Manus, the AI agent platform that Meta acquired for roughly $2 billion in late 2025, has made its biggest product move since that acquisition: a desktop application called "My Computer" that gives the Manus AI agent direct access to a user's local machine.
Available now for macOS and Windows, My Computer represents a significant philosophical shift for Manus. Until now, the platform operated entirely in the cloud, spinning up virtual machines to complete tasks on the user's behalf. My Computer brings the agent home — onto the user's own hardware, with access to their own files and applications.
How It Works
The Manus Desktop application establishes a connection between the Manus AI agent and the user's local environment. Through this connection, the agent can read, analyze, and edit files on disk, execute commands in the terminal, open and interact with installed applications, and — for users with capable hardware — run machine learning models or AI inference workloads locally using the GPU.
The workflow model is task-based: a user describes what they want done in natural language, and the agent executes a sequence of steps to complete it. Examples given by Manus include organizing thousands of unsorted photos into categorized folders, batch-renaming hundreds of invoice files, or building automated workflows that span multiple local applications.
Security by Approval
Given that an AI agent with terminal access represents a significant expansion of what software can autonomously do on a personal computer, Manus has built an explicit approval gate into every terminal command. Before any command executes, the user sees what the agent is about to run and must approve it. Users can grant blanket approval for trusted recurring operations with "Always Allow," or keep granular review active with "Allow Once."
Folder-level access controls add another layer: users authorize specific directories rather than granting the agent free run of the entire file system.
Context: Meta's Manus Strategy
Meta acquired Manus quietly at the end of 2025, and the company has continued operating somewhat independently while integrating deeper into Meta's AI infrastructure. My Computer is the first product that shows what that integration may look like in practice: a consumer-facing AI agent with capabilities that approach, and in some workflows may exceed, what dedicated power-user tools currently offer.
The launch comes as competition in the local AI agent space is accelerating. Microsoft has been expanding Copilot's ability to control Windows applications, and Apple has its own on-device AI push underway. My Computer puts Manus squarely in that competitive landscape — with the advantage of being available on both major desktop platforms from day one.
For everyday users, the pitch is straightforward: an AI that doesn't just answer questions but actually does things on your computer, one approved step at a time.
By Michael Ouroumis
