The latest AI assistant to stir excitement is Manus, Latin for hand. An apropos choice since Manus is pitched as the helpful hand for any sort of complex research or content creation.
Manus allegedly outpaces any rivals in sophistication. The most obvious comparison is to DeepSeek, but, while that matchup would be interesting (and one I will probably perform), I think it’s worth ranking Manus against the far more widely used ChatGPT.
Manus is invite-only and requires the company to approve your reasons for wanting to test it out. Happily, they’ve provided a variety of demonstrations showing what Manus can do. Of course, any demo should be taken with a grain of salt since they’ll almost certainly show the only examples that portray the AI in the best light. Even so, the demos show what Manus can do.
In fact, some of the demos go well beyond what ChatGPT can accomplish at the consumer level. With that in mind, I stuck to prompts that both models could respond to productively. I also focused on projects the average person might engage with, regardless of their profession. Neither caveat narrowed the options drastically. In the images below, the Manus result is on the right and ChatGPT’s output is on the left.
Fantasy Movie
I started with a fun movie screenplay prompt: “Develop a fantasy screenplay exploring a hypothetical interaction between Mayan and ancient Egyptian civilizations. Balance historical accuracy with creative liberty. First, compile relevant reference materials. Then, propose potential narrative directions and creative inspirations. Finally, select the most compelling concept and draft a preliminary script outline.”
Notably, Manus devised the prompt with only a few concepts then had the AI do research, brainstorm, pick an option, and then produce an outline for the actual script. It came through with a selection of research on the two civilizations, then a handful of seed ideas for the movie before picking the one above and writing a pretty competent outline for a whole film. ChatGPT, while not as eloquent in drafting the outline or deep in its research, nonetheless impressed me with what it came up with. While Manus is more thorough, ChatGPT proved it could match its creativity in some ways.
Adobe Bio
Next, I selected a more long-form writing prompt, asking for a whole novel on what would normally be a very dry subject. I asked ChatGPT to follow the Manus prompt, “Write a novel-style biography of Adobe Company, approximately 10,000 words in length. While maintaining factual accuracy, go beyond a simple chronological narrative to create a compelling story.”
I’m not saying either turned software development into a gripping narrative, but Manus definitely followed the length demand better. And while I didn’t spot any errors in the ChatGPT approach, it felt more like a creatively written Wikipedia article rather than a novel. Manus had a full book, with quotes and lots of context. Perhaps ChatGPT’s Deep Research feature could match it, but I wanted to stay focused on the more usual ChatGPT model for now.
Business Cards
I was curious about Manus’ claim around design and image creation, so I picked the business card prompt for the next ChatGPT comparison, asking it to also, “Create a minimalist, elegant business card for me inspired by Apple‘s design philosophy. I’ve attached my resume for reference.”
Manus made a very nice business card that does exactly what the prompt said and incorporates the relevant details from the included resume. When I used the same resume and prompt with ChatGPT, the results were somewhat messy. The text isn’t all clear (or seemingly in human language), the Apple reference has become much more literal, implying a job at the company, and frankly it’s less a business card and more what looks like an actual Apple product, perhaps a personalized mini-battery. Not exactly the professional reminder of yourself you’d want to hand out.
Ocean Meditation
For the final test, I went with an interesting writing and audio generation prompt from Manus, “Please help me create a five-minute meditation audio. My name is Wayne, and I like the ocean.”
Manus, as expected, made a lovely script, edited it, and had a nice voice read it with accompanying ocean sounds. You can listen to the combination on the demo page, which allows you to adjust the relative volume of voice and wave sounds. ChatGPT wrote a script significantly under five minutes long, and while it produced audio, there were no wave sounds despite the claim in the script. And, even when it’s just the audio of the script, it’s very obvious which voice will help you meditate. The Manus audio is the first file, and the ChatGPT effort is below it.
Manus magic
After running the Manus prompts on ChatGPT, I can see why the new AI assistant has drawn more comparison to DeepSeek. It does seem to execute prompts in impressive ways. If you’re a researcher, a designer, or someone who needs deeply researched lesson plans and multimedia integration, Manus makes sense, if you can get an invite.
That said, ChatGPT is still the best AI for everyday users. If you need an AI that’s quick, reliable, and capable of generating high-quality responses in most circumstances, I’d say ChatGPT (and other AI tools of similar power) has everything you’d need. It gives you what you need without making things harder than they should be. In most cases, ChatGPT is more than enough. But if you want an AI that feels like it belongs in a boardroom or research lab, Manus is probably the right call.
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erichs211@gmail.com (Eric Hal Schwartz)
