The emergent AI “agent” platform Manus, developed by the Chinese startup Butterfly Effect, has inadvertently highlighted another intriguing tool called Browser Use.
Browser Use is designed to enhance website accessibility for agentic applications that perform tasks autonomously for users. According to co-creator Gregor Zunic, the platform has seen an impressive surge in popularity over the past week, with daily downloads skyrocketing from approximately 5,000 on March 3 to 28,000 on March 10, as reported to TechCrunch.
“The last few days have been absolutely incredible,” Zunic shared via direct message. “We’ve become the top trending repository on GitHub, racking up countless downloads, all of which translates into substantial user engagement.”
What accounts for this surge? A viral post detailing how Manus utilizes Browser Use attracted over 2.4 million views and numerous shares on X. Browser Use is described as one of the key components used by Manus for executing various functions, such as navigating site menus and completing online forms.
Zunic and his co-founder Magnus Müller established the company behind Browser Use last year through the ETH Zurich’s Student Project House accelerator. They believed that web agents—tools capable of autonomously navigating websites and applications—were poised to become a major trend in 2025.
“What began as light-hearted brainstorming over lunch evolved into a challenge: let’s create something small, publish it on Hacker News, and see how it performs,” Zunic explained. “We built a minimum viable product in just four days, launched it, and it exploded. From that point, it’s been a meteoric rise.”
Browser Use captures various elements from websites—such as buttons and widgets—to facilitate easier interaction for AI models. The platform is capable of managing multiple browser tabs, executing actions like saving files and performing database queries, as well as simulating mouse and keyboard inputs.
The company behind Browser Use offers paid managed plans, while also providing a free self-hosted version of their software. It is this latter version that has witnessed a significant increase in usage following the debut of Manus.
Zunic emphasized that he and Magnus are aiming to “sell shovels” to developers eager to capitalize on the burgeoning market for web agents.
“Our goal was to establish a foundational layer for developers to create browser agents upon,” Zunic stated. “In our view, by the end of the year, there could be more agents on the web than human users.”
While this may sound overly optimistic, industry analysts do foresee significant growth in the AI agents market in the upcoming months. According to Research and Markets, the sector is expected to soar to $42 billion by 2029. Additionally, Deloitte projects that half of companies employing AI will utilize AI agents by 2027.
Regardless of the Manus effect, it seems that the timing of Browser Use has proven to be quite fortuitous.
Compiled by Techarena.au.
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