild claims about what it can do. Buying real estate? Programming video games? Color me skeptical.

According to Yichao ‘Peak’ Ji, a research lead for Manus, this platform is supposed to be superior to agentic tools such as OpenAI’s Deep Research and Operator.

My Hands-On Experience: Reality Check

I decided to take Manus for a spin myself. I started with a simple task: order a fried chicken sandwich from a top-rated fast food joint in my delivery range. Easy, right? Wrong.

After ten minutes, Manus crashed. Strike one.

On the second attempt, it found a menu item that fit the bill, but couldn’t actually complete the ordering process. No checkout link, nothing. Just a digital dead end. Strike two.

Next, I tried booking a flight from NYC to Japan, business class, prioritizing price and flexible dates. I thought I was being pretty clear. Manus’s response? A bunch of links to fares across different airline websites and search engines like Kayak, some of which were even broken. Seriously?

Hoping for a win, I asked it to reserve a table for one at a restaurant within walking distance. Nope, failed again. Then, just for kicks, I told it to build a Naruto-inspired fighting game. Half an hour later, it errored out. That’s when I decided to throw in the towel.

Why the Hype?

So, if Manus is falling short, why all the buzz? A few things, probably. The exclusivity created by limited invites definitely plays a role.

Some Chinese media outlets were quick to call Manus an AI breakthrough, because apparently we are now assigning nationalistic fervor to our artificial intelligence. And, of course, there were those AI influencers spreading misinformation about Manus’s capabilities. Gotta love the internet.

To be fair, Manus is in early access, and Monica claims they’re working on scaling capacity and fixing bugs. But as it stands, it looks like hype has outpaced the actual tech.