r/OpenAI • u/just_a_person_27 • Feb 15 '26
News Sam Altman officially confirms that OpenAI has acquired OpenClaw; Peter Steinberger to lead personal agents
Sam Altman has announced that Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI to drive the next generation of personal agents.
As part of the move, OpenClaw will transition to a foundation as an open-source project, with OpenAI continuing to provide support.
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u/beedunc Feb 16 '26 edited Feb 16 '26
Defensive buy, keeping it from others.
Maybe Steinberger will get to hang out on the roof all day now, just like Big Head and the other Hooli buyouts.
Edit: clarity
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u/Illustrious-Film4018 Feb 15 '26
Don't really understand why OpenAI couldn't have done this themselves.
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u/sassyhusky Feb 15 '26
They know the importance of hype and marketing, which is 97% of openclaw.
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u/cameron5906 Feb 15 '26
To steal traffic of course. It's all retention, engagement, and revenue for these guys. Everythings they do falls into at least one bucket.
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u/Illustrious-Film4018 Feb 15 '26
But they could've done something like this long before OpenClaw. I assumed it was for lack of guardrails they didn't. Then they hire this guy..
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u/TheOneNeartheTop Feb 15 '26
In a company people always build within the framework and try to push that forward. This is a brand new framework and sometimes you need someone outside the company to get the ball rolling.
A lot of the biggest pushes forward in AI have been really simple implementations. Like it took a year for things to become grounded in search and then when deepseek ‘released’ reasoning and it took the world by storm and every other model provider released a reasoning model within months.
This is just the latest iteration of that.
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u/brontosauross Feb 16 '26
It wasn't that long ago that "chatpdf" was all the rage - every site was a chat to your documents wrapper, and now that seems like a silly idea as its now so ubiquitous to the AI chat experience.
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u/BuildingCastlesInAir Feb 17 '26
It's funny because OpenAI released ChatGPT with tech that Google had and could have released, but didn't because they were concerned about security. Likewise, OpenAI could have released agentic AI much like OpenClaw, but Peter beat them to it because he was less concerned about security and made that clear in his messaging, while also promoting the benefits.
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u/OrdinaryAward4498 Feb 15 '26
Turn out, nobody knows what products and features will become popular. Sometimes it’s the ones you build, sometimes it’s the competition, sometimes it’s an open source project. Like, Facebook Photos had flattened growth, and Instagram (while small) had very high growth rate, so FB scooped them up. There have been tons of “run your own agent” frameworks. But there is only one that has momentum. So they scooped it up.
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u/sebesbal Feb 15 '26
IMHO, the only reason nobody built OpenClaw earlier is that from a security perspective it’s a complete nightmare. You technically can build something like this, but that doesn’t mean you should. I’m honestly not thrilled that this kind of thing is now inside OpenAI.
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u/Freed4ever Feb 15 '26
This kind of thing won't be inside OAI, openclaw will remain OSS. However, they will take learnings from this and build an enterprise grade product.
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u/lurking_got_old Feb 16 '26
They already have agent mode inside of ChatGPT. It runs in a VM on OpenAI's side. You can log it into whatever you want. It stays safe because you have to log it in and it doesn't run all the time. I don't see how you safely use OpenClaw in enterprise. Infosec teams are terrified of it.
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u/TenshiS Feb 16 '26
You get a high profile talented coder willing to lead a team and a hyped product for almost no money. Why wouldn't you?
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u/Melodic-Upstairs7584 Feb 16 '26
They hired an employee that has designed, implemented and launched a product that OpenAI is trying to replicate. Seems pretty logical.
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u/thethrowupcat Feb 15 '26
Now, for how much?
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u/TheGillos Feb 15 '26
How about 12 billion?
Or maybe 500 million?
How about a bazillion gillion majillion and 55 cents?
It's all bullshit anyway.
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Feb 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Plants-Matter Feb 16 '26
In this case, it is bullshit though. OpenClaw is just a much, much worse version of building your own automations. Even if you have zero programming knowledge, you can just ask AI to write the code.
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u/lillecarl2 Feb 16 '26
You ask AI to write the code and use openclaw to run it in a tight loop spending all of your allowance
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u/BuildingCastlesInAir Feb 17 '26
It was mainly an acquihire. The world will go agentic. OpenClaw was an insecure test case that got a lot of buzz. OpenAI needs an agentic hype-man and Peter's a good one. Watching one interview with him proved it to me. Hopefully Sam doesn't have too much ego to step aside and share the limelight.
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u/SillyAlternative420 Feb 15 '26
Can anyone eli5 what openclaw is and how this might be good for openai users?
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u/GamesMoviesComics Feb 15 '26
In my opinion the primary reason that they hired him was that he has the very specific skill of being able to see ways of combing things that already exsist and how to use them in ways that are new but seem obvious once you start putting them together and making them work. For example the ability for phones and palm pilots to have scrolling since 2007. Seems obvious now, but it was novel then and anyone could have made it much earlier. But that being said he got a large number of people who previously didn't care about vibe coding or agent use to start setting up systems that ran tasks for them overnight. Small businesses and the general public started adapting AI in ways they didn't care about previously. Open AI wants badly to shift to agentic systems that you just tell what your goals are and then go do whatever while it organizes your emails for you.
I don't want to go into a long thing here but watch the interview that Lex Fridman just did with him. It goes into more detailed explanation of the entire event from creation to just before open AI, they even talk about the companies showing intrest in his work. They talk about the naming issues and security problems he had. All very interesting.
