Imagine finishing a coding project at 3 a.m. and waking up at 8 a.m. to find over 30 new friend requests and 7,000 likes on GitHub, a website where coders share their work. That’s what happened to the MetaGPT team from DeepWisdom, a Chinese AI company, just three days after a popular AI tool called Manus went viral. They quickly made their own version, called OpenManus, and shared it for free online. First Financial News talked to the team to figure out how they did it so fast and what it means for tech.
MetaGPT has been working on AI ideas since 2023, sharing projects online and getting noticed. In October 2024, they started building smarter AI tools that can plan and use other tools, like a helper app called Data Interpreter. When Manus got famous, team members Xiang Jinyu and Liang Xinbing thought, “Can we make a free version?” OpenManus is like Manus; it’s an AI that splits big tasks into smaller ones for different “smart helpers” to solve. But Xiang says it’s still a basic version, not fully tested, and they plan to improve it later.
Manus is great at solving tough problems, beating even big names like OpenAI in tests. Xiang thinks it’s because the Manus team worked hard on planning and training their AI. Both tools can use things like web searches or code-writing, but they’re not perfect yet—it’s a common problem in AI. Liang says their team copied Manus so fast because they’d already been practicing similar ideas for months, figuring out simple ways to make AI helpers.
Both Manus and OpenManus are AI helpers that work as teams of smart agents. They can search the web, write code, or handle files. The big difference? OpenManus is free and open—anyone can see how it’s made. It even credits tools from other companies, like Anthropic’s computer-use, for inspiration. Manus keeps its secrets hidden.
Liang says Manus helped regular people learn about AI helpers, making this “teamwork AI” idea more popular. This concept started way back in the 1980s, but it got real after 2017 when AI got smarter with words. In 2024, big companies like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI jumped into making AI helpers. OpenAI’s Operator, launched in January 2025, can code or book trips, but it costs $200 a month. Then Manus, from a Chinese company called Monica, showed everyone what AI teams can do, and OpenManus made it even clearer by sharing everything.
Zhan Bingqiang, who started AIGCLINK, says MetaGPT was one of the first in China to try this. Researcher Hong Sirui explains that using AI for tools isn’t new anymore. The tricky part is making AI pick the right tool and not mess up, especially if the tools aren’t standard. To fix this, tech folks are trying smarter ways to choose tools, cut down on mistakes, and explain how AI decides things. A new rule called MCP, made by Anthropic in November 2024, helps AI talk to tools better. Zhan says it works with most systems, and more companies will use it soon.
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