Is Manus AI The DeepSeek Moment for AI Agents?

WHAT’S INSIDE

• Tech In The News: Manus AI, X Cyberattack, Recession, economic transition

• Companies to watch: Anysphere, Daqus, Oracle, Epirus, Reflection AI, Gong

• Feature: Is Manus AI The DeepSeek Moment for AI Agents?

• Buzzy Tools: Latest Buzzy tech, AI and financial tools

• Deep Tech: The latest in deep tech, biotech, futurism and more

• Space Tech: Latest news in the space race and aerospace tech

• Crypto: Blockchain and crypto policy and startups or protocols to watch

TECH IN THE NEWS

X Under Attack — X platform faces outages affecting 40,000+ users, with Musk claiming Ukrainian cyberattack amid heightened scrutiny of his government role.

Canada's New PM — Mark Carney meets Trudeau for transition, faces US tariffs and annexation threats while Ontario protests with electricity surcharges.

Recession Looms — US tariff policies increase recession risks across North America, leading to inflation concerns and potential central bank rate cuts.

Markets Tumble — Nasdaq drops 4%, S&P 500 falls below 200-day average amid tariff concerns and recession fears, Tesla and crypto stocks hit hard.

Crypto Banking — US banks allowed to conduct crypto custody and stablecoin operations without prior approval, marking shift in regulatory stance.

COMPANIES TO WATCH

Daqus Energy — Secured $6M to develop TAQ, a revolutionary battery material for EV sports cars offering faster charging and lighter weight than current lithium-ion tech.

AI Infrastructure — OpenAI and Oracle begin deploying 64,000 Nvidia GPUs at Stargate data center in Texas.

Anysphere — AI coding assistant seeking $10B valuation, up from recent $2.5B, amid surging investor interest in AI coding tools. It recently hit $100M ARR in 21 months, becoming the fastest-growing SaaS ever.

Epirus — Raised $250M Series D for Leonidas high-power microwave defense tech, expanding production and international presence.

Reflection AI — Ex-DeepMind researchers secure $130M ($25M seed + $105M Series A) at $555M valuation for autonomous coding, backed by Nvidia and Reid Hoffman.

Gong — The revenue prediction startup hit $300M ARR, valued at $7.25B with clients like GOOGL ( ▼ 4.49% ) and LNKD ( 0.0% ), as it prioritizes product development ahead of possible IPO.

HOTTEST THING IN TECH
Is Manus AI The DeepSeek Moment for AI Agents?

A new AI agent, Manus AI, has been generating massive hype since late last week, even being called a “DeepSeek moment.” Developed by Singapore-based startup Butterfly Effect, Manus claims to autonomously handle complex tasks like real estate transactions, advanced programming, data analysis, content creation, stock trading, travel bookings, and even video game programming. It has outperformed OpenAI and Claude on the GAIA benchmark, and many early users claimed it surpasses DeepResearch in depth and capability—one even calling it a “feel the AGI moment.” But is the hype justified, and what does this launch mean for the AI agent sector?

A DeepSeek Moment or Just Hype?

Manus combines elements of OpenAI Operator, DeepResearch, Anthropic’s AI tools, Replit Agents, and more into a single interface, costing $20 to $200 per month. It integrates with multiple tools and claims to function independently on the web—at least sometimes. The invitation-only beta has fueled anticipation, with AI influencers celebrating its automation of social media management, website creation, and course development. But is scarcity marketing playing a role in its hype?

Early testers report mixed reviews. Some praise its usefulness, while others say their initial enthusiasm faded due to technical glitches, errors, and server shortages. High demand has caused compute issues, resulting in endless loops and failed executions—challenges the company says it is actively addressing.

A Closed Loop

Unlike DeepSeek, Butterfly Effect did not develop its own language models, instead relying on fine-tuned versions of existing LLMs. This has led to skepticism about its originality. Furthermore, it is a closed proprietary ecosystem rather than an open-source tool. However, OpenManus, a fully open-source alternative, is already mimicking many of Manus AI’s capabilities—though with no UI and slower speeds.

Why Manus is Revolutionary

Manus’s core innovation is its ability to operate independently across the web and apps on users’ behalf. This, however, is also its biggest challenge, leading to the errors and “doom loops” reported by users. Despite these hurdles, as the system scales and computing power increases, Manus and other agentic AIs will drastically reshape online interactions and automation.

Beyond Walled Gardens: The Need for an AX Standard

Manus is built on Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Alibaba’s Qwen models, likely utilizing Anthropic’s MCP (Massively Collaborative Processing), which simplifies AI-agent interactions with third-party apps. However, the web isn’t yet structured for smooth AI-agent operations. Currently, most AI agents use headless browsers, take screenshots, and rely on multimodal models to make decisions—a clunky, short-term solution.

