Within the case of Manus, the competitors is shifting quick. Two of essentially the most buzzy comply with‑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 “tremendous brokers” via what it calls multi‑element prompting. The agent can swap amongst a number of giant language fashions, accepts each photos and textual content, and carries out duties from making slide decks to putting telephone calls. Whereas Manus depends closely on Browser Use, a preferred open-source product that lets brokers function an internet 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 group that first grabbed public consideration in April 2025 at a developer occasion hosted by the favored social media app Xiaohongshu, takes a unique tack. Marketed as an “infinite agent,” it opens on a clean canvas the place every query turns into a node on a branching map. Customers can backtrack, take new branches, and retailer ends in private or sharable “information gardens”—a design that feels extra like venture administration software program (suppose Notion) than a typical chat interface. Each inquiry or job builds its personal mind-map-like graph, encouraging a extra nonlinear and artistic interplay with AI. Flowith’s core agent, NEO, runs within the cloud and may carry out scheduled duties like sending emails and compiling recordsdata. The founders need the app to be a “information marketbase”, and goals to faucet into the social facet of AI with the aspiration of changing into “the OnlyFans of AI information creators”.
What additionally they share with Manus is the worldwide ambition. Each Genspark and Flowith have said that their main focus is the worldwide market.
A worldwide handle
Startups like Manus, Genspark, and Flowith—although based by Chinese language entrepreneurs—might mix seamlessly into the worldwide tech scene and compete successfully overseas. Founders, buyers, and analysts that MIT Expertise Evaluate has spoken to consider Chinese language firms are shifting quick, executing nicely, and rapidly arising with new merchandise.
Cash reinforces the pull to launch abroad. Clients there pay extra, and there are lots to go round. “You possibly can worth in USD, and with the change fee that’s a sevenfold multiplier,” Manus cofounder Xiao Hong quipped on a podcast. “Even when we’re solely working at 10% energy due to cultural variations abroad, we’ll nonetheless make greater than in China.”
However creating the identical performance in China is a problem. Main US AI firms 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 language 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 capacity to juggle instruments, keep in mind contexts, and maintain multi‑spherical conversations—all essential for turning chatty software program into an efficient government assistant.
