AI: China's Manus AI takes a DeepSeek bow. RTZ #655

As I mentioned this Saturday, the US AI industry and regulators are again fretting that a Chinese AI company may again have a DeepSeek type of ‘drop’ on the US in this AI Tech Wave.

This time it’s a company named Manus AI, that focuses on providing seamless AI Agentic services to users. Although only available via private invitations, the company has created a global buzz in a few short days. And something worth discussing given the accelerating focus on the AI Agent space by US companies like OpenAI and others.

Founded by Yichao ‘Peak’ Ji, Manus AI has quickly captured global AI lightning in a bottle in terms of the attention of industry leaders.

Axios lays it out in “New Chinese AI agent draws DeepSeek comparison”:

“Just days after its announcement, a new AI agent named Manus is winning expert acclaim while stoking concern over another AI advance rooted in Chinese research and development.”

“Driving the news: Manus AI, named after the Latin word for hand, is billed as “a general AI agent that turns your thoughts into actions.”

• In a video posted late last week, Manus’ creator describes it more than “just another chatbot or workflow. … It’s a completely autonomous agent.”

• “We see it as the next paradigm of human-machine collaboration and potentially a glimpse into AGI,” Manus AI chief scientist Yichao “Peak” Ji says in the video.”

It seems to do on steroids, what similar systems by OpenAI and others are just starting to demonstrate.

“Ji’s demo shows Manus handling three separate tasks, sorting through resumes, identifying correlations in various stocks and searching through New York real estate — rating nearby schools and assessing how much the user can realistically afford.”

• “Manus does its work in the cloud, he says, which allows users to shut their laptop while the AI is working — but also raises concerns about data security and privacy.”

And of course it is being framed in the US/China AI Space Race context:

“Why it matters: As with DeepSeek, the advent of Manus is alarming some U.S. observers who worry that China is catching up in what is often cast as a race for AI supremacy.”

And the product is barely out of the box:

“Yes, but: For now, Manus is in invitation-only private testing.”

“What they’re saying: Manus has sparked a flurry of online discussion, with enthusiasm for its capabilities, critiques of its limitations, and warnings about its implications for privacy and security.”

• “It looks like Manus AI presents itself as a Chinese company (with its team based in China) while maintaining a legal entity in Singapore,” AI and privacy expert Luiza Jarovsky writes in a newsletter.”

• “From a data protection perspective, the key questions are: Where are its servers located? Is there any corporate affiliation to China? Are there data transfers to China?”

And of course the company’s merits are being debated:

“The other side: Skeptics are already questioning whether Manus can live up to the claims being made for it.”

• “Some early testers, like TechCrunch’s Kyle Wiggers, found its performance on various tasks disappointing.”

“The big picture: Agents with various levels of autonomy have been widely seen as the next big thing in AI and were already an industry buzzword long before Manus’ arrival.”

Chalk it all up for now as the right company at the right time, but from China:

“Between the lines: Manus arrives at a moment of growing concern over dangers autonomous AI agents might pose.”

• “In a recent paper, four researchers at Hugging Face make a forceful argument that “fully autonomous AI agents should not be developed.”

• “As history demonstrates, even well-engineered autonomous systems can make catastrophic errors from trivial causes,” the authors write. “While increased autonomy can offer genuine benefits in specific contexts, human judgment and contextual understanding remain essential, particularly for high-stakes decisions.”

AI Agents are Level 3 on the OpenAI ‘roadmap to AGI’ (artificial general intelligence). And as a result, a key nexus of global AI competitive focus.

Manus AI is likely to be just one of the first of bleeding edge successes to come. And the next one may or may not be from China. Stay tuned.

(NOTE: The discussions here are for information purposes only, and not meant as investment advice at any time. Thanks for joining us here)