Compile journalist lists and search apartment listings
Observed in the wild: the reporter gave Manus three tasks: a list of China tech reporters, two-bedroom NYC listings with several criteria, and 50 Innovators Under 35 nominees. She watched its browser window and took over for captchas. The reporter list took a little over an hour and the apartment search under half an hour.
- Agent or tool
- Manus
- Topic
- Productivity
- Reported on
- Blog
- Added
- 2026-10-15
Why it matters
Small, repetitive tasks eat more of the week than anyone likes to admit. Cases like this show an agent taking a chore off someone's plate end to end, not just suggesting what to do. It is one of 196 sightings filed under Productivity on Agent Sightings (number 183 by interest), and one of 22 involving Manus.
How you could try it
Here is a reusable prompt, written by us in our own words, that captures the task. Paste it into Manus or any similar agent and adjust the details to your situation.
Help me compile journalist lists and search apartment listings. Break it into steps, show your work, and wait for confirmation before anything irreversible, paid, or outbound.
Tip: Start small: run it once on a low-stakes example, read what the agent did, and only then let it run on real work.
Source
Read the original first-hand account on Blog: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/11/1113133/manus-ai-review/. Our summary is a paraphrase; details are in the source.