In the past year, artificial intelligence leaders have talked about the advent of agents that can do work autonomously. Now, China says it has developed the world’s first.

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.

China's new general AI agent Manus is generating excitement on social media, with some hailing it as the next DeepSeek. Bloomberg's Annabelle Droulers reports. (Source: Bloomberg)