Manus AI Statistics and Facts (2025)

In March 2025, Manus AI launched and rapidly became a major player in the global AI agent space, particularly drawing attention due to its Chinese origin, impressive capabilities, and unprecedented market demand.

Below, we dive deep into Manus AI, exploring its origins, technical strengths, market impact, and comparison with other significant AI models.

Key Manus AI Statistics

• Launch Date: March 6, 2025.
• GAIA Benchmark Scores: Level 1 – 86.5%, Level 2 – 70.1%, Level 3 – 57.7% (Meta AI & Hugging Face, 2025).
• Black Market Invite Price: Codes reselling for up to ¥50,000 CNY (~$7,000 USD) (TechCrunch, 2025).
• Initial User Interest: Manus’s demo video surpassed 1 million views in less than 20 hours (Medium, 2025).
• Official Discord Community: Grew to over 138,000 members in days post-launch (Newsweek, 2025).

What is Manus AI?

Manus AI is a sophisticated, general AI agent designed to autonomously handle real-world tasks by bridging the gap between human intent and tangible outcomes.

Launched in early March 2025, Manus AI's primary functions extend beyond merely providing information, focusing instead on executing practical tasks such as travel planning, financial analysis, multimedia presentations, and intricate comparisons of insurance policies (Manus Official Website).

Unlike traditional chatbots, Manus AI actively integrates with external tools, including web browsers and code editors, facilitating practical outputs rather than passive responses.

Founder and Key Figures

The founder of Manus AI is believed to be Xiao Hong, who reportedly founded the original parent company as early as 2015.

However, records indicate that he had exited the shareholder position by December 2024 (Chinadaily.com.cn).

The co-founder and chief scientist, Ji Yichao, remains instrumental in guiding the company's technical innovations (Medium Article).

While there have been conflicting reports mentioning other names, Xiao Hong and Ji Yichao remain the most credible figures tied to Manus AI’s creation and development.

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Capabilities and Features

Manus AI’s capabilities distinguish it notably in the crowded AI market (Hugging Face Blog):

• Travel Planning: Generates personalized itineraries, effectively combining recommendations, bookings, and logistical planning.
• Financial Analysis: Creates detailed stock analysis dashboards, notably outperforming traditional AI-based financial assistants.
• Multimedia Presentations: Produces interactive video presentations, enhancing educational experiences significantly.
• Insurance Comparisons: Delivers personalized policy recommendations, streamlining decision-making for complex financial products.
• B2B Supplier Sourcing: Assists businesses in sourcing reliable suppliers efficiently.

Its innovative multi-agent architecture allows it to manage multiple task dimensions simultaneously, with specialized sub-agents managing distinct aspects of complex tasks. Manus AI also uses adaptive learning mechanisms to enhance performance through user interactions continuously.

Performance on GAIA Benchmark

Manus AI claims state-of-the-art performance on the GAIA benchmark, a rigorous standard introduced by Meta AI, Hugging Face, and AutoGPT teams to evaluate real-world AI task-solving abilities (Arxiv). The GAIA benchmark scores are particularly telling:

• Human baseline: 92%
• GPT-4 with plugins: 15%
• OpenAI’s Deep Research: 67.36%
• h2oGPTe Agent: 65%

While exact scores for Manus AI remain undisclosed, credible industry insights suggest it surpasses both h2oGPTe Agent and OpenAI's Deep Research (Comparative Analysis), making it a leading contender in the AI agent domain. Testimonials from early testers, such as Jiang Chen (X post), underscore Manus AI's impressive ability in autonomous planning and task execution. However, some users have also reported occasional errors and infinite loops (TechCrunch), indicating room for improvement.

Market Impact and Hype

The hype around Manus AI is notably significant, reflected most strikingly by the high black-market value of its invitation codes, which have sold for approximately $14,000 (hybrid-rituals.com). This extraordinary valuation underscores intense interest and market excitement surrounding the AI agent.

Within days of launch, Manus AI’s official Discord community attracted over 138,000 members, illustrating its remarkable market penetration and public intrigue.

Social media channels, particularly X (formerly Twitter), have significantly contributed to the buzz, with discussions frequently comparing Manus AI’s impact to that of other prominent Chinese AI developments like DeepSeek (Newsweek).

Nonetheless, Manus AI's rapid rise hasn't been without controversy. Concerns over its accuracy, reliability, and early glitches, alongside policy violations leading to the temporary suspension of its official X account, demonstrate that despite its potential, Manus AI remains under scrutiny.

Comparative Analysis

Manus AI notably differs from established models such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. While traditional models primarily deliver conversational interactions, Manus AI emphasizes practical, autonomous task completion.

Its closest competitor, OpenAI’s Deep Research (OpenAI Deep Research), boasts a solid GAIA benchmark score of 67.36%, but Manus AI claims superiority—though exact comparative metrics remain private.

Compared to open-source alternatives like AutoGPT, Manus AI offers more polished functionality, better integration capabilities, and more extensive real-world application scenarios (GAIA Benchmark Overview). However, unlike AutoGPT’s open-source framework, Manus AI remains proprietary and closed-source, raising discussions about accessibility, transparency, and broader AI ethics.

Conclusion

In 2025, Manus AI represents a significant milestone in AI evolution, marked by impressive technical capabilities, significant market excitement, and substantial demand. While its initial performance claims and adoption rates hint at transformative potential, the presence of reliability concerns and ethical debates highlight that Manus AI, much like the broader AI landscape, remains a complex, evolving phenomenon that balances groundbreaking innovation with necessary caution.

As Manus AI continues to develop, it will likely remain at the center of conversations about autonomy, practical AI applications, and ethical AI deployment.