2025/03/07
Shells have their uses, and Manus may be a good Agent, but it's not up to the hype
One code is difficult to find, "the world's first universal Agent", built by the Chinese team, 12 application scenarios.
March 6, Manus screen circle of friends, some of the media used "GPT moment", "burst", "Silicon Valley sleepless night" and other titles, has become another stimulant after DeepSeek AI circle. In the mode of "seeking a Manus invitation code", on a second-hand platform, the price of its invitation code was once stir-fried to a sky-high 100,000 yuan.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
On X, MIT PhD @ZengyiQin shares his thoughts. "Manus is a good product, but it's not a technological breakthrough," he says.
In some domestic AI communities, there are also mixed reviews. Some technicians believe that Manus may be a good Agent, but it is not enough to pursue so much, let alone the so-called "XX moment"; Some investors also resent the satellite-based reporting; Others admire the Manus team for its successful marketing disruption.
After Manus triggered the attention of the technology industry, Zhang Tao, a partner of Manus AI, responded in a post on the social platform. He said that "I totally underestimated everyone's enthusiasm," and pointed out that Manus is still a baby in a baby, and implored everyone to be more tolerant and understanding of this company of dozens of people, "the team is working hard to let everyone experience a better product as soon as possible."
Shells have their uses, and Manus may be a good Agent, but it's not up to the hype
Is Manus a revolutionary innovation? Maybe it's too early to tell. Let the bullets fly for a while.
01 What is the technical principle of Manus? Where is Qiang?
What is Manus?
Manus officials only gave a four-minute demo video, and the rest of it was "communicating with everyone with the product."
According to reports, Manus is the world's first universal Agent product, with independent thinking and system planning capabilities. Most importantly, unlike traditional AI, which only provides suggestions or answers, Manus can autonomously invoke tools in a virtual environment, such as writing code, intelligently browsing the web, manipulating various applications, and directly delivering complete task results. Perform complex tasks ranging from travel planning, stock analysis, educational content creation, to insurance policy comparison, supplier procurement, financial report analysis, and more.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
In the GAIA benchmark, a benchmark that evaluates how general-purpose AI assistants solve real-world problems, Manus achieved new state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance across all three difficulty levels.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
Official information shows that the core of Manus uses Multiple Agent architecture (multi-agent collaboration architecture) to build closed-loop task flows in independent virtual machines.
Specifically, it deals with complex tasks through the division of labor and cooperation mechanism of planning agent, executing agent and verifying agent.
In this process, Manus can create a new task environment in the virtual machine, and call various tools, including writing and executing code, browsing the web, operating applications, and so on, and ultimately generate high-quality replies or solutions for users.
Take "Customize a trip to Japan in April" as an example, according to the official demo, after entering the prompt word, Manus will take apart the task and determine the idea according to your instructions.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
Then, it will follow its plan, step by step, retrieve the data, analyze the content and so on. You can see the corresponding generated code in real time through the right side of the interface.
Manus then consolidates the code and feeds it back to the LLM, updating memory and doing reasoning and content generation. Finally, a complete and personalized travel plan is created.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
On X, MIT PhD @ZengyiQin shares his thoughts. "Manus is a good product, but it's not a technological breakthrough," he says.
Manus, he says, mainly follows predefined flows to perform tasks. However, even if it can optimize system functionality in the short term, the predefined processes will greatly limit the maximum performance of the system; At the same time, Manus can only work in a relatively limited environment, that is, in some way between the browser level and the operating system level, and it is not effective outside of predefined software tools. For example, it can't control the slides to make slides for you. And much of that software is actually outside of Manus' toolbox.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
After the exchange of NetEase technology and a number of technical personnel, the relatively consistent view is that Manus may be a good Agent, but it is not enough to pursue so many, let alone the so-called "XX moment".
02 What is the background of the Manus team?
Xiao Hong, the founder of Manus products, graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2015, majoring in software engineering, and is a serial entrepreneur. He founded Nightingale Technology and launched B-end products such as SaaS tools, One Partner Assistant and Micro Partner Assistant, which received hundreds of millions of investment from Tencent, Zhenfund and other companies, and sold the products to a unicorn company in 2020.
In the four-minute video, the presenter is Monica's co-founder and chief scientist Ji Yichao, not Xiao Hong.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
Peak Ji, co-founder and Chief Scientist of Monica
In 2022, Xiao Hong set up "Butterfly Effect" company to develop AI assistant Monica, focusing on overseas markets. Monica integrates various large-scale language models to achieve All-in-One, providing users with diversified functional services such as chat, translation, copy processing, and drawing.
But because it did not develop large models, Monica was criticized as a "shell" product from the moment it entered the market. The general view of the market for "shell" products is that it is not long-term, most of its market is phased products, and the end of the product will be eaten by large model companies.
In 2024, Monica did not die, and its product form has gradually expanded from browser plug-ins to apps and web pages. The number of users has reached 10 million, and the profits are considerable, belonging to the head of AI Chrome plug-in products.
The Manus that brushes the screen this time also continues Monica's product idea. While the team has not announced the Manus dock model, it is clearly an integration of the capabilities of the larger models.
03 Shell has the use of shell, and the interaction between people and AI will be more humane
AI Agent is not a new concept, but past products are often difficult to really "use". Many plugins that need to be debugged, as well as complex toolchains, have been the main barriers preventing ordinary users from really using them.
Careful analysis of Manus's broken circle may also be because the threshold for ordinary people to understand and really use it has been greatly reduced.
According to user feedback, Manus is far more fluent in executing tasks than expected, even a vague task instruction can be disassembled and executed according to the context, rather than requiring the user to give precise input.
