Manus AI vs. ChatGPT Agent

In the rapidly evolving landscape of AI agents, it’s crucial to understand which tools perform best for specific tasks. Today, we take a close look at two prominent AI agents: Manus AI and ChatGPT Agent. Both are designed to assist with automation and intelligent workflows, but they are built on fundamentally different approaches. This article dives into a detailed comparison of their performance in three practical scenarios—image design, sales prospecting, and web development—to determine which agent excels where.

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Understanding the AI Agents

Both Manus AI and ChatGPT Agent are designed to assist users by automating complex tasks, but they differ significantly in their design and approach:

• Manus AI is a pre-trained, task-specific agent optimized for structured workflows. It is fast, responsive, and excels at following a strict, step-by-step process. This makes it great for tasks that require sticking closely to a defined set of instructions.
• ChatGPT Agent is OpenAI's general-purpose AI assistant with broad capabilities and deep integrations. It is flexible and can handle multimodal inputs, thinking on its feet across diverse tasks. It is slower but more adaptable, often asking clarifying questions to refine the task.

Prompt 1: Blog Image Design

The first task tested each AI's ability to replace a design agency by creating blog images consistent with an existing library. The prompt was straightforward: analyze the blog post titles and their corresponding images, then generate an image for a new post titled What the Big Beautiful Bill Means for Crypto Taxes. The new image needed to align with the style, dimensions, colors, and branding of the current blog assets.

Manus AI’s Approach

Manus AI started by creating a detailed to-do list, then methodically worked through it. It opened a cloud browser to analyze the blog’s header images, identifying recurring styles and elements. It communicated its progress, inviting interruptions or adjustments, which is useful for interactive workflows.

After analyzing, Manus generated a style guide or context prompt summarizing the blog’s visual characteristics. Then, it proceeded to create the new image.

The output was delivered in just over two minutes—impressive speed for this kind of task. However, the image fell short in several ways:

• The color scheme did not match the brand palette.
• Characters and icons were inconsistent with existing images.
• The image dimensions didn’t fit the blog’s specific 800x420 pixel size.

While the image was coherent and contextually relevant, it was not production-ready. Overall, this task scored a 5 out of 10 for Manus AI.

ChatGPT Agent’s Approach

ChatGPT Agent took a similar initial step by spinning up a cloud browser to analyze the blog library. Its interface showed what it was thinking, providing transparency and better user engagement. It explored several blog posts individually to understand the relationship between images and content.

This deeper analysis took nearly 17 minutes—about five times longer than Manus AI. ChatGPT Agent also created a prompt by reverse-engineering the existing images, identifying key style elements such as flat vector illustrations, dark blue and teal gradients, and gold accents. It recognized the need for a 16:9 aspect ratio, then cropped the image to the blog’s custom dimensions.

The final image was close to the brand’s style with appropriate iconography and composition, though the colors were slightly off and cropping was a bit awkward due to aspect ratio limitations.

Winner for Prompt 1: ChatGPT Agent, for accuracy and style fidelity, despite the longer processing time.

Prompt 2: Sales Prospecting

The second prompt tasked the AIs with identifying potential advertising prospects for an AI-focused daily newsletter. They were asked to return a CSV file with five companies, each having three individual prospects and their contact information. The goal was to find suitable companies interested in advertising within the AI media space.

Manus AI’s Performance

Manus AI again created a to-do list and began by researching the newsletter audience to understand the target demographic. It then looked at similar newsletters and identified top AI companies such as OpenAI, Nvidia, and Microsoft. It proceeded to gather individual prospects from these companies, compiling the data into a CSV file.

While the data collection was impressive, the choice of prospects was not ideal. Targeting mega conglomerates for newsletter advertising is challenging, especially when smaller and mid-sized companies would be more accessible and relevant for outreach.

Despite some inaccuracies in contact details and occasional column misalignments, the output was solid and usable.

ChatGPT Agent’s Performance

ChatGPT Agent started by asking clarifying questions upfront, requesting a focus on SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) in the US. This saved time and resources by narrowing the prospect search.

It then identified companies such as People.ai, Fireflies AI, and Compose.ai—firms more aligned with the target market for newsletter advertising. The agent demonstrated intelligent strategies by inferring email formats from publicly available data, similar to how a human sales rep would operate.

After approximately 15 minutes, ChatGPT Agent produced a clean CSV with accurate contact information, company names, and prospect roles. It also documented the sources of the contact data, adding transparency to the list.

Winner for Prompt 2: ChatGPT Agent, for better-targeted prospects and more precise data collection.

Prompt 3: Netflix-Style Resume Website

For the final challenge, both AIs were asked to build a simple Netflix-style website to display a resume and work history, inspired by a viral tweet where a resume was transformed into a Netflix browsing experience.

Manus AI’s Execution

Manus AI quickly created a to-do list that included:

• Researching the viral tweet and Netflix design patterns
• Planning the website structure and design approach
• Building a responsive website using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Testing functionality and responsiveness
• Deploying the website and delivering the live URL

The process was remarkably fast and efficient. Manus AI navigated through the research, planning, and coding phases in under seven minutes. It also troubleshot issues and fixed navigation problems autonomously. The final product was a live, fully responsive Netflix-style resume website that matched the prompt’s requirements.

ChatGPT Agent’s Execution

ChatGPT Agent began by asking if the resume should also be styled as a PDF, displaying a preference for clarifying ambiguous requests upfront. It then produced a Netflix-inspired website with a dark background, red highlights, and card-like sections to mimic Netflix’s interface.

However, unlike Manus AI, ChatGPT Agent did not deploy the website live—it provided instructions for hosting instead. The PDF version it generated was more of a standard resume with Netflix colors but lacked the interactive, stylish presentation of the website.

While the website design was clean, it was less functional and engaging compared to Manus AI’s deployed site.

Winner for Prompt 3: Manus AI, for delivering a fully functional, live Netflix-style resume website.

Summary: Which AI Agent Should You Use?

Both Manus AI and ChatGPT Agent show impressive capabilities but excel in different areas:

• ChatGPT Agent shines in tasks requiring deep analysis, flexible reasoning, and data gathering. It took the lead in blog image design and sales prospecting by generating more accurate, targeted, and context-aware results, despite longer processing times.
• Manus AI excels in structured, well-defined workflows that benefit from speed and precision. Its ability to build and deploy a Netflix-style resume website quickly is a testament to its strength in rapid execution and web development tasks.

Choosing the right AI depends on your priorities: if you need fast, reliable execution on specific workflows, Manus AI is a strong candidate. For broader, more nuanced tasks, ChatGPT Agent may be more suitable.

Final Thoughts

AI agents are evolving rapidly, and tools like Manus AI and ChatGPT Agent are pushing the boundaries of what automation can achieve. While neither is perfect, using them in combination or selecting the one best suited to your task can save time and improve productivity.

Test these agents yourself, refine your prompts, and don't hesitate to iterate. AI automation mastery comes from practice and understanding the strengths of each tool.

Remember, the future of work involves collaboration between humans and AI agents—leveraging their unique capabilities to get more done.