Manus AI Founder, Tao Zhang: Turning Intent into Intelligent Action

Tao Zhang (Co-Founder & CPO @ Manus AI) — Architecting Agentic Autonomy Tao Zhang helped turn a Chrome extension with 20M users into one of the most disruptive agentic platforms in the world. At RAISE Summit 2025, he took the stage to share the inside story behind Manus AI — and where the future is headed. From Monica.im to Manus: the pivot came with a clear insight — assistants weren’t enough. AI needed a computer to act independently. Manus Launch: March 6, 2025 — triggering a 2M+ waitlist frenzy and a surge in attention, blending strategy and unanticipated infrastructure bottlenecks Manus Stack: – Multi-agent system with task decomposition – Cloud-based execution environment ("Manus’s Computer") with real-time web control, file access, terminal, memory, and autonomous actions – Integrated with models like Claude 3.5 Sonnet and fine-tuned Gemini variants Benchmarks: – Top performer on GAIA benchmark: Level 1: 86.5%, Level 2: 70.1%, Level 3: 57.7% – Claimed lead over OpenAI DeepResearch in complex task planning Strategic shifts: – HQ relocated to Singapore & raised with Benchmark their Series A – Team restructured post-launch; focus shifted to global deployment and regulatory readiness Product impact: – Most traction from devs, solo operators, and research analysts – Agents running end-to-end across browser and code tasks — even while users are offline Tao Zhang lays out the next chapter: not just better agents, but a system that acts as your autonomous backend. This is not chat. This is action-native AI.