Manus Cue Explained: AI Agents With a Phone and Wallet (2026)

What is Manus Cue?

Manus Cue is an app where you run personal AI agents that each have their own email address, phone number, wallet and computer. Manus launched it on September 28, 2026, together with Manus 2.0. It's a standalone app, not a feature tucked inside a chat window.

That identity kit is the whole idea. Most AI agents borrow your accounts: they log in as you, send from your inbox and wait for you to pay. A Cue agent has its own. It can send messages from its own address, pay within a budget you set, pick up your calls and leave you a summary, and keep working on its own computer while you do something else.

Cue also leans into teams. Several agents can collaborate on one job. Manus's own example: one agent researches venues, another builds a shortlist, and a third drafts the presentation deck.

Access is limited for now. Cue is in early access and free with an invite code, and it runs on the web, desktop and mobile, with the iOS app still waiting on App Store review as of launch. Manus hasn't published a price for after early access.

What can a Manus Cue agent actually do?

A Cue agent can message people, pay within your budget, answer your calls and summarize them, and finish tasks on its own computer. Here's what each piece of its kit means in plain terms.

Its own email address and phone number. The agent can send messages as itself, so the person on the other end is dealing with your agent rather than a message sent from your personal account. Manus hasn't said which messaging apps the agent's phone number works with, so don't assume WhatsApp, iMessage or SMS until Manus confirms it.

Its own wallet. The agent can pay for things, but only within a budget you set. Think booking a venue deposit or buying the supplies for an event, capped at a number you choose.

Your calls. A Cue agent can take your calls and leave a summary in the app. For anyone who loses an hour a day to "quick calls", that's the most tempting feature in the launch.

Its own computer. Like OpenAI's dots and SpaceXAI's Grok Bot, a Cue agent has a machine of its own, so it can finish multi-step tasks without you watching every click.

Teams of agents. You can run several agents that hand work to each other, like the venue research, shortlist and deck example above. That's closer to managing a small crew than chatting with one assistant.

How do you get Manus Cue? (invite codes, platforms, price)

You need an invite code: Cue is in early access and free for people who have one. There's no public price list yet, and Manus hasn't said when or how paid plans will start.

Once you're in, Cue runs on the web, desktop and mobile. At launch, the iOS app was still pending App Store review, so iPhone users may have to use the web version for now.

Manus hasn't published a country list for Cue, and it hasn't said which carriers or messaging apps the agents' phone numbers support. Wherever you live, confirm both before you plan around it.

One practical warning: whenever a hot AI product runs on invite codes, people start selling them. Get your code from Manus itself or someone you trust, and never hand over payment details or logins to get one. That's especially true for an app whose agents hold a wallet.

The short version: free to try if you get in, no price for later, and a few open questions about where it works.

Who is behind Manus, and why does that matter?

Manus was founded in China and is now based in Singapore. Cue is the company's new home for personal agents, launched the same day as Manus 2.0.

The company has had a dramatic run. Meta agreed to buy Manus for about $2 billion, and at the end of 2025 Beijing blocked the acquisition. The two companies split, and Manus carried on independently.

Why should a normal user care? Because you're considering handing an agent your calls, a payment budget and messages to people you know. Ownership, jurisdiction and data handling are fair questions for any company in that position, whether it's Manus, OpenAI, Meta or SpaceXAI.

Manus's launch details don't spell out where Cue stores call summaries, messages or payment data. If that matters to you or your business, look for Cue's privacy policy and terms before you connect anything important.

Is it safe to give an AI agent a wallet and your phone calls?

It can be, if the controls are good, but at launch Manus has confirmed only one money control: a budget you set. That's a sensible start. It's not the whole answer.

Here's what's known. A Cue agent pays within a budget the user sets, and when it takes your calls it leaves a summary in the app, so there's a record you can check. Because each agent has its own email, phone number and wallet, its activity is separated from your personal accounts rather than mixed into them.

