General-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) agent Manus has drawn a wave of mostly upbeat reviews, days after Chinese start-up Butterfly Effect made it available through an invitation-only online preview that triggered comparisons of a DeepSeek-level tech breakthrough.
“Got access and it’s true ... Manus is the most impressive AI tool I’ve ever tried,” wrote Victor Mustar, head of product at AI and machine-learning developer platform Hugging Face, in a post over the weekend on X, formerly Twitter.
Mustar prompted Manus to create and display an animated 3D video game in a web browser, using a cross-browser JavaScript library and application programming interface – known as Three.js.
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His prompt: “code a threejs game where you control a plane”.
That simple prompt shows how AI agents like Manus represent a new avenue for innovation, compared with chatbots and large language models (LLMs) – the technology underpinning generative AI assistants like ChatGPT.
AI agents are programs that are capable of autonomously performing tasks on behalf of a user or another system. Essentially, these agents create a plan of specific tasks and subtasks to complete a goal using its available resources.
“The UX [user experience] is what so many others promised ... but this time, it just works,” Mustar said in his post.
Some of the initial reviews of Manus in mainland China have also been positive.
On Quora-like question-and-answer service Zhihu, Li Guohao – founder of multi-agent framework and open-source community Camel-AI.org – lauded Manus’ system design for achieving “less structure, more intelligence”.
Following Manus’ preview, Li expected another “aha moment” in AI agents within a year.
Chinese tech blogger Lan Xi, who has nearly 3 million followers on microblogging platform Weibo, used Manus for five tasks – including creating online games and generating repair tips for a Boston Dynamics robotic arm. Manus failed one task because it could not sign up for an online drive to obtain images for a video game, according to Lan.
The blogger said Manus has the potential of becoming a “DeepSeek V2 moment” in the AI agent segment of the industry.
In a video posted on his WeChat channel, Chinese investor and entrepreneur Fu Sheng dismissed recent comparisons between Butterfly Effect’s Manus and AI model developer DeepSeek because they are involved in different areas of the AI sector.
“DeepSeek represents the core of intelligence, while Manus is more like an additional layer on top of a large language model,” he said.
That makes Manus significant because it makes LLM “more accessible”, according to Fu, who also serves as chief executive of New York-listed internet firm Cheetah Mobile. “It’s like how Microsoft’s Windows operating system became widely adopted because of its user-friendly interface,” he added.
On Chinese social-media Jike, Wang Junyu – co-founder of Chinese app publisher Wandoujia – said Manus was “clearly better” than other existing AI agents in the market such as OpenAI’s Deep Research. He indicated, however, that Manus appeared to be similar to Devin AI from US start-up Cognition Labs.
Chinese tech media Synced reported that two out of five tasks it ran on Manus failed. One was because of a sign-up issue, while the other involved a task to streamline the firm’s page layout, which did not work properly.
In a post last week on Jike, Manus product partner Zhang Tao wrote that “the current version of Manus is still in its infancy, far from what we aim to deliver in our final product”.
Butterfly Effect co-founder and chief scientist Peak Ji Yichao said Manus was built on existing LLMs, including Anthropic’s Claude and fine-tuned versions of Alibaba Group Holding’s Qwen AI models, according to a Monday post on X. Alibaba owns the Post.
More from South China Morning Post:
- Chinese AI agent Manus transcends chatbots, founder of start-up Butterfly Effect says
- At this year’s ‘two sessions’ in Beijing, AI seems to be on everyone’s lips
- Was Manus another DeepSeek moment? Chinese AI agent faces doubts after rapid rise to fame
- Another DeepSeek moment? General AI agent Manus shows ability to handle complex tasks
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