Manus "My Computer": The AI Agent That Finally Lives on Your Machine

The Cloud Was Never Enough

For all the hype around AI agents, there has always been an uncomfortable truth lurking beneath the surface: the most important work in your life doesn't happen in the cloud. It happens on your computer — in local folders stuffed with project files, inside development environments, buried under hundreds of unsorted invoices and photos. Until now, even the most powerful AI agents were essentially locked outside your front door, peering in through a window.

On March 16, 2026, Manus changed that. The company launched My Computer — the core feature of the new Manus Desktop app — bringing its AI agent out of the cloud sandbox and directly onto users' local machines.

What Exactly Is "My Computer"?

My Computer works by running a command-line interface (CLI) in your computer's terminal through the Manus Desktop app. This deceptively simple mechanism unlocks a staggering range of capabilities: reading, analysing, and editing local files; launching and controlling local applications; and leveraging every command-line tool already installed on your machine — from Python and Node.js to Swift and Xcode.

Think of it this way: Manus was already a brilliant agent with its own cloud workspace. My Computer hands it the keys to your workspace too.

Five Things It Can Actually Do

1. Intelligent File Organisation

Got thousands of unsorted photos dumped in one chaotic folder? Tell Manus to organise them. It scans every file, identifies the content of each image, creates categorised subfolders, and sorts everything — in minutes. What used to be an afternoon of tedium becomes a two-sentence instruction.

2. Bulk Document Processing

Renaming hundreds of invoices to a standard format? That soul-crushing task that eats an entire afternoon? Manus handles it with a few terminal commands.

3. No-Code Local App Development

This is where things get genuinely jaw-dropping. In one internally documented test, a Manus colleague challenged the agent to build a real-time meeting translation and subtitle application in Swift — entirely on a Mac, from project creation and coding to debugging and packaging, all via terminal commands. No Xcode opened. No code written manually. Twenty minutes later: a fully working Mac app.

4. Unlocking Your Idle GPU

That powerful GPU sitting idle in your machine? My Computer gives it a purpose. You can have Manus use your local GPU to train machine learning models or run LLM inference locally. That forgotten Mac mini in the corner? It just became a 24/7 AI workstation.

5. Remote Control From Anywhere

Left the office without a critical file? Send an instruction from your phone. Manus will remotely access your home machine, locate the document, and email it to your client via Gmail — all in one seamless, automated workflow bridging local storage and cloud services.

You Stay in Command

Letting an AI loose on your local machine is not a trivial act of trust. Manus knows this. Every terminal command requires explicit user approval before execution. You can choose:

• "Always Allow" — for routine, trusted tasks you want to automate freely
• "Allow Once" — to review each individual operation before it runs

You are the commander. Manus is the executor. That relationship, the company insists, will never change.

A Crowded but Consequential Moment

Manus is not alone in this race. The local AI agent space has exploded in early 2026. Anthropic released remote control features for Claude Code and a PC operation AI called Cowork. Perplexity announced Personal Computer, an always-on local AI agent. NVIDIA is reportedly preparing NemoClaw, a platform for AI to autonomously execute tasks on user devices.

Yet industry observers are singling out My Computer as particularly significant. As one commentator put it bluntly: "Four companies launched OpenClaw competitors in three weeks. Manus may have just dropped the most interesting one."

The community reaction has been equally charged. LinkedIn discussions highlight both excitement and healthy scepticism — with developers praising the "natural evolution" of AI context awareness, while others raise pointed questions about security models and metadata exposure when a cloud-connected AI gains local machine access.

The Bottom Line

My Computer is available today for all macOS and Windows users. Getting started is straightforward: download the Manus Desktop app, sign in, and authorise the local folders you want Manus to work with.

The philosophical shift here is worth pausing on. AI agents have spent years being brilliant assistants that live somewhere else. My Computer makes Manus a resident — a permanent, capable presence inside the machine where your actual work lives. The cloud gave Manus its own workspace. My Computer brings Manus into yours.

"Your ideas. Manus's execution. Every resource on your computer."
— Manus Official Blog