AI News Monitor

China’s latest AI sensation can handle complicated tasks that human workers already get paid to do.

Chinese startup, Monica, has created a new AI agent called Manus AI that can handle complicated tasks without human supervision. The model can plan trips, draft reports, and even create websites, with only a single prompt.

Monica’s co-founder and chief scientist, Yichao “Peak” Ji, said that Manus AI is “potentially a glimpse into AGI.” AGI, or artificial general intelligence, is an AI system that can learn, understand, and handle any tasks that a human can.

AGI is still very much theoretical, but tests performed by Monica show that Manus AI has come as close as possible. The AI agent can create an itinerary for a holiday trip. It can check social media platforms such as X and Telegram and collect data. It can read an excel file and extract the information there to create an interview schedule for up to 40 candidates. It can build a new website, or analyze an existing one for SEO improvement.

Manus is currently only available to users by invitation, as the company seeks to test it and make any necessary improvements. The AI agent is powered by Claude 3.5 Sonnet v1, complemented by several other Qwen models. Qwen large language models are developed by Chinese tech giant Alibaba, while Claude models are owned by the US-based Anthropic. However, Ji says that the company are looking at other improved models, including Claude 3.7 Sonnet.

The new Manus AI surpasses other existing AI agents. Last month, OpenAI released its Operator Tool, which can interact with the web. It can help users shop online and schedule appointments, all on its own. Manus, however, can perform a much wider range of complex tasks. It functions essentially as a digital employee. It is also cloud-based, which means that it can continue to run tasks in the background, even if the user shuts their laptop. It completes the task without any added input and sends a notification when the results are ready.

General AI agents are painted as a game changer. Tech experts have said that they can allow the world to progress from AI chatbots to fully functional assistants able to handle multiple tasks on behalf of the user and never get tired. However, jobs like building a website and analyzing an existing one for SEO are already done by human workers. People who do those jobs that Manus can now perform will rightly be concerned about how things will change when the AI agent is finally rolled out to users around the world.

Career leaders have emphasized the need for workers to upskill and reskill as AI continues to reshape the job market. With Manus AI in the works, more general AI agents are certain to follow. People seeking to learn new skills to survive the upcoming labor transformation may want to do so sooner rather than later.