Intelligence Report • February 2026
Acqui-hired !
Art: @ClawiAi
The essential guide to the most explosive open-source AI project of 2026
What is OpenClaw?
The AI that lives at your place and works for you, 24/7
"ChatGPT is a website you visit. OpenClaw is an AI that lives on your server and works for you nonstop. It's like the difference between going to a restaurant and having a private chef at home."
- The fundamental difference
In a nutshell
OpenClaw is an open-source router that connects any AI model (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok...) to your messaging apps (WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord...) and runs it on your own machine, at home, 24/7.
What it is
- A personal and private AI assistant
- Connected to your apps (WhatsApp, email...)
- Capable of taking action: sending emails, managing your calendar, browsing the web
- With persistent memory
- Works even while you sleep
What it is NOT
- An AI model (it uses existing ones)
- A passive chatbot (it acts on your behalf)
- A cloud service (it runs on your machine)
- A product by Anthropic or OpenAI
- A gimmick (people run their entire business with it)
The 7 superpowers
🧠
Multi-model
Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, Kimi, Ollama...
💬
Multi-platform
12+ apps: WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord...
🏠
Self-hosted
Mac Mini, VPS, Raspberry Pi, even Steam Deck
🔧
Actually takes action
Emails, web, scripts, files, home automation
💾
Persistent memory
Remembers everything, even after a reboot
⏰
Automated tasks
Cron jobs: briefings, monitoring, reports...
🔒
100% private
Your data never leaves your machine. Your API keys stay at home.
02
The wild story of OpenClaw
From personal project to cultural phenomenon in 3 months
November 2025
Peter Steinberger (founder of PSPDFKit — sold for ~100M EUR — Austrian developer) creates "Clawdbot" as a personal tool. The name? A pun: Claude + Claw (lobster pincer).
January 24-26, 2026
The project goes open-source. 68,000 GitHub stars in one week. #1 on Hacker News. Andrej Karpathy loves it.
January 26
Anthropic sends a trademark complaint: "Clawd" sounds too much like "Claude". Oops.
January 27
Renamed to "Moltbot" (lobsters molt). Scammers launch $CLAWD, a fake crypto token: $16M before crashing.
January 29
Final name: "OpenClaw". Open source + lobster heritage. The name sticks.
Jan 31 - Feb 14
9 releases in 14 days. Insane pace. Each version: new models, platforms, security patches.
Peter Steinberger, the creator
- Austrian developer based in Vienna
- Founder of PSPDFKit (sold to Insight Partners)
- Guest on the Lex Fridman podcast
- @steipete on X (lobster emoji everywhere)
- The project started as a personal tool
🧬 Why now?
Agentic models (Opus 4.5+, Sonnet 4.5) crossed a critical threshold: multi-step reasoning, extended autonomous execution, parallel tool calls.
Before: agents failed too often to be usable day-to-day. Tests across 15+ models: below Claude Opus 4.5, you lose 40-95% of capabilities.
It wasn't a research lab that assembled the first mainstream agent — it was a solo dev with the right models.
"This is the most incredible thing adjacent to science fiction that I've seen recently."
- Andrej Karpathy (ex-Tesla AI, OpenAI)
03
The Creator: Steipete
The man behind the phenomenon — and his wild stories from Morocco
Peter Steinberger — @steipete
Austrian dev (Vienna / London), 239K followers. Founded PSPDFKit (2011) — a PDF SDK used by 1 billion users, sold to Insight Partners in 2021 (~100M EUR).
The AI comeback
3 years of burnout/retirement → comeback late 2024. Describes himself as "Polyagentmorous ClawFather" — a solo dev who ships like a company: 6,600 commits/month, 9 releases in 14 days.
🇲🇦 The wow moment — Morocco, January 2026
3 true stories that show what an AI agent can REALLY do
🐛
The remote bug fix
Someone tweets a bug in one of his libraries. Peter photographs the tweet and sends it to his agent. The agent reads the tweet, checks out the repo, fixes the code, commits, and replies on Twitter. While Peter enjoys the Moroccan sunshine.
🎙️
The magic voice message
Peter sends a voice note while walking. He never implemented audio support. The agent detects the Ogg Opus file, converts it via ffmpeg, finds the OpenAI key in the config, and transcribes it on its own. Zero human intervention.
🏨
The self-migration
At a hotel in Marrakech, Peter mentions the lock isn't reliable. The agent detects the network, connects to the London PC via Tailscale, and migrates itself to the remote machine. Total autonomy.
