Manis AI: Claude Sonnet with 30 Tools
Key Points
- Manis AI, presented by a Chinese startup, debuted with a demo managing dozens of social media accounts, but was later revealed to be Claude Sonnet augmented with about 30 integrated tools rather than a brand‑new model.
- The system can generate highly detailed outputs—comparable to GPT‑4 and Deep Research—but suffers from scaling problems such as slow response times and occasional errors as the team works to secure enough hardware.
- Legal questions arise regarding whether repackaging Claude under a new name for commercial use violates its terms of service and how enforceable those restrictions are under Chinese jurisdiction.
- The episode highlights a broader trend: existing AI models can achieve remarkable new capabilities simply by adding better tooling, suggesting that the upcoming “agent age” may focus more on tool integration than on developing entirely new intelligences.
Full Transcript
# Manis AI: Claude Sonnet with 30 Tools **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82ifRQrwEfM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82ifRQrwEfM) **Duration:** 00:03:54 ## Summary - Manis AI, presented by a Chinese startup, debuted with a demo managing dozens of social media accounts, but was later revealed to be Claude Sonnet augmented with about 30 integrated tools rather than a brand‑new model. - The system can generate highly detailed outputs—comparable to GPT‑4 and Deep Research—but suffers from scaling problems such as slow response times and occasional errors as the team works to secure enough hardware. - Legal questions arise regarding whether repackaging Claude under a new name for commercial use violates its terms of service and how enforceable those restrictions are under Chinese jurisdiction. - The episode highlights a broader trend: existing AI models can achieve remarkable new capabilities simply by adding better tooling, suggesting that the upcoming “agent age” may focus more on tool integration than on developing entirely new intelligences. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82ifRQrwEfM&t=0s) **Manis AI: Claude Wrapper Unveiled** - Manis AI, a Chinese startup’s tool launched over the weekend, was revealed to be a sophisticated wrapper around Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet equipped with dozens of integrated tools rather than a brand‑new model as initially rumored. ## Full Transcript
news moves fast over the weekend Manis
AI became a huge thing across the AI
world and I'm going to explain you what
it is basically Manis is like if deep
research was crossed with claw and
that's not an accident because later in
the weekend so this all came out Friday
right men has dropped their release
video they're a Chinese startup they
came out and shared a lot about sort of
what they're accomplishing and why
they're doing it and their p passion for
sort of making this more available to
people they had a killer demo video
where I think they were managing like 26
social Accounts at once using
Manis and I thought well we'll have to
see how this goes right um well it turns
out that Manis is a really fancy rapper
for Claude and that came out by Sunday
and so someone figured out how to drop
out sort of the tool set for Manis and
what it looks like is that it's Claude
Sonic
with I think 30 different tools that it
can
call and the results are real like the
the system is slow it takes a really
long time sometimes it errors out which
I think is just scaling issues for the
team they're trying to get those chips
in as quick as they
can but it does work uh it produces uh
highly detailed results uh stuff that's
on par with 03 uh and deep
research and everyone is super assumed
at the beginning of the weekend that
that was
because it was a new model that the
Chinese lab had built but it turns out
it was Claude Sonet and what the team
had done is actually agen toy Claude
Sonet they'd given it this wide range of
uh tool sets that that Claude could use
they'd given it special instructions and
they'd wrapped it up and that's
Manis so we'll see how long that lasts
um I'm not sure if the terms of service
for Claude include commercializing
Claude and calling it something else um
and I'm not sure how enforceable that
would be uh under Chinese jurisdiction
for Claud anyway that's a question for
the lawyers um and it is possible that
more of the story will come out and
people will say oh no no it wasn't you
know it wasn't really claw they have
something different um so we'll see it's
it's an emerging conversation I think
the think I I think the thing that is
most interesting to me is that I was not
surprised when I heard that it was
clawed in 30 Tools in other
words we have reached the point in the
AI Revolution where if someone tells you
I'm using an existing an existing
intelligence but I gave it new tools and
it can do something absolutely
incredible it can create a 75 page
document on a new medical treatment for
multiple sclerosis which was one of the
things that it actually did over the
weekend um I'm not surprised
I'm no surprise and that's where we're
at and it underscores to me that we talk
a lot here about how quickly
intelligence is scaling and rightly
so but what we don't talk about as much
is the intelligence we already have can
go a long way with a little bit better
tooling and I wonder if part of the
agent age in 2025 is going to be
essentially taking the intelligence that
we've got which is already very good and
putting wheels on it right giving it
tooling giving it the chance to actually
go out and get something done so we will
see how the story of Madness unfolds a
bit more uh I'll probably be writing
more on it talking more about it it's a
big story uh it's very very difficult to
get performance like deep research
congrats to the team however they did it
um it's an achievement regardless and
sort of we'll see where we go from here
good luck with the scaling guys