We’ve all witnessed the first wave of AI agents: impressive for straightforward tasks, but often stumbling when the work gets complex, requiring a watchful human eye to guide them across the finish line. The next frontier isn’t just about completing tasks—it’s about completing them with a semblance of genuine understanding, autonomy, and a high rate of success.

That’s the gap Manus is aiming to close with its 1.6 release. This isn't a minor tweak; it's a substantial upgrade to the core agent architecture, engineered to handle significantly more complex work with far less hand-holding. The update delivers on three major fronts: a powerhouse new agent, the ability to build for mobile, and a revolutionary visual design tool.

Introducing Manus 1.6 Max: The New Flagship

At the center of this release is Manus 1.6 Max, a new flagship agent that represents a measurable leap in performance. Built on a more advanced architecture for planning and problem-solving, Max is designed to be the most capable AI collaborator yet.

The results, according to Manus’s internal benchmarks, speak to a meaningful upgrade. The task success rate for one-shot attempts has risen dramatically, meaning more jobs are completed autonomously without the need for human intervention or corrections. This isn't just a technical metric—it translated in double-blind testing to a 19.2% increase in user satisfaction, driven by higher quality outputs, better accuracy, and more reliable use of tools.

Max’s intelligence shines in specific domains. Its spreadsheet capabilities now handle sophisticated financial modeling and automated report generation that previously demanded expert knowledge. In web development, it produces more polished UI, better functionality, and can build complex internal tools, like apps that automatically process invoices into editable forms. Even its research function, Wide Research, benefits as all its sub-agents now run on the Max architecture for deeper, more accurate insights.

Beyond the Browser: Building for Mobile

For the first time, Manus breaks the bounds of web-only development. The new Mobile Development capability allows users to describe a mobile application and let Manus manage the end-to-end build process. This expansion, coupled with the enhanced web dev skills, significantly broadens the scope of projects you can initiate with a simple prompt.

Design View: Where Text Meets Canvas

Perhaps the most visually striking addition is Design View. This moves beyond text prompts into an interactive canvas for image creation and editing. It offers the fine-grained control of professional design software, powered by generative AI. Users can make precise, local edits by clicking on parts of an image, modify or add in-image text with clean rendering, and composite multiple images to create complex designs. It’s a tool that acknowledges some ideas are best communicated visually.

A Step Toward Reliable Complexity

Manus 1.6, including the Max agent, Mobile Development, and Design View, is available now. As part of the launch, the Max agent will be available at a 50% reduced credit cost for a limited period.

This release feels less like a simple update and more like a directional shift. It’s a concerted push toward a future where AI can reliably shoulder more of our intricate, multi-step work—not as a novelty, but as a competent partner. The message is clear: the goal is to move from assisted prompting to genuine, trusted collaboration.