Six months ago, OpenClaw became the hottest topic in AI almost overnight. It was the first popular form of autonomous AI agents with (simulated) personality, memory and administrative rights for the operating system. The user communicated with OpenClaw via a messenger, for example Telegram. In the future, users will be able to avoid this detour thanks to the official OpenClaw app. Furthermore, a separate computer is required on which OpenClaw independently manages its software repertoire and its “skills” saved in Markdown files. The user must establish a connection with this, for example by searching the local network or scanning a QR code. The app in no way takes control of an iPhone, but only provides a communication channel.
Without a computer with OpenClaw installed, the app remains inoperable.
LLM not included
The actual AI calculations are carried out by a powerful, in many cases server-side Large Language Model (LLM), such as Claude from Anthropic – this is what the name alludes to. This requires an API key for an account that bills based on tokens. The major AI providers have stopped the use of flat-rate subscriptions because token consumption is often very high. Alternatively, you can install a local LLM; However, their performance is usually lower, the speed is lower and the performance requirements for the hardware used are significantly higher.
Growing competition
A lot has happened around AI agents since the hype at the end of January. The original developer left the project and moved to OpenAI in mid-February. OpenClaw was transferred to a foundation and remained open source. Meanwhile it faced a lot of competition. There is the Hermes Agent, which is also open source, the ZeroClaw, which runs on small computers, and the Manus, which was taken over by Meta at the end of 2025. Due to unmanageable risks, an AI agent should not be installed on a computer with extensive user data, but in a VM or on a separate computer.
Personal AI Agents: Chronology
| Date | Event |
| October 16, 2025 | Anthropic introduces Agent Skills |
| November 25, 2025 | First version of OpenClaw on GitHub (as warelay) |
| 12/18/2025 | Skills become an open standard, a skills exchange |
| 12/19/2025 | warelay is renamed to clawdis |
| 12/30/2025 | Meta takes over AI startup Manus |
| 01/05/2026 | clawdis is now called Clawdbot |
| 01/27/2026 | Renamed to Moltbot |
| 01/28/2026 | Cisco releases Skill Scanner |
| 01/28/2026 | Moltbook goes online |
| January 30, 2026 | Moltbot is now called OpenClaw |
| 02/04/2026 | First ClawCon in San Francisco |
| 02/16/2026 | Peter Steinberger switches to OpenAI |
| 02/21/2026 | First version of ZeroClaw goes online |
| June 5, 2026 | Nous Research releases Hermes Desktop for macOS, Linux & Windows |
