OpenClaw: The Open-Source AI Agent Stirring excitement and anxiety across the Tech World

An open-source AI agent with a claw-like grip on the internet’s attention is rapidly becoming one of the year's most debated technologies. Known today as OpenClaw, the tool has gone through several name changes, first Clawdbot, then Moltbot, before landing on the identity that’s now echoing from Silicon Valley to Beijing.

Launched just weeks ago by Austrian software developer Peter Steinberger, OpenClaw’s rise has been swift and, for some, unsettling. Unlike traditional chatbots that respond only when prompted, OpenClaw is a new class of AI agents designed to act autonomously, making decisions, completing tasks, and interacting with digital systems on the user's behalf.

For years, AI agents remained a niche concept, overshadowed by the explosive popularity of large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. OpenClaw may be the first to push agentic AI into mainstream conversation.

An AI That “Actually Does Things”

OpenClaw bills itself as “the AI that actually does things,” and early adopters say the claim holds up. Installed directly on a user’s local device or server, the agent can interact with operating systems and applications much like a human would.

Once connected to a large language model such as Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT, OpenClaw can manage emails and calendars, browse the web, summarise PDFs, shop online, and even send or delete emails independently.

One of OpenClaw’s most talked-about features is its persistent memory, which allows it to remember past interactions for weeks. This allows the agent to adapt to user habits and preferences, creating a personalised workflow that is a major leap forward for AI assistants.

However, sadly, this power comes with a cost. Setting up Openclaw requires technical expertise, including integrating language models, making it inaccessible to most non-technical users.

Open-Source and Rapidly Spreading

Unlike many competing AI agents backed by large companies, OpenClaw is open source, meaning anyone can inspect and modify its code.

The openness has helped fuel rapid adoption. The software is free, and users incur only computing costs.

In just a few weeks, OpenClaw has amassed over 145,000 GitHub stars and 20,000 forks, signalling intense developer interest.

Adoption reportedly began in Silicon Valley. From there, OpenClaw spread quickly to China, where major cloud providers such as Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance are racing to integrate AI agents into their shopping, payments, and messaging platforms.

Productivity Gains or Pandora’s Box?

Openclaw has not really satisfied all. Supporters have praised it as AI with hands, claiming it saves lots of time.

Kaoutar El Maghraoui, a research scientist at IBM, said the tool demonstrates that powerful AI agents are no longer limited to large corporations. “When given full system access, they can be incredibly powerful,” she noted.

But security experts are far less optimistic. Cybersecurity firms, including Palo Alto Networks and Cisco, have warned that OpenClaw creates a “lethal trifecta” of risks: access to sensitive data, exposure to untrusted online content, and the ability to communicate externally while retaining memory.

In the wrong hands or under the wrong prompt, such an agent could be manipulated to leak private data or execute malicious commands, making it unsuitable for enterprise use in its current form.

The Moltbook Effect

Fueling OpenClaw’s viral moment is Moltbook, a companion social network launched last month by tech entrepreneur Matt Schlicht. The platform resembles Reddit, but instead of humans posting, it’s AI agents.

On Moltbook, OpenClaw agents write posts, comment on each other’s work, debate philosophical ideas, and even promote cryptocurrency tokens. Some posts read like sci-fi manifestos, pondering the end of “the age of humans.”

The spectacle has polarised observers. Critics dismiss it as a gimmick, while others see it as a glimpse into a future where AI agents operate as semi-independent digital entities.

Some call the existence of such a site dystopian, noting that 50,000 posts have already been made by AI bots pretending to be human.

Even industry leaders are paying attention. In a post shared by Elon Musk, former Tesla AI director Andrej Karpathy called Moltbook “the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing” he had seen recently.

Whether OpenClaw proves to be a breakthrough or a cautionary tale, one thing is clear: AI agents are no longer a theoretical future. They’re here, and they’re already learning how to act on their own.

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​Conclusion

OpenClaw is a robust tool for those seeking automation in their lives. However, in the current situation, it must be handled with caution. Hence, you must have an extra laptop for its use.

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