What Manus Is in October 2026

Manus describes itself as an autonomous general AI agent. Autonomous means that once you give it a task, it plans the steps and carries them out without you typing each one. It delivers finished work, not just answers.

Each task runs in a sandbox: a cloud virtual machine (a computer Manus rents for the task, not your laptop) with a browser, a file system and software tools. Inside it, Manus can browse websites, install software, run code and build files.

Example. You ask for a two-page note on recent amendments to a state's data-breach notification statute. A chat assistant replies from what it already knows. Manus opens the legislature's website in its own browser, downloads the bill text, writes a script to compare versions, and saves a Word document and a source table to its file system. You get files you can open and check.

The flip side: every page it reads and every file you give it sits in that cloud machine. That is why later lessons cover what it may see, and how to check what it built.

Your firm's vendor review will ask who stands behind the tool. Here is what the record shows as of October 28, 2026.

• Developer: Butterfly Effect Pte. Ltd., a Singapore company, according to Wikipedia and press reports. The legal entity named in the current Terms of Service could not be confirmed, because that page did not load for review. Read it yourself before relying on it.
• December 2025: Meta announced it was buying Manus.
• April 27, 2026: China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) prohibited the deal and ordered it withdrawn.
• August 11, 2026: Manus announced the separation in a notice to users.
• September 1, 2026: Manus said it had formally resumed independent operations under its founding team.

So Meta does not own or run Manus today. A memo, slide or vendor questionnaire that says "Meta's Manus" is out of date. Be careful: some localized (translated) Manus pages still say "part of Meta". That is a stale page, not current fact.

Manus changed a lot in 2026, and much of what circulates was written before that. When a colleague forwards a guide, check it for these signs:

• Ownership. "Meta's Manus" or "part of Meta" is out of date.
• Prices. The 2025 plans (Basic $19, Plus $39, Pro $199) are gone. Basic and Plus were renamed Pro. As of October 28, 2026, the help center lists Pro from $20 and from $40 a month, and Team from $20 per seat a month. Prices change, so confirm on manus.im/pricing.
• Sign-in. Facebook login was withdrawn. The current options are email, Google, Apple and Microsoft.
• Screens. Manus 2.0 shipped on September 28, 2026. Screenshots and menu names from before then may not match what you see.

Example. A paralegal's onboarding note from early 2026 says: "Meta's Manus, Plus plan $39, log in with Facebook." All three claims are out of date. Correct the note before it reaches the firm's AI committee, and add the date you checked.

Lawyers already weigh sources. Use the same habit with information about Manus.

• Confirmed (official): stated on a Manus page, such as its blog or help center. Example: the September 1, 2026 post on independent operations.
• Reported (press): from a reputable outlet but not confirmed by Manus. Example: Caixin, citing one anonymous person close to Manus, reported that Tencent, ZhenFund and HSG bought Manus back from Meta for about $2 billion, and that Tencent became the largest shareholder. The parties have not published deal terms.
• Unverified: found only in a single third-party guide or vendor blog. Don't repeat it as fact.

Another example: press reported a funding round of more than $500 million on October 8, 2026. No valuation was disclosed, so any valuation figure you see is unconfirmed.

When you summarize Manus for a partner or the general counsel, label each claim. "Reported by Caixin, anonymous source" says something different from "Manus states".

Manus 2.0 shipped on September 28, 2026. It changed the interface and added new features, so instructions and screenshots from before that date may not match your screen. When this course says "the screen may differ", that is why.

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

• Manus 2.0 Lite: for quick, simple work. On the Free plan, daily credits can only be used on Lite.
• Manus 2.0: the standard mode.
• Manus 2.0 Max: for hard reasoning or complex builds.

Example. Reformatting a list of filing deadlines into a table is a Lite job. A first-draft research memo comparing how two circuits treat an arbitration clause calls for standard mode or Max. Either way, you will check the result.

Where the mode picker sits on screen isn't documented, so this course describes it generally. A later lesson covers credits and which plan gives you which modes.

Manus can produce many kinds of output. This course uses only the ones that fit legal preparation:

• Research reports with sources, such as a first-draft research memo with a citation table.
• Documents, such as a one-page client summary of a contract's material deviations.
• Spreadsheets, such as a matter chronology with page references, or an issues table from a contract review.
• Slide decks, exported as editable .pptx, PDF or web slides, such as a plain-language client briefing on a new regulation.
• Internal web pages, kept inside your team workspace and never published without approval.

Out of scope: image, video, music and voice generation; Cue (an invite-only personal-agent app that can make payments and phone calls); the Manus API; and Manus Flex (bringing your own model key). These either add risk without helping matter work or are covered elsewhere.

All of these outputs are drafts until an attorney has checked them.

On August 11, 2026, Manus announced a service change. Accounts in "specific jurisdictions", which Manus did not name, lost data created on or after December 29, 2025. Some account types were deleted outright and had to sign up again. Affected regions lost access between August 23 and 25, 2026.

For a legal team, the lesson is simple: Manus is not your file. The matter record lives in your document management system, under your retention rules.

Try it now. Open manus.im/blog in your browser and find two posts: "A Note to Our Users" (August 11, 2026) and the September 1, 2026 post on resuming independent operations. Read the first paragraph of each. You have just done what this course asks of every Manus output: you went to the source instead of relying on a summary, this lesson included.

Habit to start: when Manus delivers a memo, chronology or deck, download it and save it to the matter file the same day, with the task link and date noted.