China's Manus follows DeepSeek in posing challenge to US' AI lead

For months, many leading artificial intelligence (AI) developers in the US have been racing to develop sophisticated AI agents that can carry out more complex tasks on a user's behalf.

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BEIJING - For months, many leading artificial intelligence (AI) developers in the US have been racing to develop sophisticated AI agents that can carry out more complex tasks on a user's behalf.

Now, a lesser-known Chinese start-up is claiming to have vaulted ahead of them.

Manus AI last week launched a preview version of what it called a general AI agent capable of screening resumes, creating trip itineraries and analyzing stocks in response to basic instructions from the user. The company said its service performed better on some fronts than OpenAI's Deep Research, another recently released agent.

While some AI agents require a certain amount of hand-holding and supervision, Manus co-founder and chief scientist Yichao Ji said his product is "truly autonomous." A slick video demonstration from the company quickly went viral, prompting a scramble for a limited number of invites to try out the tool.