However, from the perspective of the implementation effect, many people also say that there is still some distance from the real "liberation of hands" symbolized by Manus.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
At Superlinear Academy, members of the Manus team say they believe in and practice the philosophy of less structure and more intelligence: When your data is good enough, the model is strong enough, the architecture is flexible enough, and the engineering is solid enough, then concepts such as computer use, deep research, coding agent, etc. go from product features to natural capabilities.
Previously, Xiao Hong also shared his views on Agent in a public interview. He believes that looking back at the trend of AI development, from the earliest form input, to natural dialogue, and now you can understand user needs with context, the fundamental logic is that products are becoming more and more in line with the use habits of ordinary users, and the communication between people and AI is becoming more and more smooth and humanized.
Two days before the product launch, Xiao Hong posted on social media: In 2025, Chatbot is crossing the second gap, Agent is crossing the first gap, in the next six months, there will be many good fighting opportunities. Finally, you must believe that the shell has its uses!
Shells have their uses, and Manus may be a good Agent, but it's not up to the hype
Whether Manus is a good product remains to be seen in the market. However, Xiao Hong said that the historic moment of Agent crossing the "first gap" is not far away.
Li Shu Source: Yu Jiaqi_NBJS28262
One code is difficult to find, "the world's first universal Agent", built by the Chinese team, 12 application scenarios.
March 6, Manus screen circle of friends, some of the media used "GPT moment", "burst", "Silicon Valley sleepless night" and other titles, has become another stimulant after DeepSeek AI circle. In the mode of "seeking a Manus invitation code", on a second-hand platform, the price of its invitation code was once stir-fried to a sky-high 100,000 yuan.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
On X, MIT PhD @ZengyiQin shares his thoughts. "Manus is a good product, but it's not a technological breakthrough," he says.
In some domestic AI communities, there are also mixed reviews. Some technicians believe that Manus may be a good Agent, but it is not enough to pursue so much, let alone the so-called "XX moment"; Some investors also resent the satellite-based reporting; Others admire the Manus team for its successful marketing disruption.
After Manus triggered the attention of the technology industry, Zhang Tao, a partner of Manus AI, responded in a post on the social platform. He said that "I totally underestimated everyone's enthusiasm," and pointed out that Manus is still a baby in a baby, and implored everyone to be more tolerant and understanding of this company of dozens of people, "the team is working hard to let everyone experience a better product as soon as possible."
Shells have their uses, and Manus may be a good Agent, but it's not up to the hype
Is Manus a revolutionary innovation? Maybe it's too early to tell. Let the bullets fly for a while.
01 What is the technical principle of Manus? Where is Qiang?
What is Manus?
Manus officials only gave a four-minute demo video, and the rest of it was "communicating with everyone with the product."
According to reports, Manus is the world's first universal Agent product, with independent thinking and system planning capabilities. Most importantly, unlike traditional AI, which only provides suggestions or answers, Manus can autonomously invoke tools in a virtual environment, such as writing code, intelligently browsing the web, manipulating various applications, and directly delivering complete task results. Perform complex tasks ranging from travel planning, stock analysis, educational content creation, to insurance policy comparison, supplier procurement, financial report analysis, and more.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
In the GAIA benchmark, a benchmark that evaluates how general-purpose AI assistants solve real-world problems, Manus achieved new state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance across all three difficulty levels.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
Official information shows that the core of Manus uses Multiple Agent architecture (multi-agent collaboration architecture) to build closed-loop task flows in independent virtual machines.
Specifically, it deals with complex tasks through the division of labor and cooperation mechanism of planning agent, executing agent and verifying agent.
In this process, Manus can create a new task environment in the virtual machine, and call various tools, including writing and executing code, browsing the web, operating applications, and so on, and ultimately generate high-quality replies or solutions for users.
Take "Customize a trip to Japan in April" as an example, according to the official demo, after entering the prompt word, Manus will take apart the task and determine the idea according to your instructions.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
Then, it will follow its plan, step by step, retrieve the data, analyze the content and so on. You can see the corresponding generated code in real time through the right side of the interface.
Manus then consolidates the code and feeds it back to the LLM, updating memory and doing reasoning and content generation. Finally, a complete and personalized travel plan is created.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
On X, MIT PhD @ZengyiQin shares his thoughts. "Manus is a good product, but it's not a technological breakthrough," he says.
Manus, he says, mainly follows predefined flows to perform tasks. However, even if it can optimize system functionality in the short term, the predefined processes will greatly limit the maximum performance of the system; At the same time, Manus can only work in a relatively limited environment, that is, in some way between the browser level and the operating system level, and it is not effective outside of predefined software tools. For example, it can't control the slides to make slides for you. And much of that software is actually outside of Manus' toolbox.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
After the exchange of NetEase technology and a number of technical personnel, the relatively consistent view is that Manus may be a good Agent, but it is not enough to pursue so many, let alone the so-called "XX moment".
02 What is the background of the Manus team?
Xiao Hong, the founder of Manus products, graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2015, majoring in software engineering, and is a serial entrepreneur. He founded Nightingale Technology and launched B-end products such as SaaS tools, One Partner Assistant and Micro Partner Assistant, which received hundreds of millions of investment from Tencent, Zhenfund and other companies, and sold the products to a unicorn company in 2020.
In the four-minute video, the presenter is Monica's co-founder and chief scientist Ji Yichao, not Xiao Hong.
Shells have their uses, and Manus crosses the first Agent gap
Peak Ji, co-founder and Chief Scientist of Monica
In 2022, Xiao Hong set up "Butterfly Effect" company to develop AI assistant Monica, focusing on overseas markets. By integrating various large-scale language models, Monica
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