China's Manus general-purpose AI agent debuts, invite-only demo goes viral worldwide

Chinese AI startup Butterfly Effect (the company behind the browser extension “Monica”) unveiled its general-purpose AI agent “Manus.” Although released as an invite-only beta, the demo video drew worldwide attention, surpassing 1 million views within 20 hours of its release.

Details

• Co-founder Ji Yichao’s comment: He touted that “where other AIs stop at brainstorming, Manus delivers results”
• Demo content: Showcased the agent autonomously handling multiple real-world tasks without human intervention, including resume screening, stock correlation analysis, and home searches (down to evaluating nearby school districts and budget decisions)
• Benchmarks: Claimed to have outperformed OpenAI’s products across all difficulty tiers on the GAIA Benchmark
• Invite code surge: Invite codes were resold on Chinese resale platforms for as much as 100,000 yuan (roughly $20,000 at the time)
• Comparisons: Domestic and international media covered it as the latest “shock from Chinese AI,” following the buzz around DeepSeek earlier that year

What happened next

The invite-only shortage persisted for several weeks, with the waitlist swelling to around 2 million people. By late March that year, a paid plan and mobile app were rolled out, and by May the invite system itself was scrapped, opening access to everyone.