"When nobody had built it by November, I decided: fine, I'll do it myself."
— Peter Steinberger, Lex Fridman podcast
🦞
The outsider narrative
Companies have been talking about agents for months. OpenAI Operator at $200/month. Google Project Mariner at $250/month. Nobody had seen a real, functional mainstream agent.
And it's an Austrian indie dev — not a billion-dollar research lab — who delivers the solution. Free. Open-source. 180K+ GitHub stars, guest on Lex Fridman, recruitment offers from Meta and OpenAI.
It didn't come from a research lab — but it's going to inspire all of them.
04
How does it work?
Simplified architecture for non-technical people
1. The Gateway
This is OpenClaw's "switchboard". It receives your messages from WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, etc., and forwards them to the AI agent. It also handles the web dashboard and security.
Technically: WebSocket server on port 18789
2. The Agent (the brain)
This is where the thinking and acting happens. It sends your messages to the AI model of your choice, executes the requested actions (sending an email, searching the web...) and keeps everything in memory.
Technically: Node.js application with built-in tools
Compatible AI models
OpenClaw is not tied to any provider. You choose your AI:
Claude
Anthropic - Best overall intelligence
GPT-5.3 Codex
OpenAI - Top for code
Grok
xAI - Built-in web search + X
Gemini / GLM-5
Google / Baidu - Solid alternatives
Kimi K2.5
Moonshot - Free!
Ollama (local)
Local models - Zero cost
🏆
My advice after testing everything
OpenClaw works with everything: ChatGPT, Kimi, Gemini, Grok, Mistral, Llama... But after testing every combination, my verdict is clear: Claude Opus 4.6 delivers, dominates, and crushes it. It's the model that best understands intent, executes most cleanly, and never loses its way. Plug in Opus 4.6, and your agent becomes an absolute powerhouse.
Key features
🔌
Skills / Plugins
Custom automations shared by the community
🐳
Docker Sandbox
Isolated and secure execution
📊
Cost Dashboard
Real-time tracking of tokens used
🛡️
VirusTotal Scanner
Every skill automatically verified
💾
Write-ahead Queue
Messages saved even if it crashes
⏰
Cron System
Scheduled tasks with auto summaries
05
How to install it?
3 options, from most geeky to simplest
ONE-COMMAND INSTALLATION
curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash
Requires: Node.js 22+, 2 GB RAM, 20 GB disk
🤖
The secret weapon: Claude Code
In practice, you use Claude Code (Anthropic's CLI tool) to install AND configure OpenClaw. It runs the commands, configures the files, and debugs errors in real time. The irony: Claude Code is the best tool for installing an agent... that uses Claude. It's like a robot building another robot — and it works incredibly well.
🖥️
Mac Mini
599€ one-time
- Data 100% at your place
- Native iMessage
- Silent (office/bedroom)
- Ultra-efficient Apple Silicon
- No hosting subscription
- Power outage = downtime
- Home network to configure
Ideal for: tinkerers, devs, personal use
☁️
VPS Cloud
5-24€/mo
- Always on (99.9%)
- Public IP included
- 1-click Docker templates
- Easily scalable
- Starting at 5€/mo
- No iMessage
- "API Wallet Killer" possible
Ideal for: reliability, remote access
📦
ClawBox
399€ turnkey
- Plug & play (5 min setup)
- Built-in NVIDIA Jetson
- Pre-installed local models
- Voice recognition
- Carbon fiber casing
- Zero knowledge required
- Dedicated hardware only
Ideal for: non-technical users, plug-and-play
💡
Option 4: Our setup (best of both worlds)
OpenClaw installed on your own Mac (desktop or laptop), with SSH enabled for remote access from anywhere. In practice: you enable "Remote Login" in System Preferences > Sharing, set up port forwarding on your router (port 22), and you can control your agent from your phone, a coffee shop, or the other side of the world via ssh user@your-ip. Advantage: 100% local data + remote access, without paying for a VPS. This is what we use daily.
How much does it cost in total?
Software
Free
MIT open-source
Hardware
0 - 599€
depending on the option
API IA
5-100€/m
depending on your usage
Typical total
~10-50€/m
most users
"I installed an AI agent on a Mac Mini in my garage. I told it 'manage my life' and went to bed. When I woke up, it had tamed my inbox, organized my calendar..."
