Manus's new Wide Research feature is capable of researching 100+ topics simultaneously. It challenges ChatGPT and is currently available for Pro users.
Wide Research: In the race for Artificial Intelligence dominance, it's not just American companies anymore; Asian startups are also rapidly advancing. A new and powerful entry in this arena is Manus, an AI startup originating from China, which recently launched a revolutionary feature — Wide Research. This feature has the potential to be a milestone in the world of research and data analysis because it can deeply research over 100 topics simultaneously — in just a few minutes and with a single click.
What is Wide Research?
Wide Research is essentially a multi-agent AI tool that activates dozens of virtual AI agents simultaneously. These agents work together to execute large and complex research tasks very effectively. For example, if a user wants to research '100 Best Running Shoes,' Wide Research rapidly gathers and analyzes data based on various parameters such as brand, comfort, price, design, reviews, etc. Manus's co-founder, Peak Ji, demonstrated this feature live, explaining that a user can compare 50 unique poster designs or 100 mobile phones in just a few minutes with a single command.
How does Wide Research work?
Wide Research is built on an AI agent architecture, which is very different from traditional coding assistants or research tools. Here, each agent is not limited to a specific task; rather, these agents are general-purpose, i.e., multi-purpose. This means that whether you want to conduct research in e-commerce, education, healthcare, travel, or any other sector — Wide Research can help you.
Behind this lies Manus's large cloud-based infrastructure and agent management system, which the company has developed with months of hard work. Users are given a dedicated cloud virtual machine that handles only their tasks.
Who will get this feature?
Currently, the Wide Research feature is only available for Pro users. However, Manus has promised that it will soon be made available for Plus and Basic plans as well. The company's goal is to make research a 'chat-based automation,' so that anyone can perform complex data analysis with just one command.
Other AI experiments by Manus
Manus is not limited to Wide Research alone. This startup has also made several other innovations in the AI space:
- March 2025: Manus launched an agent that can perform tasks such as web browsing, travel planning, and email drafting.
- June 2025: The company also launched an AI-based video generation tool that is cloud-based and supports character animation, audio integration, and storyboarding.
Its AI systems are built on large language models like Anthropic's Claude, which is a b competitor to ChatGPT in the world of chatbots.
Funding and Global Expansion
Manus has recently received a tremendous financial boost. The company has raised $75 million in funding.
This funding round includes:
- Benchmark (USA)
- Tencent (China)
- ZhenFund and HSG (China)
With this funding, the company has opened offices in Singapore, Tokyo, and the United States and is rapidly scaling its AI infrastructure.
A threat to ChatGPT?
ChatGPT has so far reigned supreme in research and conversational AI. But Manus's Wide Research feature appears to be giving it direct competition, especially for users who are looking for deep, fast, and scalable research tools. While ChatGPT focuses on limited topics or queries at a time, Wide Research can process dozens of queries in parallel — without sacrificing quality.
