GuShiio.com Can Manus really become the next DeepSeek? We might as well take a deeper understanding of it first.
Today, waves have been caused in the AI circle. A product called Manus quickly attracted a lot of attention with an all-English promotional video and an invitation code release method. This AI Agent developed by a China team is officially called the “world’s first universal Agent.” It seems that OpenAI and Anthropic operators were eliminated overnight. After Manus was released, it quickly triggered a “burst” spread in a small circle, similar to the DeepSeek phenomenon. However, can Manus really become the next DeepSeek? We might as well take a deeper understanding of it first.
What exactly is Manus?
According to Manus’s promotional videos and official website information, it is an AI Agent that can “solve various complex and changeable tasks, have independent thinking and system planning capabilities, and be able to flexibly call tools in a virtual environment and directly deliver complete results.” These introductions are not uncommon in today’s AI Agent products, and many AI products describe themselves in this way. Manus is not currently publicly available and can only be used through invitation codes, and the release method also relies entirely on presentation videos.
In the video demonstration, Manus showed several specific application scenarios: for example, uploading a compressed package containing multiple resumes, automatically decompressing, analyzing and providing suggestions based on prompt words; sorting property information and prices based on user needs; generating analysis report on Nvidia and Tesla stock price. Similar functions have been demonstrated by many AI products such as OpenAI’s Operator, Smart AI’s Phone Use, and Google Gemini.
From a technical perspective, Manus did not provide a detailed technical report. Some analysts point out that Manus’s basic capabilities may come from the Claude model, combined with post-training techniques of open source models, and performed tasks through a series of defined workflows. Its innovation is to encapsulate these capabilities in a cloud virtual environment and provide services in an asynchronous interactive mode, although this is still far from the “universal AI” goal pursued by the industry.
Problems with “General Agent”
Manus’s goal is to become a “universal AI Agent”-that is, it doesn’t just provide suggestions or answers, but can plan and perform tasks autonomously. However, this definition itself has problems. Powerful models like Claude already have the ability to handle complex tasks and complete them with efficient tool calls. Therefore, these functions of Manus can essentially be achieved through more powerful Agents or large models, and even without the need for a specially designed system like Manus.
In addition, Manus’s product positioning is obviously different from traditional AI Assistants. It seems that it hopes to integrate different tools and agents through a “virtual environment” to make it more automated. Although this lowers the technical threshold for users, does this mean that Manus can become a true universal intelligent agent? After all, personalized Agent needs are thousands of people, and it is still unknown whether Manus can adapt to the needs of different scenarios.
Marketing Strategy: Hunger Marketing and Social Communication
Manus’s popularity is not just due to technology, but its marketing strategy is also a highlight. Through the invitation code mechanism, Manus, like a scarce resource, quickly triggered a frenzy in the AI circle. Some platforms even speculated invitation codes to range from 999 yuan to 50,000 yuan. This hunger marketing strategy draws on the classic models of the mobile Internet era: limited distribution, user competition, and KOL screaming evaluation. Although this communication method can create topics and popularity, whether it can bring sustained user growth still needs to be tested.
However, when we opened overseas technology forums and social media, the discussion about Manus was relatively deserted. This seems to indicate that although Manus is very popular in China, many people in the international market may not be moved by its publicity. It is worth noting that Manus’s release seems to rely too much on emotional marketing and wants to use the emotional symbol “DeepSeek” to gain quick attention, but this may also mean that its popularity is short-term and lacks long-term core competitiveness.
Manus’s product values and limitations
From a product design perspective, Manus can be seen as a packaging and optimization of existing Cursor-like AI products. It simplifies the user’s operating process by introducing multiple small models and Agents, making it easy for non-technical users to choreograph and execute complex tasks. However, this approach is not completely innovative, and similar design concepts have appeared in many AI products, such as OpenDevin.
Manus’s advantage is its ability to package these complex technologies into a more easy-to-use product, allowing ordinary users to use AI more directly to handle complex tasks. But its limitations are also obvious: First, Manus still relies on preset workflows, which limits its flexibility and innovation; second, its operating environment is relatively closed and can only be run within the scope of specific software tools, and cannot support the operation of various software and applications like the general operating system. Therefore, there are still doubts about whether Manus can truly achieve the goal of “universal”.
Future competition and development
Manus is not alone in the Agent space. Competitors such as Coze and Dify are also trying to create similar universal Agents. More importantly, with the continuous advancement of large model technology, models such as Claude 3 and GPT-5 have strong tool calling capabilities. In the future, the capabilities of large models may directly swallow the market for Agent products. Therefore, whether Manus can stand out in this highly competitive market still faces huge challenges.
The more critical point is whether Manus can find a true market position. Its goal is to become a “universal Agent”, but from the current product form, it is more like an efficient AI tool platform suitable for specific application scenarios, rather than all-round AI in the general sense. If this bottleneck cannot be broken through, Manus’s market growth may be limited to a relatively narrow circle.
conclusion
Overall, Manus is a potential AI product, especially optimized in terms of user experience and technology packaging, but it is not a technological revolution. Its positioning as a “universal AI Agent” is still in doubt, and product design is more a re-packaging under the existing technology framework rather than a breakthrough innovation. Although it has created topics through hunger marketing and social communication, whether it can attract users in a lasting manner depends on whether it can find unique value in a competitive market. If Manus can break through existing limitations in the future and combine multi-agent collaboration and more efficient task execution mechanisms, it still has the opportunity to become an important player in the AI space.
