Your AI agent remembers everything. Here’s what happens when its owner changes.

Manus is being spun back out after Chinese regulators forced Meta to unwind its roughly $2 billion purchase of the AI agent startup. The company says some users will need to save their data before it starts deleting material created on or after Dec. 29, 2025 as part of the breakup.

That deadline is blunt: affected users have until 7:59 p.m. EDT on Aug. 22 to back things up. Manus says it will notify people by email and in the app, but it still hasn’t spelled out which regions are included. It also warns that if new task data appears after someone saves a copy, they should back up again.

The company is also trying to make the transition less painful. Users who lose access will be able to start restoring accounts when the portal opens at 8 p.m. EDT on Aug. 24, and Manus says it won’t charge them during the backup period. It also promises bonuses after data is restored. But the notice stays vague on what actually counts as “data generated” since Meta acquired it. That could mean task histories, uploaded files, generated applications, connector settings, or something else entirely.

This whole mess started long before the backup deadline. Manus was founded in China, later moved to Singapore, and builds general-purpose agents that can research, handle files, use software, and finish multi-step jobs. Meta announced the acquisition in December 2025, but the deal drew scrutiny in China and the United States almost immediately. Chinese officials investigated whether the sale violated foreign-investment rules or pushed Chinese-developed technology into U.S. hands, and in April the National Development and Reform Commission ordered the transaction withdrawn.

The bigger point is ugly but obvious: if your workflow lives inside an AI agent, the business deal can become your outage. Meta had wanted to fold Manus into consumer and enterprise products, while Manus says it is preparing new features and expects users back after restoration. For anyone building on these systems, portability is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s the exit plan you should’ve asked for on day one.