What Manus Is and What It Can Prepare for You

Most leaders have used a chat assistant such as ChatGPT. You ask a question, it writes a reply, and the rest is up to you: checking it, finding the numbers and building the document.

Manus works differently. It describes itself as an autonomous agent, meaning software that plans and carries out a piece of work on its own and then delivers the finished result. You give it a task (a job with a deliverable), not a question. It breaks the job into steps, works through them and hands you files.

Take an example. Ask a chat assistant "What should I consider before taking a large three-year contract?" and you get a list of considerations. Give Manus the same subject as a task: "Read the attached contract terms and capacity data, research the customer's public results, and deliver a two-page brief with three options and a source table." Manus reads the files, browses the web, runs calculations and returns a document you can open.

The difference matters later in the course. Because Manus acts, by browsing, running code and touching connected apps, you'll set limits on what it may do. You'll also check its work the way you would check an analyst's.

Each Manus task runs in a sandbox: a cloud virtual machine, which is a computer that Manus rents in a data center and not one on your desk. Manus says the sandbox has:

• a browser, so it can visit websites, read company pages and filings
• a file system, so it can store the files you upload and the ones it creates
• software tools, and the ability to install more
• the ability to run code, which is how it calculates margins, builds charts and assembles spreadsheets

Here's how that works on a contract question. You upload the contract terms and a capacity spreadsheet. Manus saves them to its file system. It opens the customer's annual report in its browser, writes a short program to compare volume against capacity by month, and saves a chart and a draft brief back to the file system for you to download.

Two practical points follow. First, you can watch what it browsed and ran, and replay it afterwards, which you'll use when checking its work. Second, because the sandbox can reach the web and any apps you connect, what you put into it matters. Lesson 3 covers safe setup.

Manus can produce many things. Only some of them are staff work a chief executive commissions. This course uses these:

• Research reports on markets, competitors, customers or regulations
• Data analysis with charts from an uploaded CSV or Excel file
• Documents: decision briefs, memos, board one-pagers
• Spreadsheets: option tables, assumptions registers, competitor grids
• Slide decks: editable .pptx, PDF, web slides and a separate speaker-notes file

Manus can also build and publish websites and apps, and generate images, video, music and voice. This course leaves those out. Publishing anything public is a communication your company owns, and none of it is the preparation work a decision needs.

To see how this maps to a real week: "What are our five nearest competitors doing on pricing?" becomes a research report or spreadsheet. "Show me margin by customer from this export" becomes data analysis with charts. "I need the Q3 board pack" becomes a .pptx in your own template with speaker notes.

Use the matching exercise to pair your usual requests with the output to ask for.

Manus 2.0 was released on September 28, 2026. It redesigned the product, so guides, videos and screenshots from before that date may show menus that no longer exist. When a screen in this course doesn't match yours, look for the closest option. Menus can change between releases.

Manus 2.0 offers three modes, which trade speed and credits against depth:

• Manus 2.0 Lite for quick work
• Manus 2.0, the standard mode
• Manus 2.0 Max for hard reasoning or creative work

There is also Chat mode, for simple questions that don't need a multi-step task. Using it for those saves credits, the units Manus charges for work. Lesson 4 covers credits in detail.

To match mode to job: "What does EBITDA margin exclude?" calls for Chat mode. "Summarize this 20-page contract into key terms" fits Lite. "Build a three-option brief on the contract with a sensitivity table" needs standard Manus 2.0 or Max, depending on how hard the reasoning is.

If you have Manus open, find the mode picker. Its exact location isn't documented, so look near the box where you type a task.

Julie Sweet, chair and chief executive of Accenture, described one piece of her own staff work in a 2025 Fortune interview. During a strategy refresh she wanted to check whether the company's business strategies were aligned. In the past, she said, she would have pulled a senior manager off their work for about two weeks. By her account, generative AI now reviews, summarizes and builds the presentation she needs in minutes.

She then added a limit on what that proves, without being asked. A faster task doesn't change the bottom line. She called AI a tool, a new workbench, as the PC once was.

Both halves matter to you. The first shows what Manus is for: returning scarce hours to your best people by doing the preparation. The second keeps you honest. A deck that arrives in minutes is still only a draft. It hasn't been checked, and it hasn't made a decision. This course follows one rule: delegate the preparation, own the call. Manus prepares the evidence and the options. You decide, and you answer for what your company says.

The course follows one case. A national chain offers your company a three-year contract worth nearly a fifth more volume. Your company may not have the capacity: operations could deliver only with a second shift nobody has hired, and the same people are partway through a systems rollout promised to the board. Sales wants it signed. Finance knows the margin at the chain's price. The board chair wants a view by Friday.

The decision (accept, phase in or decline) is yours. Everything around it is preparation that Manus can do: summarizing the contract terms, analysing capacity data, researching the chain's public results, costing the second shift, and drafting a brief and a board one-pager.

Now choose your own worked example: one live decision or recurring review you own, with a real deadline. Good candidates include a large customer or supplier contract, a market you're weighing, the quarterly board deck, or a weekly review where things keep slipping. Write it in one sentence, then list the files you're allowed to use for it. Lesson 3 covers what must never go in.

Put the steps in order to set up your example.