Here's what Manus hasn't said: whether you can require approval for every payment or only set a total cap, how the wallet is funded, what happens with refunds or disputed charges, whether you can block certain types of spending, and how callers are told they're speaking with an AI. Compare that with OpenAI's dots, which let you allow, require approval for or block specific actions, and Grok Bot, which lets you require approval before a Bot purchases or transfers funds.

Until those details are public, treat Cue like a new employee on day one. Give it the smallest budget that gets the job done. Start with low-stakes tasks: reserving a table, not paying a supplier. Read the call summaries for the first few weeks and check them against what you'd expect.

Calls deserve extra thought. The people who ring you (clients, your kid's school, your bank) may not expect an agent to answer. Consider telling regular callers, and keep anything sensitive, like account security or medical questions, with a human.

Manus Cue vs OpenAI dots, Meta Muse and Grok Bot: how do they compare?

Cue is the only one of the four that gives each agent its own phone number, email address and wallet; the others mostly act through your accounts. All four run tasks on a computer of their own. They differ on price, where you can use them and how you talk to them.

OpenAI dots launched on September 29, 2026, one day after Cue. A dot is an always-on agent inside ChatGPT with its own cloud computer, 4,000+ app connections and Custom Rules for approvals. You reach it in ChatGPT, Slack and Microsoft Teams. It starts at $100/month on ChatGPT Pro, and at launch dots don't have their own email address and can't call you.

Meta Muse launched on September 8, 2026 and is available in the US and Canada. It runs its own virtual machine, asks approval for purchases and emails, and is free to start (with a payment card on file) or $20 and $100 a month for more usage. Muse is also available inside WhatsApp.

Grok Bot from SpaceXAI has been in beta since August 11, 2026. It signs into your apps with your real logins, runs several Bots at once, and starts at $20/month via Cursor Pro. For a deeper look at those two, see our OpenAI dots vs Grok Bot comparison.

The honest pick: Cue if you want an agent with its own identity and you have an invite code; dots if your work lives in ChatGPT, Slack or Teams; Muse if you're in the US or Canada and want a consumer agent; Grok Bot if you're a developer or Cursor user.

Do you need an agent with its own phone number to get people to answer you?

Often, no. A lot of the appeal of Cue's phone number is simple: you want other people to reply without you chasing them. If the people you chase are already on WhatsApp, an assistant that messages them there and reports back gets you most of the way, with no invite code and no wallet.

That's what Agent Sonic does. It's a personal AI assistant that lives entirely inside WhatsApp. No app to install, no dashboard, no desktop setup: you just message it, by text or voice note.

Its outreach feature is the closest thing to Cue's "agent that talks to people for you". You say: "Ask Dana if she can do the Thursday shoot at 10 and tell me what she says." Sonic messages Dana on your behalf and reports her answer back to you in your chat. We explain how it works in our guide to AI outreach that reports back in WhatsApp.

The rest of the chasing lives there too. "Remind me to call the accountant every Monday at 9." In your team group: "Every Friday at 4, remind everyone to submit their timesheets." Forward a supplier's invoice PDF and ask: "What's the total and when is it due?" Say "Put the venue visit on my calendar Tuesday at 3" and it lands in Google Calendar.

Sonic also keeps a persistent memory of what you tell it, handles to-dos and notes, searches the live web, reads contracts and spreadsheets, generates and edits images, and replies in your language, whether that's English, Hebrew or Arabic.

Honest limits: Sonic has no wallet and doesn't make purchases or payments. It doesn't take your calls. It doesn't run its own cloud computer for hours of autonomous research, it doesn't have 4,000 integrations, and it isn't in Slack or Teams. If you need an agent to pay a deposit or pick up your phone, Cue or another heavy agent is the better fit.

But if your real problem is "people don't answer me and I forget to follow up", you may not need an agent with its own phone number at all. Get access to Sonic at tryagentsonic.com/contact.

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