Manus AI: The Chinese AI that not only thinks, but also acts

Chinese startup Monica.im has launched "Manus AI" in 2025, a general-purpose artificial intelligence agent that not only plans tasks but also executes them from start to finish, marking a qualitative leap compared to conventional chatbots.

The artificial intelligence race has just taken a fascinating new leap forward, and it happened in China. Forget chatbots that just answer questions. Startup Monica.im has unveiled Manus AI , a system described as a "general-purpose AI agent" designed to bridge the gap between "thought" and "action."

This new development, which is already attracting global attention, is capable of receiving a complex objective, creating a plan, and executing it by interacting with the digital world to deliver tangible results, with minimal human intervention.

The secret to Manus AI's power lies in its innovative architecture of three agents working together, mimicking a human workflow:

• Planning Agent (The Strategist): Analyzes the problem, breaks it down into subtasks, and creates a step-by-step plan to achieve the goal.
• Executing Agent (The Worker): Takes the strategist's plan and carries it out, using the necessary tools such as web browsing, database access, code execution, or the use of other applications.
• Verifying Agent (The Supervisor): Reviews the results of each step executed to ensure they are correct and meet requirements. If an error occurs, the Supervisor may correct it or ask the planner to reformulate the strategy.

This plan-execute-verify cycle allows Manus AI to address open problems and adapt to unforeseen situations in real time, a capability that dramatically differentiates it from more static AI models.

The emergence of agents like Manus AI is seen by many experts as the next major evolution of artificial intelligence, surpassing generative AI. Chinese scholar Wu Hequan has pointed out that the direction of AI development will shift from content generation to AI agents.

These systems don't just suggest what to do—they actually do it. They can function as "digital partners" or "digital employees" that autonomously analyze workflows and increase efficiency. For example, if a user asks Manus AI to "analyze sales data and suggest strategies," the system doesn't just calculate trends. It decides what types of analyses are relevant, generates appropriate visualizations, and drafts conclusions with actionable recommendations, just as a human analyst would.

With the development of autonomous agents like Manus AI, the Chinese tech sector is demonstrating that it is not just competing in the AI race, but is beginning to define some of its next frontiers, with profound and direct implications for the future of work and productivity across all industries.