A recent podcast featuring Netlify CEO Matt Biilmann and a16z’s Martin Casado discussed how the web must evolve to accommodate AI agents. They propose establishing a new discipline—AX (Agent Experience), similar to UX and DX—to standardize AI interactions with online platforms. Without this, AI agents risk being confined within closed ecosystems rather than fostering an open and dynamic web.

Key Takeaways From Manus

Whether Manus becomes the definitive AI agent or not, it signals a major shift toward Agentic AI. Other major players like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Alibaba are likely developing their own next-gen AI agents in response, just as DeepSeek’s launch spurred a wave of rapid releases.

Manus also highlights the ongoing competition between Chinese and Western AI innovation. China continues to produce highly capable, affordable, and often open-source AI models (DeepSeek, Manus, Qwen), while the U.S. dominates in computational power. If tools like Manus overpromise and underdeliver, however, there’s a risk of diminishing investor confidence in the AI agent space as a whole.

Other Developments: AI Agents in Warfare and Finance

The growing autonomy of AI agents isn’t just reshaping consumer tech—it’s making waves in military and financial sectors as well.

• Military AI Agents: The U.S. military has partnered with Scale AI to integrate AI agents into strategic planning and operations. The Thunderforge project aims to enhance mission planning and resource allocation with AI, while ensuring human oversight remains a critical safeguard.

• AI in Markets: Just days ago, xAI’s Grok launched a token on Coinbase’s Base chain using AI-driven trading mechanisms like Bankrbot and Clanker. Its AI-controlled wallet has already generated over $200K in in automated market-making fees over a single weekend. This signals a future where AI autonomously manages financial markets, creating and executing trades at a level of speed and efficiency far beyond human capabilities.

The Future of AI Agents

As AI agents like Manus become more capable, industries from travel to trading will be forced to adapt. But as we race toward autonomy, the question remains: is full AI-driven automation the right path? The next phase of AI evolution will require balancing autonomy with accountability—ensuring AI agents enhance, rather than disrupt, the systems they are designed to improve.

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BUZZY TOOLS 
Buzzy Tools To Watch & Use

visionOS 3 — Feature-rich update with Spatial Personas and Mac integration; June.

FoxBrain — Foxconn launches open-source manufacturing LLM trained in Chinese.

Llama 4 — Meta's upcoming AI model features advanced voice capabilities.

Gemini Calendar — Tests AI side panel for conversational schedule management.

Meta Voice AI — Llama 4 to be multi-modal, feature interruptible speech processing.

DEEP TECH
The Latest Technology & Trends To Watch

Brain-Signal Decoder — Meta's AI translates thoughts to text with 68% accuracy.

ALA-CART Therapy — Enhanced CAR-T cancer treatment targets resistant cells.

Genie Operator-1 — Agibot's AI helps humanoid robots learn tasks from videos.

BRP Peptide — Natural appetite suppressant outperforms Ozempic in animal trials.

Stargate GPUs — OpenAI-Oracle deploy 64,000 Nvidia chips in Texas datacenter.

Carbon AI Chip — Chinese breakthrough uses nanotubes for faster computing.

BrainNet Robots — UBTech enables swarm intelligence for factory automation.

SPACE RACE

—Boom Supersonic_XB-1 jet breaks sound barrier silently, quiet supersonic is here

—NASA DEI_Closing offices and reducing workforce following executive order on DEI

—Dark Matter_New lighter, self-annihilating candidate found at Milky Way's center

—AST SpaceMobile_Plans 45-60 satellites by 2026 for direct-to-phone broadband

—Intuitive Machines_Athena lander topples but completes key mission objectives

—Space Tunnel_Interstellar passage reveals potential new stellar connectivity paths

CRYPTO WATCH

Grok Base — An AI-controlled Grok wallet launched on Base with BankrBot and Clancker has generated $200K+ in automated market-making fees since launch.

ByBit Hack — The Lazarus Group laundered $300M from the $1.5B crypto heist, with slim recovery chances despite a bounty program.

OCC Update — US banks cleared for crypto custody and stablecoin operations without prior regulatory approval.

Fund Flows — Crypto funds saw $876M outflows ($4.75B YTD), with US investors pulling $922M despite Trump's Bitcoin plans.

Crypto Fund — A $21B perpetual preferred stock offering planned to fund Bitcoin acquisition and other initiatives.

Stablecoin Push — Fintech execs are backing dollar-based stablecoins for lower transaction costs with Trump's support despite banking safeguard concerns.

White House Summit — Trump ends Operation Chokepoint 2.0, announces stablecoin legislation and Bitcoin reserve from seized assets to make US global crypto capital.

TRENDING ONLINE#

Social Trends:

Boom Supersonic's XB-1 jet flew in front of the sun so NASA could take this incredible shock wave photo.

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