In the case of Manus, the competitors is transferring quick. Two of probably the most buzzy observe‑ups, Genspark and Flowith, for instance, are already boasting benchmark scores that match or edge previous Manus’s.
Genspark, led by former Baidu executives Eric Jing and Kay Zhu, hyperlinks many small “super agents” via what it calls multi‑part prompting. The agent can change amongst a number of giant language fashions, accepts each photographs and textual content, and carries out duties from making slide decks to putting telephone calls. Whereas Manus depends closely on Browser Use, a well-liked open-source product that lets brokers function an online browser in a digital window like a human, Genspark instantly integrates with a big selection of instruments and APIs. Launched in April, the corporate says that it already has over 5 million customers and over $36 million in yearly income.
Flowith, the work of a younger staff that first grabbed public consideration in April 2025 at a developer occasion hosted by the favored social media app Xiaohongshu, takes a special tack. Marketed as an “infinite agent,” it opens on a clean canvas the place every query turns into a node on a branching map. Users can backtrack, take new branches, and retailer outcomes in private or sharable “knowledge gardens”—a design that feels extra like undertaking administration software program (suppose Notion) than a typical chat interface. Every inquiry or activity builds its personal mind-map-like graph, encouraging a extra nonlinear and artistic interplay with AI. Flowith’s core agent, NEO, runs in the cloud and may carry out scheduled duties like sending emails and compiling information. The founders need the app to be a “knowledge marketbase”, and goals to faucet into the social side of AI with the aspiration of changing into “the OnlyFans of AI knowledge creators”.
What additionally they share with Manus is the worldwide ambition. Both Genspark and Flowith have acknowledged that their major focus is the worldwide market.
A world handle
Startups like Manus, Genspark, and Flowith—although based by Chinese entrepreneurs—might mix seamlessly into the worldwide tech scene and compete successfully overseas. Founders, buyers, and analysts that MIT Technology Review has spoken to consider Chinese corporations are transferring quick, executing effectively, and rapidly arising with new merchandise.
Money reinforces the pull to launch abroad. Customers there pay extra, and there are a lot to go round. “You can price in USD, and with the exchange rate that’s a sevenfold multiplier,” Manus cofounder Xiao Hong quipped on a podcast. “Even if we’re only operating at 10% power because of cultural differences overseas, we’ll still make more than in China.”
But creating the identical performance in China is a problem. Major US AI corporations together with OpenAI and Anthropic have opted out of mainland China due to geopolitical dangers and challenges with regulatory compliance. Their absence initially created a black market as customers resorted to VPNs and third-party mirrors to entry instruments like ChatGPT and Claude. That vacuum has since been crammed by a brand new wave of Chinese chatbots—DeepSeek, Doubao, Kimi—however the urge for food for international fashions hasn’t gone away.
Manus, for instance, makes use of Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet—broadly thought of the highest mannequin for agentic duties. Manus cofounder Zhang Tao has repeatedly praised Claude’s capability to juggle instruments, bear in mind contexts, and maintain multi‑spherical conversations—all essential for turning chatty software program into an efficient government assistant.