Manus, released by Chinese startup Butterfly Effect in 2025, drew significant attention on release for autonomous task completion that went further than most publicly demonstrated agents at the time: given a goal, it can browse the web, write and execute code, create files, and deploy a working result with minimal step-by-step supervision.
That level of autonomy initially launched through invite-only access, generating substantial buzz and waitlist demand as one of the more capable general-purpose agents shown publicly that year, demonstrating tasks like building a working website or completing multi-step research entirely on its own from a single instruction.
Pricing runs on paid plans starting around $39 a month, with a free tier for limited use. For anyone evaluating how far autonomous, minimally supervised AI agents have progressed, Manus remains one of the most widely discussed public examples from 2025, though as with any fast-moving agent product, current capabilities and limitations are worth checking directly rather than relying on launch-period coverage alone.