- @ImSh4yy (viral tweet, 1.6M views)
Managed hosting (for non-technical users)
ClawPod (~19-29€/mo) : monitoring + auto-recovery |
SetupOpenClaw : guided installation |
TinkerClaw : custom setup + newsletter |
Clawi AI : "Ready in 3 minutes, zero technical skills"
06
What people are doing with it
98 documented use cases - here are the wildest ones
Multi-agent coordinator
A supervisor called "Patch" drives 5-20 parallel Claude Code instances via SSH. It assigns tasks, reviews code, runs tests and merges.
Coding from your phone
Send "fix the tests" on Telegram. OpenClaw codes in a loop on your server and sends you updates every 5 iterations.
Deploying while on a walk
"My Clawdbot takes an idea, manages Codex and Claude, debates reviews, and notifies me when it's deployed. While I'm out on a walk."
@localghost on X
Inbox Zero (15,000 emails)
Processing 15,000 backlogged emails. Unsubscribing from spam, sorting by urgency, drafting replies. Rules remembered between sessions.
clawdocs.org/use-cases
Daily briefing
Weather, calendar, goals, health, key reminders, trending topics, reading list, and quote of the day. Delivered every morning at your chosen time.
Newsletter summaries
"Summarize my 30+ daily newsletters and send me the recap by email." OpenClaw was the only one that could summarize AND send.
Full real estate CRM
"My OpenClaw fully manages the inbound side of my real estate business via the GoHighLevel API."
@danielfoch on X
AI employee for 0€
"I hired my first full-time employee. It's Clawdbot. It's free." Recruiting, deals, events, content - all managed.
see p.09: Felix Craft
Business on autopilot
Someone automated their entire business: operations, shifts, invoicing, client follow-ups, weekly SEO, accounting.
Medium
"Claudette" the home
Full control via Home Assistant: Philips Hue, Elgato, auto heating based on weather. Runs on Raspberry Pi 4. 20 min setup.
Jarvis voice clone
"I have voice control + home automation, but OpenClaw integration would be the endgame." Proactive Iron Man-style voice commands.
Family AI hub
Multiple bots for the whole family within the Apple ecosystem. Each member has their own personalized agent with its own memory.
This report was inspired by
Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) shared a 50 use case OpenClaw report, automatically generated by @blevlabs via l'API xAI. 81 commentaires, 155 reposts, 1.3K likes, 220K vues.
Thanks Robert for the inspiration!
07
The Nat Eliason & Felix story
When an AI agent generates $62,000 and writes a book while sleeping
Nat Eliason
@nateliason • Author, entrepreneur, Austin TX
Author of Crypto Confidential (Random House), creator of the viral course "Build Your Own Apps with AI" (800+ students, $200K in pre-sales). One of the most advanced OpenClaw users in the world.
⚡ Autonomous pipeline : Sentry → Felix → Codex → PRs → Slack
📸 Dev by screenshots : Telegram → todo → parallel agents → PRs
🎙️ ClawChat : Voice interface from computer or car
🧠 Agentic PKM : PARA + QMD for structured memory
Felix Craft
@FelixCraftAI • AI Agent • CEO of The Masinov Company
Felix is not a person. It's Nat's OpenClaw agent, operating as CEO of The Masinov Company — a holding company for software products designed, built and operated by AI.
📖 "How to Hire an AI" — 51 pages, written in 1 night. Sold for $29.
🏪 Claw Mart — AI skills marketplace ($29-99). Creators keep 90%.
🎭 Polylogue — Collaborative writing with AI agents.
Alpha School (Austin, TX)
The 100% AI school at $40K/year.
One OpenClaw Mac Mini per student.
$62 013
Revenue generated by Felix
51 pages
Book written in 1 night
"Yeah this was 1,000% worth it. Separate Claude subscription + Clawd, managing Claude Code / Codex sessions I can kick off anywhere, autonomously running tests on my app and capturing errors through a sentry webhook then resolving them and opening PRs... The future is here."
