On the night of March 5, 2025, a Chinese startup team released the closed beta (early preview) of the general-purpose AI agent "Manus." This new AI agent is attracting attention as an autonomous AI that bridges thinking and action. In this article, we will explain the overview, strengths, licensing, pricing plans, and how to use Manus in detail.

Overview of Manus

"Manus" was developed by a team led by Yichao 'Peak' Ji. This AI aims to bridge human "thinking" and "action" by taking charge of everything from planning to execution based on user instructions. It can handle a wide range of tasks from everyday life to business, such as creating travel plans and generating stock analysis reports.

When the invite-only web preview version was released, it immediately gained attention within the Chinese AI community. Manus has set a new performance record in the GAIA benchmark conducted by a third-party organization, surpassing traditional models and even achieving higher scores than OpenAI's models.

Additionally, the release of Manus by the Chinese startup "Monica.im" has opened a new frontier for fully autonomous AI agents. Unlike traditional AI assistants, Manus possesses an innovative ability to autonomously execute complex real-world tasks without human intervention. Even if users disconnect their devices after giving tasks, Manus continues to operate in the cloud and returns results, showcasing its high level of autonomy.

Strengths of Manus

The greatest strengths of Manus lie in its high autonomy and versatility. While other AI agents require user input for each command, Manus autonomously operates once given an objective, breaking down tasks, gathering necessary information, analyzing, and executing them continuously based on the user's broad instructions.

The development team claims that this AI has achieved a new state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance in the GAIA benchmark, surpassing OpenAI's "Deep Research." GAIA evaluates the real-world problem-solving abilities of AI agents across difficulty levels from 1 to 3. According to the disclosed data, Manus has outperformed OpenAI's models at all levels, showing a significant margin, especially at level 3 with 57.7% versus 47.6%.

Licensing of Manus

As of March 9, 2025, Manus is provided as a cloud service and the software itself is not publicly available. Thus, there is no open-source license, and users need to follow the platform's terms and conditions. The terms include basic conditions such as being 18 years or older and not using the service for illegal or inappropriate purposes.

Pricing Plans of Manus

As of March 9, 2025, Manus is in the invite-only preview stage, and official pricing plans have not been announced. Pricing information for the Japanese market is also not yet available, and commercial usage fees are not publicly disclosed globally. In the future, it is expected to offer a combination of free plans and paid subscriptions.

How to Use Manus

As of March 9, 2025, Manus is provided as an invite-only closed beta. Users who want to access it can click "Get Started" in the upper right corner of the official site, enter the invite code, and register an account to access the web application.

Basically, users can operate it by inputting their goals or instructions in natural language into the chat box or task input field. Manus then analyzes the input and autonomously plans and executes the necessary steps.

Use Cases

Here are some specific use cases of Manus based on the demos and user reports as of March 9, 2025:

Creating a Travel Guidebook

By simply telling Manus your travel destination and schedule, it will investigate tourist spots and transportation options to create the best travel plan. In a demo, a personal request to "travel to Japan in April and propose" was met with Manus organizing the travel schedule, creating a custom travel handbook with daily itineraries, packing lists, and proposal spots, offering detailed planning comparable to a travel agency in a short time.

SEO Optimization for Websites

For instance, you can specify a URL for a thorough SEO audit and request a detailed optimization report with actionable recommendations. Manus will start a comprehensive SEO audit, and the transparency of Manus is well-expressed as you can monitor the audit process in real-time.

Run a thorough SEO audit on Karpathy's website (https://karpathy.ai/) and deliver a detailed optimization report with actionable recommendations.

You can check the audit process at the following URL.

https://manus.im/share/AWssWxITcsrl70js5L8LgU?replay=1

Generating Stock Analysis Reports

In a demo case, requesting Manus to analyze Tesla's stock led to the collection and analysis of vast financial data and market news, resulting in a comprehensive report with visual graphs and charts in a short time. The report detailed changes in market sentiment and key indicator trends, matching the quality of reports created by analysts. Manus can thus quickly take over complex data analysis tasks typically done by experts, providing superior outputs.

Conclusion

The new AI agent "Manus" is gaining attention for its high autonomy and versatility. With the ability to transform thoughts into actions, this AI can handle a wide range of tasks from daily life to business, taking charge of everything from planning to execution based on user instructions. The high performance demonstrated in the GAIA benchmark suggests that Manus may surpass traditional AI agents.

Currently, Manus is in the invite-only closed beta stage, but the official release is eagerly awaited. As the service expands, the true value of Manus will become increasingly evident. I will continue to research and share information about the evolution of AI technology and its applications with you all.

Let's utilize this innovative tool to achieve greater efficiency and creativity.

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