What is Manus AI and is it having a DeepSeek moment? | EuronewsA new Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) platform called Manus AI claims to have developed the world’s first fully autonomous AI agent, which is making waves globally as a new impressive AI benchmark that follows the success of fellow Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek. Its release was announced on March 5 on the social media platform X by the start-up Butterfly Effect, which built Manus. The company called it "the first general AI agent" that autonomously executes complex tasks.Manus AI's CapabilitiesTech companies are battling it out to develop AI agents, which do not have a specific definition but can generally be explained as having some degree of autonomy, meaning they can perform tasks such as ordering groceries, analyzing data, and generating reports following the instructions of a human rather than just providing information. Manus AI says on its website that it was named after the Latin word for hand and is "a general AI agent that turns your thoughts into actions".The platform shows on its website that it can supposedly perform tasks such as buying property, programming video games, analyzing stocks, and planning travel itineraries. Manus’ creator said in a video that it is more than "just another chatbot or workflow... It's a completely autonomous agent".Expert OpinionsSome AI experts have said Manus AI is "China’s second DeepSeek moment," according to Rowan Cheung, founder of The Rundown AI newsletter, who later tested the platform. But other experts said that despite being heralded as another major AI breakthrough, Manus is unlikely to live up to the hype."Overall, there’s a notable lack of transparency around what Manus is really capable of doing, which would suggest that for all the talk around Manus, there’s a good chance it won’t meet expectations," said Bradford Levy, assistant professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in the US.Data Privacy ConcernsLevy also warned that users should be wary of the data they are feeding to platforms such as Manus and question the ties it has to the Chinese Communist Party. China’s National Intelligence Law states that companies must "support, assist and cooperate" with state intelligence agencies, meaning that any data shared on mobile and web apps can be accessed by those agencies.Other Manus AI users said there were error messages and that it made mistakes and missed information that could be found easily online. Manus is in invitation-only private testing for the moment."The current invite-only mechanism is due to genuinely limited server capacity at this stage," said Zhang Tao, Manus AI’s product partner.