Move Over DeepSeek? Not So Fast: China's Manus AI Goes Viral, But Early Users Say It Crashes, Loops, And Fumbles The Basics

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."

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It is wrong to call manus a "deepseek moment." Deepseek was about replication of capabilities already publicly achieved by American firms. Manus is actually advancing the frontier.

The most sophisticated computer using ai now comes from a Chinese startup, full stop.

— Dean W. Ball (@deanwball) March 9, 2025

Got access and it's true… Manus is the most impressive AI tool I've ever tried.

– The agentic capabilities are mind-blowing, redefining what's possible.
– The UX is what so many others promised… but this time it just works.

prompt: "code a threejs game where you control a… pic.twitter.com/rUD2XV4ZVK

— Victor M (@victormustar) March 8, 2025

But some user experience tells a different story.

if the problem in the pic is not obvious to you, it is obvious to my young Ph.D biochem friend and also to Sonnet 3.7, which (seeing as it took a few hours for this project) points to an easy improvement with a MoA "Am I bullshitting?" check.
(also probably monomer, not dimer) pic.twitter.com/PbZZNFHhBB

— Teortaxes▶️ (DeepSeek 推特🐋铁粉 2023 – ∞) (@teortaxesTex) March 9, 2025

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Alexander Doria, co-founder of AI startup Pleias, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he encountered "endless loops" and errors.

To give more detail: it never manages to fill a file with synthetic human: assistant: exchange. Instead there are regular "encountered errors" and generation examples being outputted directly through injection. pic.twitter.com/UnpWEgbNxa

— Alexander Doria (@Dorialexander) March 9, 2025

Zengyi Qin, a generative AI researcher, also took to X and shared his views saying, "Manus is NOT a technology breakthrough," because it mainly follows pre-defined workflows to perform tasks and operates within fairly limited environments.

Many people ask me about Manus @ManusAI_HQ and here are my thoughts: pic.twitter.com/PgwCqzzb6y

— Zengyi Qin (@qinzytech) March 6, 2025

Manus' website makes lofty claims—like buying real estate or building apps autonomously—but some of the platform's core functions reportedly rely on fine-tuned versions of existing models like Anthropic's Claude and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s (NYSE BABA) Qwen.

Yichao "Peak" Ji, a research lead for Manus, called the tool a "completely autonomous agent" and claimed it outperforms OpenAI's Deep Research on the GAIA benchmark. 

Introducing Manus: the first general AI agent.
Try Manus today and see the future of human-machine collaboration: https://t.co/IKBPiiHsta pic.twitter.com/z3C8fUK3eN

— ManusAI (@ManusAI_HQ) March 5, 2025

But a viral video touting Manus' capabilities was later confirmed by Ji to not be a real demo.

Co-founder of Manus AI here! Thanks for your interest in Manus @heyBarsee, but this video is definitely NOT Manus🤣. Our official account is @ManusAI_HQ , and Manus is a web-based AI agent, like OpenAI Operator/DeepResearch, not a VNC for smartphones.

— Yichao 'Peak' Ji (@peakji) March 8, 2025

Why It's Important:  The rise of Manus comes at a time when the AI landscape in China is rapidly evolving. DeepSeek, another Chinese AI firm, has been under scrutiny by the U.S. government, which is considering restrictions on its operations.

DeepSeek’s AI models have been made open-source, allowing them to be freely downloaded and copied.

In January 2025, DeepSeek’s assertion that its AI model was developed at a fraction of the cost compared to its U.S. competitors resulted in Nvidia Corp NVDA losing $600 billion in market value in just one day.

Moreover, a study by Copyleaks revealed that 74% of DeepSeek’s output mimics OpenAI’s ChatGPT, raising questions about its development process.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Tencent’s Yuanbao AI has surpassed DeepSeek as the most downloaded iPhone app in China.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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