Manus, a rising star in AI Agent products, recently forged a strategic partnership with Alibaba Cloud's large language model, Tongyi Qianwen. According to a message posted on Manus's WeChat video account "Manus AI," the two companies will leverage Tongyi Qianwen's open-source model series to implement all of Manus's functionalities on domestic models and computing platforms.
The two tech teams have already begun collaborating closely to create more creative general-purpose intelligent agent products for Chinese users. Tongyi Qianwen also confirmed the partnership, expressing its eagerness to collaborate with more global AI innovators.
Manus, developed by Chinese AI startup Butterfly Effect (founded in 2023), released an early preview version on the evening of March 5, 2025. The company touted it as the "world's first general-purpose intelligent agent product." In its introductory video, Manus demonstrated its ability to automatically execute three complex tasks: screening resumes, selecting properties, and analyzing stocks. Users reportedly only need to provide simple instructions for Manus to complete these complex tasks automatically.
Following its release, Manus faced some criticism due to issues such as "busy service, unable to log in." Industry insiders point out that the product is still in its early stages. According to Manus co-founder and chief scientist Ji Yichao, Manus utilizes fine-tuned models based on Claude and Alibaba's Qwen large language model, rather than a self-developed large model.
