Meta Just Paid $2B for This AI Agent—Here's How to Actually Use It

On Monday, December 29, Meta announced it was acquiring Manus AI for more than $2 billion—a Singapore-based AI startup that's become the talk of Silicon Valley since it debuted last spring with a demo video that showed an AI agent doing things like screening job candidates, planning vacations, and analyzing stock portfolios.

The deal closed in about 10 days. Manus, a Singapore-based startup founded by Chinese entrepreneurs that debuted earlier this year, has built a general-purpose AI agent designed to autonomously perform multi-step tasks, including research, analysis, coding, planning, and content generation. The company achieved over $100 million in annual recurring revenue within eight months of launch—a pace that caught Zuckerberg's attention.

What makes Manus different from ChatGPT or Claude? Manus has consistently positioned itself less as an assistant and more as an execution engine. Rather than answering isolated prompts, its agent is designed to plan tasks, invoke tools, iterate on intermediate outputs, and deliver finished work. You don't supervise it step by step. You describe the outcome, and it determines how to get there.

Meta says it will keep Manus running independently while integrating the technology into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

That means you can start using it today—and if you use my referral link, you'll get 500 free credits to explore.

I've been testing Manus for several months, and it's become one of my most-used productivity tools—particularly for presentations. This tutorial covers what Manus does well, where it falls short, and the specific workflow that's saved me hours of manual work.

Meta's $2B+ acquisition of Manus AI signals the shift from conversational AI to autonomous agents that complete entire tasks—research, presentations, data analysis—without constant supervision.

This session demonstrates production-tested workflows, including a style-matching presentation method that combines human content direction with AI design execution, delivering polished decks in under 20 minutes.

Attendees leave with immediately actionable frameworks plus honest guidance on current limitations and when traditional AI tools remain the better choice.

Learn How to Use this Highly Capable, Easy to Use Agentic AI Platform

To get started, open the web or mobile app. The interface is very similar to what you might see in ChatGPT.

Web Access:

Mobile Access:

Subscription Tiers:

Credits are consumed based on task complexity. A simple research query uses 50-100 credits; building and deploying a website could use 600+. The dashboard shows estimates before you start.

Based on the official Manus Playbook and documentation, these categories deliver the most consistent value for business professionals:

1. Presentation Creation

Manus Slides creates complete presentations from a simple description. It conducts research, develops content, designs slides, generates visuals, and writes detailed speaker notes—delivering presentation-ready decks in 5-15 minutes depending on complexity. You can upload your own PowerPoint template (.pptx), and Manus applies your layouts, colors, and fonts to new content. This is my most-used feature, and I'll walk through my exact workflow below.

2. Research and Competitive Analysis

Manus excels at synthesizing information from multiple sources. The Wide Research feature deploys parallel agents to prevent the quality degradation that happens when AI processes long, complex queries sequentially. According to Manus documentation, traditional AI systems reach a "fabrication threshold" around 8-10 items. Wide Research eliminates this by assigning each item its own dedicated agent and a full-context window.

3. Data Organization and Visualization

Upload messy data—spreadsheets, documents, CSV files—and Manus will extract, categorize, and structure it. The Data Analysis & Visualization feature can output interactive dashboards, slide decks with professional charts, or comprehensive reports with methodology and recommendations.

4. Website and Application Development

The Website Builder lets you describe what you need in plain English and Manus builds functional web pages with copy, layout, and basic interactivity. It can deploy simple sites to public URLs, making it useful for landing pages, proof-of-concept prototypes, or portfolio sites.

5. Multimedia Processing

The Multimedia Processing capabilities handle document processing (extracting text from screenshots and parsing invoices), video processing (transcribing meetings, extracting action items, and converting tutorials into text guides), and image analysis (identifying objects, analyzing charts, and verifying product photos).

6. Automated Integrations

Connect Manus to external services through the Manus API, Slack Integration, or Zapier. The Browser Operator (Pro plan) lets Manus access logged-in sites, such as your CRM, internal tools, or subscription services, via a Chrome extension.

I've tested most of these capabilities, but the workflow I keep returning to combines multiple tools—and it's faster than anything I've found elsewhere.

The Problem: I frequently need polished presentations, but creating them from scratch is time-consuming, and asking AI to generate slides often yields generic results that don’t align with my company's visual standards.

My Solution: A two-step workflow that separates content development from design application.

Step 1: Develop the Outline (Human-in-the-Loop)

I start by creating a solid content outline using whatever tool fits the task:

The key is keeping myself in the loop during content development. AI is excellent at gathering information and generating options, but the strategic decisions—what to emphasize, what to cut, how to frame the narrative—benefit from human judgment.

Step 2: Apply Your Template Style

Once the outline is solid, I upload two files to Manus:

Then I prompt Manus:

`I'm uploading two files:

Create a new presentation that applies the visual style from file 1 to the content in file 2. Maintain the same section structure from my outline. Add speaker notes for each slide. For any data points, include source citations.`

For more information, read the Manus Slides documentation. You can "Upload your PowerPoint template (.pptx)," and "Manus applies your layouts, colors, and fonts."

The Feature That Makes Complex Projects Possible: Automatic Context Compaction

One capability that doesn't get enough attention: when you hit the context window limit during a long session, Manus automatically compacts the conversation and starts a new session while maintaining continuity of your work.

This matters more than it sounds. With other AI tools, hitting the context limit means starting over—losing the accumulated understanding of your project, your preferences, and the decisions you've already made. I've lost hours of iteration to context window crashes in other systems.

With Manus, I've run extended presentation projects—multiple rounds of revision, data updates, style adjustments—without manually managing context or worrying about when the conversation will break. The agent handles the handoff automatically, preserving its knowledge of your project and picking up where you left off.

Real Example: Recently, I had a presentation due. I spent 20 minutes with Claude developing the narrative arc and key messages, then uploaded our branded template, along with that outline, to Manus. Fifteen minutes later, I had a 16-slide deck with consistent styling, generated visuals, and speaker notes—total time: under 40 minutes for a presentation that would have taken me half a day manually.

Every tool has limitations, and being honest about them helps you set realistic expectations:

Stability Issues Peak hours can trigger "server busy" messages and occasional crashes. The platform has scaled dramatically—Manus said its system has processed more than 147 trillion tokens and created over 80 million virtual computers (VentureBeat)—but demand sometimes exceeds capacity. iii

Slide Editing Constraints Slides initially render as images in the Manus interface. To edit specific text, you need to export to PowerPoint first. Complex animations from your template won't survive the process.

Note: Editing slides in Manus is getting better, and you can do this using Nano Banana. But it’s fairly new, and I have to spend some more time testing it, but so far it looks promising. It’s still using the model; you can’t just edit the slide.

Context Window Limits on Very Long Projects While the automatic compaction helps, extremely complex multi-phase projects can still lose nuance. The agent may need a reminder of decisions made early in a lengthy session.

Access Restrictions Manus cannot access paywalled content, academic databases behind logins, or protected APIs. The Browser Operator helps with sites where you're logged in, but it's limited to Chrome/Edge and requires a Pro subscription.

Creative Limitations Manus combines patterns effectively but doesn't generate truly original creative concepts. It's excellent at execution, less so at blue-sky ideation.

Presentation Limits by Plan Free and Plus users are limited to 12 slides per presentation. Pro unlocks longer decks.

The Meta acquisition signals that autonomous agents are moving from experimental to essential. Whether Manus remains independent or gets absorbed into WhatsApp and Instagram, the core capability—AI that executes complete tasks rather than just answering questions—is worth learning now.

I appreciate your support.