Chinese Agentic Platform Manus Faces Doubts About Its Technological Capabilities

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IBL News
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IBL News | New York

Chinese AI agentic platform Manus, which has generated much hype, is facing doubts about its technological capabilities. Significantly, few people could test the product after its surge in popularity owing to an apparent shortage of server capacity.

Manus has gained attention for its claimed ability to handle complex tasks. Investors are hailing it as another breakthrough following the low-cost AI models from DeepSeek.

The head of product at Hugging Face called Manus “the most impressive AI tool I’ve ever tried.” AI policy researcher Dean Ball described Manus as the “most sophisticated computer using AI.” In just a few days, the official Discord server for Manus grew to over 138,000 members.

Manus wasn’t developed from scratch. The platform uses a combination of existing and fine-tuned AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude and Alibaba’s Qwen, to perform tasks such as drafting research reports and analyzing financial filings.

On its website, Butterfly Effect — the Chinese startup behind Manus — gives a few wild examples of what the platform can accomplish, from buying real estate to programming video games.

Also, this month, Manus announced a partnership with the team behind tech giant Alibaba’s Qwen AI models, a move that could bolster the AI start-up.

Manus AI, which has offices in Beijing and Wuhan, has marketed its product by completing dozens of tasks for users on X for free. Its launch quickly went viral on Chinese social media, as many drew parallels with the Hangzhou-based chatbot DeepSeek.

However, the AI agent remains accessible by invitation only, and the company’s website struggles with increasing malfunctions, it admitted on X.

• Forbes: China’s Autonomous Agent, Manus, Changes Everything