What is Manus AI agent? What it does, and what happened with Meta

Manus is a general AI agent. You give it a goal in plain language ("compare these five insurance plans and make me a table") and it plans the steps, browses the web, writes and runs code, and hands back a finished file, report or website. It runs in the cloud, so it keeps working after you close the tab. In October 2026 it is an independent company again, after China blocked its sale to Meta.

I first wrote about Manus in March 2025, the week it launched with an invitation-only waitlist. A lot has happened since then, so this update covers what Manus does today, what it is good at, and what its year of ownership changes means for anyone who relies on it.

What Manus does

Manus was built by Butterfly Effect, the team behind the Monica browser assistant. It uses large language models, a browser, a code environment and file tools together, so one request can turn into many steps: search, read, extract, calculate, write and format.

At launch, Manus reported state-of-the-art results on GAIA, a benchmark of real-world questions that need reasoning, browsing and tool use. Benchmarks reported by the maker are a starting point. Your own tasks are the test that counts.

What it is good for

In my experience, Manus does best on research that ends in a document. These are the tasks it was shown on at launch, and they are still the ones I would try first:

• Planning a trip with a full itinerary and bookings to check.
• Researching suppliers that fit a list of requirements.
• Comparing insurance plans or software tools in a clear table.
• Analysing a stock with charts from public data.
• Building a list of target customers that match your profile.
• Turning a hard topic into teaching material.

Give it a precise goal and the format you want back. "Find 20 B2B software companies in Toronto with 50 to 200 staff and put them in a spreadsheet with a source link for each" works better than "find me leads".

What happened with Meta

Meta agreed to buy Manus in December 2025, in a deal reported at more than 2 billion dollars. By then Manus had moved its headquarters to Singapore. In April 2026, China's foreign investment security review office prohibited the acquisition and ordered it reversed.

Manus announced on 11 Aug 2026 that it would run as an independent company again, and gave users until 23 Aug to back up data created after the acquisition. It formally resumed independent operations on 1 Sep 2026, with its founders running the company. In October it raised more than 500 million dollars in a round led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, and it launched Cue, a separate app for personal agents that book restaurants and make phone calls.

What this means if you use Manus

The service kept running through the change, and the backup window was short. That is the lesson for any agent you depend on, whoever owns it.

Download the files and reports Manus makes for you, and keep them in your own storage. Write down the prompts that work, so you can run them on another agent if you need to. And read where your data is stored and who can access it, because an ownership change can move both.

Questions people ask

Who owns Manus now?

Manus runs as an independent company led by its founders, after China ordered Meta's purchase reversed in April 2026. It raised new funding in October 2026 from investors including Boyu Capital, IDG Capital and Tencent.

Is Manus free?

Manus has a free tier with a limited number of tasks and paid plans for more use. Check its pricing page for the current limits, since they change often.

What are alternatives to Manus?

Other general agents work the same way: you give a goal and the agent browses and builds the result. The Personal Assistant and Research Assistant categories on AI Agents Live list them with their reviews.