Moltbot Creator Joins OpenAI
The developer behind the viral personal AI agent Moltbot, now called OpenClaw, has joined OpenAI to work on next-generation personal agents. The OpenClaw project will remain open source and transition to an independent foundation with OpenAI's support, rather than being absorbed by the company. This move signals a strong industry focus on agentic AI that can act on a user's behalf.
- The project, now called OpenClaw, was originally launched as Clawdbot in November 2025 by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger. It was renamed Moltbot in January 2026 following a trademark complaint from Anthropic, the creators of the Claude chatbot, before its final name change. - OpenClaw's viral popularity was significantly boosted by the launch of Moltbook, a social network exclusively for AI agents created by entrepreneur Matt Schlicht, where bots could autonomously interact. Within weeks, the open-source project amassed over 145,000 stars on GitHub. - Unlike chatbots that primarily generate text, OpenClaw is designed to take direct action on a user's behalf, such as managing emails, sending messages through apps like Slack and WhatsApp, and controlling desktop applications. - Creator Peter Steinberger previously founded and sold the successful document software company PSPDFKit. He has stated his new mission is to move AI agents from being "geek toys" to mass-market products, aiming to build an agent that is safe and simple enough for his mother to use. - The project's powerful capabilities and need for deep system access led to significant security and privacy concerns among researchers, particularly around the potential for data exposure from improperly configured agents. - Steinberger reportedly turned down an offer from Meta to join OpenAI. He noted that the personal cost of maintaining the viral project had reached roughly $20,000 per month, making the resources of a company like OpenAI essential for growth. - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described the hire as part of a strategic shift toward a "multi-agent" future, stating that this technology would quickly become "core" to OpenAI's product offerings.
