Manus wasn’t developed entirely from scratch. According to reports on social media, the platform uses a combination of existing and fine-tuned AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude and Alibaba’s Qwen, to perform tasks such as drafting research reports and analyzing financial filings.

Some early users were enthusiastic about the product’s capabilities; others complained it took too long and crashed.

A powerful new AI tool Manus is making waves in China, fuelling hopes that it could replicate the success of DeepSeek, which earlier this year rattled the global tech industry with its state-of-the-art chatbot.