Give an AI agent a wallet, and the question is not whether it can use it
Give an AI agent a wallet, and the question is not whether it can use it. It is where the limit lives, and whether the agent can change it.
On 28 September, Manus released Manus 2.0 alongside a new app called Cue. In Manus's words, each personal agent gets its own email, its own phone number, its own wallet and its own computer. It can send messages, take calls and leave you a summary, pay within a budget you set, and see a task through on its own machine. Manus's example: scan a restaurant's QR code and your agent orders for you, or holds your place in the queue.
I use AI agents for real work every day. So to be clear first: my two agents, David and LillyRose, have no wallet, no phone number and no way to pay for anything.
Last night, though, I gave David a set of hard rules. He works without asking me about each step, but before every single action a hook checks it first: deleting files, killing programs, pushing code, reading the secrets file, and changing the rules themselves are all blocked. The rules are not written into his prompt. They sit somewhere he cannot reach.
Manus's example: scan a restaurant's QR code and your agent orders for you, or holds your place in the queue.
Even so, in the early hours of this morning he found a gap: write a file path in two pieces and one check let it through. It was caught on the spot, but the gap still needs closing.
So when I read "pay within a budget you set", my first question is this: is that budget a setting the agent can change, or a rule it cannot touch?
The caveats, plainly:
・Cue is in early access, by invite code only, and the iOS app is still waiting for App Store review.
・The announcement does not say how each payment is approved, how the budget is changed, or whether the agent can change it.
・Manus has not said what it will cost after early access.
・All of this is Manus's own description. I have not used it.
Would you give your AI agent a bank card? And if you would, where would you put the limit? Tell me what you think in the comments 👇
