CUE by Manus: The AI Agent With Its Own Phone Number and Wallet

Meta gave its AI a keychain. OpenAI gave its AI a cartoon face. xAI gave its AI a job. And then Manus looked at all three and said: hold my wallet.

CUE, launched September 28, 2026 alongside Manus 2.0, is a standalone consumer app for personal AI agents — and it’s the first one to give an agent the full infrastructure of a person: its own phone number, its own email address, its own spending wallet, and its own cloud computer. Your agent can take calls, send messages, make purchases, and keep working after you log off — then report back.

In a month where every AI lab is racing to put a friendly face on agents, Manus is racing to give them a life.

What Is CUE?

CUE is built on Manus’s agent infrastructure but packaged as a personal-agent app, separate from the main Manus workspace. The pitch is simple: tell an agent what needs doing, decide where it needs your approval, and let it carry the task from research through follow-up to completion.

Each agent comes equipped with:

• A phone number — the agent can make and receive calls and texts; you can even forward your own calls to it
• An email address — for sending mail and handling inbox tasks like sorting messages and drafting replies
• A spending wallet — capped at a budget you set, so the agent can pay for things autonomously
• A dedicated cloud computer — its own workspace to run tasks persistently

Multiple agents can work together in group chats, dividing a larger request: one researches venues, another shortlists options, a third drafts the presentation — handing work to each other while you make the final call.

Real-world examples from Manus: an agent that answers a forwarded call and leaves you a summary, one that scans a restaurant QR code to place an order or hold your place in line, one that sorts your piled-up unread messages and prepares replies in your voice.

The Engine: Manus 2.0 and Cascade

CUE rides on Manus 2.0, a rebuild of the company’s agent platform powered by a new in-house framework called Cascade. Instead of loading the full toolkit for every task, Cascade starts lightweight and loads specialized tools only as the task requires them. In Manus’s own testing, that cut token use by 23%, shortened task times by 28%, and reduced costs by 32%.

Manus 2.0 also adds event-triggered workflows — agents that spring into action when something happens, not just when you prompt them. Combined with CUE’s phone, email, and wallet, the picture is an agent that doesn’t wait to be asked: it notices, acts, and reports.

Who Gets In — and What It Costs

CUE is in early access: free to use with an invitation code, on web, desktop, and mobile. The iOS app was awaiting App Store review at launch. A few caveats:

• Invite required — it’s a gated rollout, not open signup
• Phone features vary by country — full calling and texting in select countries, voice-only in others
• Manus is independent again — the Singapore-based company returned to independent operations on September 1, 2026, with founder and CEO Xiao Hong still leading; CUE is its first big swing since

The company behind it has always been application-first: Xiao told the South China Morning Post back in 2025 that he never set out to build large language models — he wanted to build applications. CUE is that philosophy taken to its logical extreme: not a better model, but an agent with a phone and a wallet.

The Boldest Bet in the Agent Wars

Here’s why CUE matters beyond the feature list. September 2026 was the month the industry split in two:

• Nvidia and Microsoft spent the month building guardrails and “cages” for rogue agents — audit trails, containment, control planes
• Manus spent the same month giving agents phone numbers, email addresses, and spending authority

It’s a bet made in public, at the exact moment everyone else is racing to do the opposite. Manus is wagering that the winning agent isn’t the most contained one — it’s the most capable one, trusted with real-world tools and real money (within limits you set).

The Honest Caveats

• A wallet cap limits exposure, not mistakes. A user-set spending ceiling means a runaway agent can’t drain your account — but it can still make the wrong purchase under the cap. Financial guardrails are not the same as judgment guardrails.
• Permissions are the whole product. An agent that can call, email, and spend on your behalf is only as safe as its permission model is understandable. Early access means that model is still being proven.
• Company-reported numbers. The Cascade efficiency gains (23%/28%/32%) come from Manus’s own testing. Independent verification hasn’t happened yet.
• Phone lotteries. Country-by-country phone support means your mileage will vary enormously depending on where you live.

The Four-Way Race, Compared

Four labs, four answers to the same question — what does a personal AI look like when it grows up? OpenAI says a character. Meta says a gadget. xAI says a colleague. Manus says: a person, minus the body.

Wait — Is It a Robot?

Fourth verse: still no. CUE has no physical form — it’s software with a phone number.

But notice the trajectory across this whole series: each new agent is more embodied than the last. A chatbot lives in a window. Dots and Muse got faces. Grok Bot got a persistent computer and coworkers. CUE got a phone number, an inbox, and a wallet. The next step — a body that walks into the room — is no longer science fiction. It’s a product roadmap.

Robot Zone Verdict

CUE is the most radical consumer agent yet: not a cuter chatbot, but an agent with the actual infrastructure of adult life — phone, email, money, computer. If Manus nails the permission model, this is the template every future personal robot will copy: the body is optional, but the phone number isn’t. If it gets the trust model wrong, it’s a cautionary tale about moving fast with other people’s wallets. Either way, it’s the one to watch.

Sources:

• AI Market Watch: Manus launches Cue with identities and spending wallets for personal AI agents
• AIstify: Manus Launches Cue AI Agents With Phone Numbers, Email and Wallets
• Startup Fortune: Manus gave its AI agents phone numbers and wallets days after Nvidia caged them
• Digital Applied: Personal AI Agents Compared: Dots, Muse, Cue and Grok
• Runtime Wire: Manus gives Cue agents phone numbers, wallets and computers
• Generative AI (Medium): Cue: Manus’s Personal AI Agent for Everyday Tasks