TL;DR
Manus 2.0 and its companion app Cue give AI agents their own email, phone number, wallet, and dedicated computer, marking the clearest commercial step yet toward agents that act autonomously in the real world.
What happened
- Manus launched Manus 2.0 on September 29, 2026, calling it "a new architecture, new products, and new capabilities," not a version update.
- Cue, a standalone personal-agent app, assigns each agent its own email address, phone number, wallet, and cloud computer, letting it transact and communicate independently within user-set budgets.
- Cascade, the new in-house orchestration system, used 23.2% fewer tokens, finished tasks 28.2% faster, and cost 32% less to run versus the prior system.
- Automations adds event-triggered tasks: agents can fire on a new email, Slack message, calendar event, or Notion update, replacing the old time-only scheduler.
- The launch comes five months after Beijing blocked Meta's $2 billion acquisition of Manus, forcing the Singapore-based startup to operate independently.
Why it matters
- Agents with wallets and phone numbers cross a threshold: they can now initiate payments and calls without human hand-holding, raising both utility and liability questions for enterprises.
- Multi-agent coordination in Cue (one agent researches venues, another shortlists, a third drafts the deck) previews a near-future where teams of agents replace human task chains, not just individual workers.
- Cascade's efficiency gains (32% cost reduction) make autonomous agent loops economically viable at consumer scale, not just enterprise pilots.
- Manus enters direct competition with Meta's Muse, which launched earlier in September and immediately topped app store charts, making the personal-agent category suddenly crowded.
- Manus is building a China-focused team and holding talks with local model makers, signaling a dual-market strategy despite the geopolitical rupture with Meta.
What to watch next
- Cue's invite-to-open rollout: conversion from early access to general availability will signal whether consumers accept agents that spend money and answer calls on their behalf.
- Regulatory response to agent wallets: autonomous payment capability is novel enough that financial regulators in the US, EU, and Singapore may move to classify or restrict it.
- Manus vs. Meta Muse retention data: app store rank at launch means little; 30-day retention will reveal whether either product has cracked durable personal-agent engagement.
Originally published on Present of AI, a daily source-linked AI news timeline. Read the full timeline or browse the open dataset.