By Robert Hart
Publication Date: 2026-04-30 16:48:00
Manus, an AI company that acquired Meta for $2 billion last year, is running ads promising quick and easy money with AI: Find local businesses with no or poor websites, let AI build them, then call them and sell it to them.
As part of the campaign, Manus paid content creators to set up Instagram, YouTube and TikTok accounts that promoted his AI product as an easy, lucrative job. (The creators’ TikTok accounts were subsequently deleted The edge (inquired about it.) Some of these videos also appeared as official advertisements for Manus, but the posts on the paid creator accounts themselves often obscured their connection to the company.
The advertising wasn’t subtle. In a video posted by an account called “Manus AI by Meta,” the Manus AI agent was portrayed as a “simple side hustle” that “absolutely anyone can do” — one that supposedly “takes less than 10 minutes” and “can potentially make $5,000 per month.” The young person in the video says: “There is literally no…
