MiniMax Agent
This is a note from my public notes. View the canonical version: MiniMax Agent.
MiniMax Agent is basically Claude Cowork + Clawdbot in a single app (Clawdbot is the old name of OpenClaw). It comes from MiniMax, the Chinese AI lab behind the MiniMax M-series models and the Hailuo video models. Their tagline: "Minimize Effort, Maximize Intelligence."
It tries to be three kinds of agent at once: local file work like Cowork, an always-on assistant you reach from your chat apps like OpenClaw, and fire-and-forget cloud tasks like Manus.
What it does
- Runs on your computer and in the cloud. The desktop app (macOS and Windows, launched January 20, 2026) works on your local files, and since September 2026 a running task can move from local to cloud and finish there
- Agentic and batch work: point it at a folder, describe the job, and it runs on its own. It also does deep research, builds full apps (auth, database, Stripe payments) and takes multimodal input
- A built-in browser plus Browser Control, so it clicks through websites instead of only searching them
- A skills library in the spirit of AI Agent Skills, next to Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and integrations (GitHub, Figma, Slack)
- Expert agents, added with web v2.0: you define a persona (personality, behavior, domain expertise) and share it with others
- Memory at three levels: User, Agent and Project
- Parallel sub-agents, and since May 2026 Agent Teams, where several agents work together on long-running jobs
- Scheduled tasks written in plain language, a Quick Launch hotkey (Alt+A / Option+A) and access through messaging apps
- Checkpoints: roll back to any step and re-run from there. Since August 2026 you can also branch or rewind a conversation
Timeline
- January 2026: desktop app for Mac and Windows
- February 2026: Daily Dose of Data Science calls it "the most complete AI desktop agent right now"
- May 2026: an upgraded experience named "Mavis", plus Agent Teams
- July 2026: core rebuilt (first-token latency down by more than 90%), remote control from your phone, Coding and Work modes, bring your own model keys, and Goal Mode for long-running work
- August 2026: Plan mode, MCP server configuration, H3 video generation
- September 2026: local-to-cloud task handoff, infinite canvas, voice input, custom Mini Apps. On September 30, v3.1.0 brought a rebrand and the "M Plan" subscription with the full MiniMax model lineup
There's also a companion CLI, MiniMax Code, which is MiniMax's answer to Claude Code. Since October 2026, MiniMax Code and the M Plan offer MiniMax M3.1 Flash, the lab's agent-focused model priced against DeepSeek.
My take
The expert-agents pitch ("Upgrade your tools and mindset. Everyone is an Agent Designer.") matches what I see with skills: you write down how to do a job once, and other people can run it.
An app that does all of this runs on your machine, drives your browser and touches your accounts. That's a lot of surface, and the permission and trust questions are the same as with OpenClaw. I'd give it one folder and a narrow job before handing it anything more.
References
- https://agent.minimax.io
- https://agent.minimax.io/docs/changelog
- https://blog.dailydoseofds.com/p/minimax-agent-clawdbot-cowork-and
- https://www.minimax.io/blog/minimax-agent-team-long-running-1779893953
- https://www.aibase.com/news/24803
Related
- Claude Cowork
- OpenClaw
- Manus
- AI Agents
- AI Agent Skills
- AI Subagents
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Claude Code
- Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)
- Claude Code Agent Teams
- Claude in Chrome
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