Manus vs Perplexity AI: which one to choose in 2026?

Manus is a general-purpose autonomous AI agent developed by Butterfly Effect, a Singapore-based company. It carries out complex tasks end to end in the cloud: in-depth research, building websites, presentations and documents, data analysis and web automation. You describe a goal; the agent plans the steps, takes action and delivers a finished result. Its ability to keep working on its own in the background, even after you close your session, sets it apart from traditional chatbots.

Halfway between a search engine and a conversational assistant, Perplexity answers your questions while systematically citing its sources. Every claim is linked back to the web pages it consulted, making it a valuable tool for market monitoring, documentary research and fact-checking.