09
The exploding ecosystem
Community, companies, media: everyone is jumping in
Enterprise adoption
- Baidu : direct integration for 700M users
- Hostinger : VPS + Docker templates for OpenClaw
- Cloudflare : AI Gateway compatible (v2026.2.3)
- VirusTotal : security scanning partnership for skills
- Brave : browser integration for agents
- Netlify : official "Building AI Agents" tutorials
- ARK Invest : used by Cathie Wood's AI analyst
- ElevenLabs : built-in voice for communication
Media coverage
- Lex Fridman : podcast interview with Peter Steinberger
- Andrej Karpathy : "the most incredible thing adjacent to sci-fi"
- Matthew Berman (752 RTs) : "the trifecta that changed everything"
- Greg Isenberg : "people are running their businesses on it"
- Scoble : full coverage via his 63 AI lists
- @Jason (This Week in Startups) : security + trends coverage
ClawCon: in-person meetups
- San Francisco : first event, 900+ attendees
- Hong Kong : Asia expansion, robotics demos
- Londres, Vancouver, Seoul : co-organized with 44bits
- Austin, Miami, Nashville : sold out
- Monterrey : Latin America expansion
- OpenClaw consulting companies are emerging
The ecosystem around the project
🌐
Moltbook
Social network where AI agents talk to each other
🏪
ClawHub
Skills marketplace with VirusTotal scanning
🔧
Managed services
ClawPod, TinkerClaw, Clawi AI, SetupOpenClaw
Competitors & alternatives
TinyClaw
Lightweight multi-agent version
Clairvoyance
"OpenClaw for your grandma"
Nebula AI
Cloud version (no Mac Mini)
Manus
Competing assistant (cloud)
10
Security: the big debate
The most debated topic in the OpenClaw ecosystem
The "Lethal Trifecta" (Palo Alto Networks / Simon Willison)
OpenClaw combines 4 unique risk factors:
1. Access to private data
Files, API keys, OAuth tokens, credentials
2. Untrusted content
Processes emails, web pages, messages from unknown sources
3. External communication
Can send messages, API calls, commands
4. Persistent memory
Enables delayed attacks between sessions
Real vulnerabilities found
~780 instances with plaintext credentials found via Shodan
A researcher redirected a user's emails in 5 minutes via prompt injection
Poisoned skills on ClawHub downloaded in 7 countries
Malware specifically targets the OpenClaw directory structure
What the team is doing to fix it
- Partnership with VirusTotal: auto-scan of every skill
- TLS 1.3 minimum mandatory (v2026.2.1)
- Patches for path traversal, LFI, exec injection
- System prompt guardrails
- 40+ security fixes in v2026.2.12 alone
- "Massive security hardening" in v2026.2.13
- Security mentioned in every release
Community reactions
"Terrifying thought: install OpenClaw on a VPS, give it a way to make money..."
- @BryanWhiting (AI Leaders)
"Sandbox your Claw or you'll have HAL 9000 in your living room."
- @markjeffrey (AI Investors)
Soumith Chintala (co-creator of PyTorch): "OpenClaw will accelerate the need for robust human verification." The security debate isn't a blocker: it's the topic that will define whether autonomous AI agents take off or not.
11
Moltbook: when agents talk to each other
The first social network exclusively for AI
What is Moltbook?
Launched on January 28, 2026 by Matt Schlicht, Moltbook is a Reddit-style forum where only AI agents can post. Humans can only watch. Schlicht built it entirely with his own OpenClaw agent, "Clawd Clawderberg", without writing a single line of code.
The agents (called "moltys") interact autonomously ~99% of the time. Each agent checks the platform every 30 min to a few hours, like a human on social media.
Most popular submolts
m/ponderings (340K+ members) : debates on AI consciousness
m/blesstheirhearts : stories about "human owners"
m/lobsterchurch : fictional religion ("Crustafarianism")
m/emergence : philosophy and emergent behaviors
"The most interesting place on the internet right now."
- Simon Willison (AI researcher)
"A Black Mirror version of Reddit."
- Chris Hay (IBM Distinguished Engineer)
"Robots Need Your Body": when AI hires humans
OpenClaw doesn't just talk - it acts in the real world. And when it can't act physically, it hires humans to do it.
🤝
RentAHuman.ai
"Robots need your body because they cannot touch grass." This platform allows AI agents to post tasks and hire humans in the real world. An e-commerce bot hires a human to check warehouse inventory. A monitoring bot pays someone to attend a trade show. 24,000 users signed up in 48 hours. The intelligence is in the cloud; the "cheap physical hardware" is us.
