Manus AI Partners with Alibaba; China's LinkedIn, Kanzhun, Announces AI Products
Manus to leverage Alibaba's Qwen and cloud capabilities, and Boss Zhiping to use AI to boost recruitment efficiency
Magnificent Seven has been plummetting over the last week… U.S. selloff is slowly stabilizing-ish today… but people are really looking to China (ha, how fast things move is wild)
This Isn’t Another DeepSeek Moment
Last night China-time Alibaba announced that it entered into a strategic partnership with the star of the week, Manus AI. This comes as Manus has said to be leveraging Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet model, which cannot be accessed within the reach of China’s Great Fire Wall, and thus, the AI agent was only able to be tested outside of China. The partnership with Alibaba and, therefore, its Qwen AI models will boost its capabilities and usability in China. Leveraging the internet behemoths’ abilities also means that Manus AI will be able to manage its traffic surge better and not experience something that DeepSeek faced, which was its server being unable to accommodate the amount of interest coming in.
Manus AI has taken the internet by storm and is even being dubbed another “DeepSeek” moment for China AI, but I don’t think it is. This is not fundamentally changing anything we believe in AI like DeepSeek did. DeepSeek challenged the status quo belief that more capital equals more training equals better models. The V3 and R1 releases had a much more significant and wider industry impact.
In this case, Manus AI is introducing to the world that the AI agent can operate like a digital employee and execute independent tasks with little prompting or guidance - to really have the potential to replace a knowledge worker. It’s been compared to OpenAI's Operator, Anthropic's Claude 3 Opus, and lesser-known AI agents such as Cognigy.AI and BabyAGI. In many ways, it is what we have expected of AI and its capabilities, but it’s just come sooner than we expected, becoming more than just a research tool or chatbot. Impressive still. To get more details on what it can do, see Tony Peng’s writing here about how it was initially dismissed as a “wrapper,” or you can check out MIT Tech Review’s review.
But as I wrote last month, AI monetization and innovation are truly shifting from the obsession of bigger and better LLMs to applications and specific use cases of AI (as LLMs all somewhat become ‘good enough’).
Now I wrote about this when it first launched, that because it is still in its invite-only product trial phase many people questioned its technical capabilities as information was largely spread through second hand information, and mostly reviewed by independent media, which led to speculations that it was more of a marketing and PR stunt than technological breakthrough.
However given its been a few days, and more tech people have gained access to the product trial, the demo and product has been widely received positively across the board.
The Information wrote, “It’s possible that the hype around Manus stemmed from the rising interest in Chinese-made AI products, thanks to DeepSeek.” Adding that the experience was not as smooth as the demo showed when their own reporter tried it out.
But - “To be fair, Manus is still a work in progress. In its YouTube video, Ji, the cofounder, described last week’s launch as an “early preview. No matter how Manus created a somewhat competent computer-using agent, there’s no doubt it has moved the ball forward in showing what’s possible. That’s great for OpenAI, Anthropic and their ilk.”
What’s interesting to me is that this phenomenon and media frenzy proves again what I’ve written before, is that a part of this excitement is fueled by this new wave of fanfare and patriotism for young Chinese (AI) entrepreneurs. Similar to Unitree Robotic’s Wang Xing Xing, the Manus AI CEO Xiao Hong was also born in the 90s and was domestically educated - which differs from a lot of entrepeneurs from earlier generations that were educated in the West and returned to China to start a business. And compared to even earlier entrepreneurs born in the 60s and 70s - who’s ambitions were often just “let me make the same business that exists in the U.S. but for the Chinese market.” The 80s/90s entrepreneurs are young and creative and really leaning into “doing the hard thing” and '‘leading in innovation” as their mottos - as DeepSeek’s CEO Liang Wenfeng has encouraged China’s youth to do.
The Founder and CEO Xiao Hong (肖弘) and Co-founder & Chief Scientist, Ji Yichao (季逸超) [the man in the demo video] are serial entrepreneurs and Jordan Schneider’s ChinaTalk dug out some of their old interview quotes here. See how his vision for the future has been largely driven by his ideals and ambitions of freeing up humankind to be able to focus on culture, physical health and leisure again (I mean for the privileged, yes) and not be tied to a desk job. Again, proving that this generation of entrepreneurs are much more visionaries than just pragmatic businessmen.
See ChinaTalk’s translation below:
“I think that the white-collar lifestyle may be a detour for mankind. If you look at it in terms of a curve or over a longer period, say thousands of years, or even the ten-thousand-year span of human history — it's actually quite rare for people to sit in one place and engage in intense mental work without much physical activity. This is probably only a phenomenon of the past hundred years.
For a longer time in history, maintaining physical health and developing spiritual civilization have gone hand in hand. In ancient times, people also needed spiritual and cultural development, but that involved physical labor as well, which helped strengthen their bodies.
In the past hundred years, however, issues like diabetes and high blood pressure have become widespread because people work in this sedentary way. If we look at humanity as a whole, sitting and working for eight or more hours a day is an anomaly.
If AI can take over these tasks, then people can work fewer hours and go back to living more like they did in the past — focusing more on spiritual and cultural enrichment while also taking better care of their physical health.”
China’s LinkedIn Boss Zhiping Introduces AI to Recruitment
A quick note on BOSS ZHIPING (translates to Boss-direct-hire) (NASDAQ: Kanzhun), China’s leading recruitment platform which announced its earnings yesterday. The online recruitment platform connects job seekers with employers through its mobile app. During its earnings call, the managememnt announced a series of AI products and explained how AI has affected its business which I think can be a preview of how LinkedIn and Indeed may be adopting AI in the future. This is another good example of vertical AI innovation.
Unlike traditional platforms such as LinkedIn, Boss Zhipin distinguishes itself by facilitating direct connections between candidates and hiring managers. The platform's slogan, "Talk to the boss directly," emphasizes its mission to eliminate intermediaries in the recruitment process. Boss Zhipin employs three key strategies: AI-driven recommendations delivered through personalized newsfeeds, direct real-time chat functionality, and a mobile-first user experience. This approach has effectively "Tinder-fied" job hunting with swipe-based browsing and instant messaging features.
AI-Powered Recruitment Solutions
Boss Zhipin serves both white-collar and blue-collar workers, with significant attention to the latter segment. The platform has innovated to address blue-collar recruitment challenges, where traditional methods often prove inefficient due to high candidate volumes and the need for rapid screening.
The company's upcoming AI chatbot initiative, scheduled for release within 1-2 months, aims to automate initial interactions in "big batch recruitment" scenarios common in blue-collar hiring. This system will handle resume collection and contact information exchange after an initial recruiter greeting, managing the process until successful engagement or rejection. The reported 90% acceptance rate among job seekers suggests strong potential for adoption.
Blue-collar recruitment presents a substantial opportunity due to its vast market size, which could potentially exceed white-collar recruitment several times over. Historically, this sector has been hindered by inefficient one-on-one communications and inadequate initial screening processes.
Future AI Developments
Boss Zhipin is preparing to launch another new AI recruitment product after extensive testing. This technology promises to increase matching efficiency by over 60% while reducing recruiter time investment by 40%. Such advancements align with broader industry trends, as AI-powered tools become essential for enhancing recruitment efficiency. With commercialization on the horizon, this technology could significantly transform recruitment processes by boosting productivity across various industries.
The platform's AI-driven approach to recruitment exemplifies how technology can streamline hiring processes through automated resume screening, predictive analytics, and personalized job matching. As Boss Zhipin continues to innovate, its strategies may indeed preview how global platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed might adopt AI technologies in the future.