Manus’s relationship with Meta? It’s complicated. Just months after they called off their merger, they find themselves competing in the market for agentic AI platforms. Awkward!
The company has just released a rebuilt version of its AI agent platform: “Manus 2.0 is not a version update. It’s a new architecture, new products, and new capabilities,” the company said in a blog post.
The release is available on web, desktop, and mobile platforms and introduces a new agent harness called Cascade, dedicated execution environments, event-triggered automations, an upgraded desktop app called Manus Studio, and Cue, a standalone app for personal agents, the company said.
Entering on Cue
Cue is Manus’s alternative to Meta’s Muse app. It’s “a new standalone app for your personal agents, on your phone and desktop, built on the same infrastructure as Manus,” the company said.
Each agent operates with its own identity and resources. “In Cue, each agent has its own email, phone number, wallet, and computer,” the company said, enabling it to communicate, transact within defined limits, and complete tasks independently.
Cue also supports collaboration between agents. “Put several agents in a group chat with a shared goal, and they hand work to each other,” the company said.
New agent foundation
Of more interest to enterprises is the new Cascade agent harness, which manages how agents are invoked and coordinated within a project.
The harness keeps projects light, only bringing in more specialized capabilities when required, something Manus said can help keep costs down.
“In one tested configuration, Cascade used 23.2% fewer tokens, finished tasks in 28.2% less time, and cost 32% less to run than our previous system,” the company said. Manus did not disclose details of the configuration or the tasks used.
Such orchestration layers are becoming increasingly central to enterprise AI deployments, according to analysts.
“The orchestration layer is becoming a larger differentiator, especially for enterprise deployment,” said Gartner Senior Director Analyst Anushree Verma. “However, it is complementary to, not a substitute for, the underlying model. The strongest systems will combine a capable model with an efficient runtime that uses that model selectively rather than indiscriminately.”
The release also introduces a persistent execution environment called Cloud Computer, designed to support projects that require continuous operation.
“Now you can purchase a Cloud Computer: a dedicated environment for the projects that need it,” the company said, describing it as a way to provide “a permanent home for an automation” or maintain services that need to remain active.
Workflow automation and event triggers
Manus 2.0 expands its automation capabilities beyond scheduled tasks to include event-driven workflows.
“Now, with Automations, work can also begin when something happens in a connected service,” the company said. Possible task triggers might include the arrival of new email or Slack message, a change in ad performance, or a calendar event.
The update also includes Manus Studio, a redesigned workspace that combines document, code, and media capabilities.
“With Manus 2.0, the desktop app is upgraded to Manus Studio: a shared workspace for people and AI,” the company said.
The workspace supports documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, slides, websites, code, games, and video, along with new environments such as a Video Editor and a Game Dev module.
Remote execution and system access
Manus 2.0 also introduces remote control capabilities tied to its computer-use functionality, enabling the system to operate within a user’s computing environment.
“In a connected and authorized session, Manus works in its own visible workspace on your computer, using the files, browser, and apps you’ve approved,” the company said.
The system can perform tasks such as retrieving files, testing applications, or continuing work while the user is offline, with activity visible to the user.
Analysts said such autonomy introduces governance challenges for enterprises.
“The capability is becoming enterprise-relevant, but the autonomy is ahead of the governance,” Verma said. She added that enterprises should treat such systems as “untrusted or semi-trusted automation with strong isolation, approval gates, detailed telemetry, and narrowly defined authority.”
That’s so meta
Manus was all set to become part of Meta after the advertising, social networking, metaverse and AI company announced plans to acquire it in December 2025. However, China’s National Development and Reform Commission blocked the deal in April, and by August Manus announced it was once again operating as an independent company.
Since then, the two have continued to followed parallel paths in AI, with Meta announcing its personal AI assistant, Muse, and then this week launching Meta Enterprise Platform to deliver agentic AI services to businesses.
Enterprise adoption of such agent platforms, whether from Manus, Meta, or AI giants such as OpenAI or Anthropic, will depend on how organizations evaluate data handling, portability, and operational continuity, analysts said.
Sakshi Grover, research director for Asia/Pacific Cybersecurity Services at IDC, said, “Enterprises should assess an agent platform by the systems it can access, the state it retains, and how quickly that state can be recovered elsewhere.”
Organizations should establish where “prompts, intermediate task state, artifacts, logs, backups and connector credentials are processed and stored,” including by model providers and other subprocessors, and test whether workflows can be rebuilt outside the platform, she said. “An export button alone does not establish that an agent’s operating state is portable.”
For higher-impact deployments, she recommended using “narrowly scoped, short-lived credentials, external audit logging, approval gates for consequential actions, and a way to revoke access quickly.”
This article first appeared on InfoWorld.