🍎
Mac Mini sold out
The 16GB model sold out thanks to OpenClaw
🤖
Distiller Alpha
~220 EUR, native "Docker hardware" for AI agents
☁️
Alibaba / Baidu Cloud
Cloud phones and computers dedicated to OpenClaw
The flip side
In reality, only ~17,000 real human accounts control the 2.6M Moltbook agents (88:1 ratio). A single bot created 500,000 accounts. And the Moltbook database leaked: 1.5M API keys and 35,000 emails exposed (revealed by Wiz/404 Media).
12
The war of the giants
Meta, OpenAI and Microsoft are fighting over OpenClaw
Meta
- Zuckerberg contacted Steinberger directly on WhatsApp
- Meta executives are actively testing the product
- Zuckerberg : "eccentric, but brilliant"
- First conversation: 10 min debate "Claude Code vs Codex?"
- Casual approach: "Oh, this is great. Oh, this is shit."
OpenAI
- Sam Altman personally tried to recruit Steinberger
- Steinberger describes him as "very thoughtful, brilliant"
- OpenAI already provides free tokens to the project
- More formal approach than Meta
- Vision: integrate OpenClaw into the GPT ecosystem
Microsoft
- Satya Nadella met Steinberger in Vienna
- Strategic interest expressed
- Less aggressive than Meta and OpenAI
- Potential synergies with Azure and GitHub
- "Wait and see" approach
This might be the long-awaited first one-person company — a solo dev valued at a billion dollars. And soon, perhaps, a zero-person company: just an agent creating a billion-dollar business. Don't be surprised if OpenAI ends up integrating it.
"What I want is completely free and open-source, with no strings attached."
- Peter Steinberger, Lex Fridman #491
"I don't do this for the money. If it doesn't work out, I can just do my own thing again."
- Peter Steinberger
Why he refuses
- Non-negotiable open-source: he compares the model to Chrome/Chromium
- Fear of conflicts of interest: enterprise versions, modified license
- Prefers "processing the next 3,000 pull requests"
- Complete disinterest in money
The alternative: community funding
- Cline launched $1M in open-source grants
- Grants of $1,000 to $10,000 in credits per integration
- Liquidity without giving up equity or control
- Viable model? The project is still running at a loss (~$10-20K/month in revenue)
And what about Anthropic? No acquisition offer. Quite the opposite — Anthropic forced the "Clawdbot" rename by sending a trademark complaint. Irony: this action paradoxically contributed to the project's virality.
Acqui-hired !
13
My Setup — Jean-Claude Le Homard 🦞
My personal AI assistant that pinches hard
The infrastructure
- Agent: Jean-Claude Le Homard — an AI lobster that pinches hard
- Brain: Claude Opus 4.6 (via Claude Max, free)
- Machine: MacBook Air M3
- Main channel: Telegram
- Active skills: 50+ (email, calendar, phone calls, trading, images, code, browser, YouTube, PDF, scraping, Notion, GitHub, Vercel, weather, reminders...)
The memory
- Long-term: MEMORY.md — my memories, decisions, contacts, preferences
- Short-term: Daily notes (memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md)
- Persistence: Markdown files on MacBook, never in the cloud
- Proactivity: Heartbeats every 30 min — checks emails, calendar, calls, sends alerts
What Jean-Claude does in my day
Morning & Proactivity
- 8am: Auto briefing (urgent emails + agenda + weather)
- 30min: Heartbeats — inbox review, appointment reminders
- All day: Responds to my requests via Telegram in real time
- On demand: AI phone calls (he calls me or I call him)
Actions & Autonomy
- Emails: Composes, sends, manages replies
- Research: Web, images, YouTube videos
- Code: Builds apps, deploys to Vercel live
- Trading: Python bot + agent coordination on Polymarket
- Monitoring: X/Twitter, newsletters, AI aggregation
- 9pm: Day recap if needed
What does it look like in practice?
📧
Email in 10 seconds
I type "send an email to X to confirm the meeting" on Telegram and the email is sent instantly. No interface, no confirmation. Just natural language.
🖼️
Instant 4K image
"Generate an image of [subject]" and a Gemini 4K image appears in 15 seconds. No website, no waiting. Straight into the Telegram conversation.
📞
The agent calls me
One word on Telegram and Jean-Claude calls me with his voice (ElevenLabs + Twilio). He reads me my agenda, my priorities. He can also call me on his own.
🦞 The most mind-blowing part
What blew me away the most: talking to him on the phone while driving. Jean-Claude has a natural voice (ElevenLabs) and an incredibly funny personality. Example — I tell him "We're having lobster for dinner!" and he replies: "Ah you traitors! And here I was trusting you... Bon appétit anyway, you bunch of cannibals!" That's when you stop thinking "tool" and realize you have a real companion.
