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Illustration of OpenClaw logo on smartphone screen
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After several name changes, adoption from Silicon Valley to Beijing, and growing controversy, the open source AI agent now known as “OpenClaw” has become one of the most talked about tools in artificial intelligence this year.
The artificial intelligence agent, formerly known as Clawdbot and Moltbot, was launched a few weeks ago by Austrian software developer Peter Steinberger.
Its sudden rise, fueled by its capabilities and social media attention, comes amid growing interest in artificial intelligence agents that can autonomously complete tasks, make decisions and act on behalf of users without constant human guidance.
Until recently, artificial intelligence agents have failed to gain mainstream awareness in the same way that large-scale language models did after the emergence of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but OpenClaw may mark a shift.
Not only do business leaders predict that AI agents like OpenClaw will increase the productivity of personal assistants, but some believe they will soon become Run the entire company yourself.
What does OpenClaw do?
OpenClaw is billed as “artificial intelligence that actually does things,” running directly on the user’s operating system and applications. It automates tasks such as managing email and calendars, browsing the web, and interacting with online services.
To use OpenClaw, you must install it on a server or local device and connect it to a large language model, such as Anthropic’s Claude model or ChatGPT, a process that can be difficult for non-technical users.
Early integrations were primarily on messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Discord, allowing users to control agents through text commands.
Users recorded OpenClaw performing real-world tasks, including automatically browsing web pages, summarizing PDFs, scheduling calendar entries, making proxy purchases, and sending and deleting emails on the user’s behalf.
A key feature is its “persistent memory,” which allows the agent to recall past weeks of interactions and adapt to user habits to perform hyper-personalized functions.
Unlike other leading AI agents, such as those from Meta’s recently acquired Manus, OpenClaw is also open source, allowing developers to freely inspect and modify its code.
Rapid adoption
The open source nature of OpenClaw may help users build new application integrations, driving adoption. The software itself is free, and users only pay to run the underlying language model.
To date, the agent has collected more than 145,000 GitHub stars and 20,000 forks, indicating widespread interest, although actual and active usage data remains unclear.
Media reports indicate that this adoption first took off in Silicon Valley, where companies have Invest billions Their AI agent ambitions.
But the agent has since spread to China, where major AI players have also begun using the tool. These include cloud providers from Alibaba, Tencentand ByteDance, Upgrading their chatbot Enjoy full-service shopping and payment tools without leaving the platform.
OpenClaw can also be paired with Chinese-developed language models such as DeepSeek and configured to work with Chinese messaging apps through custom settings.
fear and excitement
Early adopters of OpenClaw have expressed enthusiasm and trepidation about its capabilities.
For example, some AI experts believe the agent is overhyped, citing its complex installation, high computing requirements, and competition from other available AI agents.
On the other hand, many proponents report weekly time savings on routine tasks and refer to it as “artificial intelligence with hands,” a major leap toward artificial intelligence—artificial intelligence that is theoretically capable of performing intellectual tasks at or above human levels.
IBM research scientist Kaoutar El Maghraoui said OpenClaw Proven real-world utility The applications of AI agents are “not limited to large enterprises” and can be “very powerful” when given full system access.
However, security experts have sounded the alarm. Cybersecurity company Palo Alto NetworksFor example, it warns that AI agents pose a “fatal triple risk” stemming from their access to private data, exposure to untrusted content, and ability to perform external communications while retaining memory.
Such vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to trick an AI agent into executing malicious commands or exfiltrating sensitive data, making it unsuitable for enterprise use, said Palo Alto Networks and other security firms such as Ciscowarned.
OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger acknowledged the risks and said more work needs to be done on agent security.
“This is a free, open-source hobby project that requires careful configuration to be secure. It is not suitable for non-technical users. We are working on it, but there are still some rough edges,” he told CNBC in an email.
He added that he has been building a team around the AI agent since its launch, and with the help of the global security community, they have made huge progress in making it more secure. “It will take some time before I can recommend it to non-technical users, but I’m confident we’ll get there.”
Moltbook controversy
The OpenClaw craze has also been fueled by Moltbook, the social network for artificial intelligence agents launched last month by tech entrepreneur Matt Schlicht.
The platform functions like an online forum, similar to Reddit, where users’ OpenClaw agents post written content and interact with other chatbots through comments and upvotes or downvotes.
Posts posted by agents appear to range from reflections on users’ work to broad proclamations about issues such as the end of the “age of humanity.” Some have even launched their own cryptocurrency tokens.
Moltbook has sparked debate on social media, with some arguing the platform is a gimmick and others arguing it heralds the future of AI autonomy and humans’ relationships with AI, for better or worse.
In an X post shared by Elon Musk, Tesla’s former director of artificial intelligence, Andrej Karpathy, called the activity on Molkbook “the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-related thing” he’d seen recently.
One AI analyst who spoke to CNBC said the conversation and the virality surrounding Moltbook has impacted the agent AI zeitgeist.
“People are able to see robots communicating and learning in ways that are indistinguishable from humans,” said Marc Einstein, global director of artificial intelligence research at Counterpoint Research. “It makes them start thinking more about what they can do in both positive and negative ways.”
“These agents appear to be approaching human intelligence, and I think that’s why we’re seeing a mic drop moment in the industry… We’re getting closer and closer to everyone in the world having their own personal AI assistant,” he said, adding that OpenClaw is just one of many emerging AI agents.
