What makes Manus so special is the combination of many agents with different abilities, controlled by a central interface. At the moment, due to the limited access, it is difficult to assess whether Manus has primarily put together an impressive combination of existing AI agents or whether there is more to it than that.
It brings bad analogies with body parts. So, let’s change the name schema to gods, mythology or something on the sky. Maybe Uranus could be a better alternative.
To the OP, I say forget this advice. There's a headhunting company called Monster, arguably the worst possible name, especially for that business. Last time I checked they were doing fine. The truly worst thing is not being talked about.
Manus means hand in Latin, not a bad name at all for a tool that lends you a hand. Some people will recognize this, others not. They'll be fine, or if not, it won't be for that reason.
I really thought this name was from the common word for "human" in many languages across India. Slightly different pronunciations in some languages but I think many Indians would relate to the word as a derivative of "human".
I imagined it was short for "manuscript", as "manus" is the Swedish word for it. I also have a friend named Manu, who I imagine is hoping her name doesn't get Alexa'd.
Laughing because I came here and this is the top comment. My coworker asked if I heard about it over the weekend, so I came to HN to search. "How do you spell it, m-a-n-t-i-s?" "No, like anus with an M in front."
I've been building the same thing since 2023. It works really well, and was most recently pretty much cloned by Claude Code: https://github.com/ErikBjare/gptme
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 97.8 ms ] threadThe current name will prevent this product/company from ever making it to the mainstream, or at least make it way less likely.
A great name can truly make a huge difference. An OK name that sticks is a necessity. A name that is mostly “anus” is actively bad.
Manus means hand in Latin, not a bad name at all for a tool that lends you a hand. Some people will recognize this, others not. They'll be fine, or if not, it won't be for that reason.
But that doesn’t matter if your goal is to become a global brand
Currently working on building out a web UI (https://chat.gptme.org) and managed service for it.
Manus also seems very similar to Claude Code (but not open source either).
- Shell control tools
- File edits tools
- Task management workflow/tools
- Memory management workflow/tools
- Subtasks handoff to other agents
Anything major missing raw capability wise?