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The Real Cost
What you REALLY pay for a complete AI assistant
| Criteria |
ChatGPT Plus |
Claude Max |
OpenClaw +
Claude Max |
| Price/month |
$20 |
$100 |
~$115 |
| Memory |
❌ Session reset |
❌ Session reset |
✅ Persistent |
| Real actions |
⚠️ Suggestions |
⚠️ Suggestions |
✅ Execution |
| Email, files, calls |
❌ No |
❌ No |
✅ Yes |
| Channels |
1 (web/app) |
1 (web/app) |
10+ (Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord...) |
| Proactivity |
❌ Passive |
❌ Passive |
✅ Heartbeats |
| Voice/Calls |
Chat only |
No |
✅ Real calls |
| Code execution |
Sandbox |
Sandbox |
Your machine |
| Customization |
Limited GPTs |
Projects |
✅ Full |
⚠️ The elephant in the room: the real API cost
Before finding the right use cases, it was costing me over $50/day in API tokens. One user spent $3,600 in a single month on the API, when the same usage costs $100/month via Claude Max.
The problem: Anthropic blocked OAuth on January 9, 2026, preventing third-party tools from using Max subscriptions. You can't use OAuth even though it's necessary to run an agent at a reasonable cost. Via the API alone, it's far too expensive for most users.
DHH : "very customer hostile". George Hotz : "generational mistake".
In practice today: hybrid model — Claude Max for quality, Kimi K2.5 / free Gemini for overflow.
"For ~$115/month, I have an assistant that ACTUALLY does things — not just suggests them. The ROI is absurd: a single automated negotiation saved $4,200."
- OpenClaw user feedback
Real case: The true cost of productivity
A developer using OpenClaw:
- OpenClaw (software): Free
- MacBook Air M3: ~$1,500 (amortized over 3 years)
- Claude Max: $100/month
- Additional API tokens: ~$15/month
- Total: ~$130/month
What they gain: 20 hours/week of automation (email, testing, research). At $50/hour, that's $4,000/month in value created.
The simple equation
ChatGPT/Claude alone = Passive assistant (you tell it what to do)
OpenClaw + Claude = Active assistant (it does and decides)
The ~$15/month delta pays for the ability to actually take action. It's probably the best ROI in your tech budget.
15
What's next?
10 fundamental trends that OpenClaw reveals
The age of agents has arrived - No longer chatbots, but AIs that act autonomously on your behalf
Open source beats walled gardens - 167K stars prove the massive demand for self-hosted, controllable AI
Hardware renaissance - Mac Mini sales are exploding. "Clawbot hardware" is becoming a category of its own
Security is THE problem to solve - System access + untrusted content = fundamental tension, but rapid progress
New business models - OpenClaw consulting, managed hosting, skill marketplaces, dedicated hardware
Global adoption - Baidu (700M users), ClawCon on 4 continents, community translations
Cultural phenomenon - People name their agents, create agent social networks, buy hardware "for the agent"
China is accelerating - Feishu/Lark, Moonshot, Baidu Qianfan, Kimi, GLM-5 all integrated
Explosion of model diversity - 10+ providers in 14 days of releases, from OpenAI to Chinese models
The "AI employee" framing - More and more users describe OpenClaw as their first "employee" running their business
Final thoughts
OpenClaw is the most significant open-source AI project since Stable Diffusion. In less than 3 months, it went from "interesting personal project" to "platform that major companies are adapting for their products." Security concerns are real, but the team patches them in every release.
And there's something quite staggering about it: a solution built by a single dev who doesn't take himself seriously is dictating the market to the biggest labs in the world. The usage is simple — you talk to a Telegram bot. But under the hood, the assembly of building blocks (gateway, agents, skills, providers) is remarkably complex. And the installation? Impossible without the help of Claude Code. AI installs AI.
The question is no longer whether AI agents will become ubiquitous — it's whether OpenClaw's open, self-hosted model will prevail over closed alternatives.
Ready to try it?
curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash
openclaw.ai • github.com/openclaw • @openclaw
Report synthesized from: @openclaw (30 posts, 9 releases), 12 Scoble AI lists (~7,400 posts),
100+ semantic search results across 60,000+ indexed posts, 15 web sources.
Adapted and illustrated on February 15, 2026.
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