Manus: the Chinese 'general-purpose' agent that runs tasks end-to-end

A Chinese startup (Butterfly Effect / "Monica") launches Manus, an AI agent marketed as "general purpose": you give it a task like "analyze these 50 companies and prepare a report" and in minutes it returns finished documents, Excel sheets, and research done by browsing the web.

Unlike traditional chatbots, Manus opens a virtual browser, downloads files, writes code, runs scripts, and shows in real time what it's doing on its "computer". The user can step in or let it run.

The communications impact is strong: for a few days Manus invites sell for up to $500 on grey markets. It becomes the "Devin of 2025", even though under the hood it combines existing models (Claude + Qwen) rather than training its own.