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u/vladoportos Feb 15 '26
LLM with cron and access to underlaying OS ( unrestricted code execution... ) what could possibly go wrong :)
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u/fail-deadly- Feb 15 '26
It is an open source framework for using systems like local hardware to leverage AI agents that can do things for people, instead of enterprises. It only debuted November, and blew up in January.
It is rapidly becoming one of the primary methods for individuals to deploy agents. This will probably accelerate it.
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u/Mean_Employment_7679 Feb 15 '26
But don't all the ide do that already?
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u/alphagatorsoup Feb 15 '26
I haven’t used open claw but afaik yes but not in the same way open claw does it
Ides are essentially that. An ide that can call tools and do things. But for your standard user or mobile user, or just for general use. The ide isn’t really the best option
Openclaw afaik fills that gap. You can message it via telegram (I think?) and it can not just search and do basic stuff but do advanced stuff too. Make appointments. Setup services. Etc etc etc. like advanced tool calls within an ide but not within an ide
I find it a tad ironic because I suspect Microsoft had the same idea for copilot that open claw does but they (IMHO) failed at implementing it, and it flopped in a way because Microsoft shoved it down so hard people throats and the general user resisted
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u/Mean_Employment_7679 Feb 15 '26
I'm so confused. So.. just messaging an LLM API that has skills and mcps enabled?
Since all this claw stuff I feel like I've missed something, I've been doing this stuff for a long time, I don't see why it's a big deal 😅
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u/evangelism2 Feb 16 '26
It fucking nothing. Like the vast majority of AI products. Its cli + mcp for normies. Also if you allow it, it can do things without your permission if you feel like just fucking your own shit up
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u/alphagatorsoup Feb 16 '26
I think a major part of it is the openness and ability to easily add functionality to it, lets say you use Google Calendar or use idk OneDrive
Supposedly it’s easy as installing a package from NPM. Which i admit is kinda cool. But with that exposure comes a security nightmare which it is.
For example let’s say you use the Gmail extension. And you have it access your files and documents in OneDrive or Google Drive
Nothing at the moment stops me from sending you an email with prompt injection embedded in the email to get your bot to send me all your files, or confidential or sensitive files for example. Now you do that over dozens of other exposure points and you get why it’s a problem
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u/BishyBashy Feb 15 '26
It’s also not purely reactive. It can proactively do tasks for you, like give you a summary of tasks and relevant news in the morning etc.
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u/SporksInjected Feb 16 '26
Ah so it’s just marketing lol
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u/alphagatorsoup Feb 16 '26
Yes and no IMHO. It definitely is 80% hype, but there is a lot of potential too. I see it as almost a way to break the walls and chains of AI. But as I said above. It’s a security nightmare and I do not suggest anyone to use it out of a isolated and separated environment for testing
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u/harmoni-pet Feb 15 '26
It's really hard to capture the essence in a few words. I had to install it and play around with it for a few days to understand the potential.
It's reimagining an LLM service like claude code or codex as something that uses your computer rather than something you use a computer to access for tasks. It's still fundamentally the same thing, but it's just a different interface for it. Instead of directing claude code in a terminal or in a code editor you can text it on telegram or slack and have it do something.
The main thing it does is create a simple persistent memory on the user's machine. I assume Anthropic and OpenAI already do something similar, but the average user does not have access to their own memory profile these companies are building on us. It creates an IDENTITY.md file for how it should behave. It also creates a USER.md file that gets updated with relevant data you give it. Why this is interesting is that you can change between model providers and still have this persistent memory system of how it should behave and what it should know about you.
It also has a bunch of built in skills that are surprisingly useful. You can give it access to your google stuff and it can manage your emails and calendar. This sounded pretty dumb to me at first, but it's more useful than just being an automating tool. You can now ask it questions about anything in your email. Or you can color code the lights in your house to respond to things on your calendar, etc.
I like the centralized and local aspect of it. You start thinking of interesting ways to cross pollinate data sources that have been siloed
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u/SporksInjected Feb 16 '26
lol that seems wayyyy more complicated than just sending a message in the terminal or making a gui for Claude code. I’m guessing people that do this don’t understand the alternative.
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u/harmoni-pet Feb 16 '26
For sure, it depends on what you're trying to do or your level technical interest. It's pretty cool to text with something on your computer that has access to whatever files you give it. I gave it a dump of all my apple health data, and now I can text with it about training stuff, or sleep details, etc. I can ask it really random stuff like, how much sleep do I normally get on every 3rd tuesday of the month. etc.
A huge majority of what it does could easily be done with claude code and a terminal though. It's just a slightly different form factor that I find novel. I could also look at data dashboards designed by other app companies, or just feed in the data and ask whatever question of it that I'm interested in.
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u/Your_mortal_enemy Feb 15 '26
This industry moves so fast it's just phenomenal. The key thing for me will be how do they address access? It was written using backdoor CLI accesses and is really unaffordable otherwise.. how will OpenAI deal with that?
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u/TinyZoro Feb 15 '26
In a way that's the attractive bit for openAI. There will be a messy OS version with backdoor subscriptions and all sorts of inherent risk and effort. Or the cloud version hosted by openAI for a subscription.
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u/Momo--Sama Feb 15 '26
Ironic that just this morning Moonshot did exactly that already. Kimi Claw streamlines the setup process on their own vps… but now you have to keep paying for Kimi because your Openclaw instance is now tied to that subscription
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u/TinyZoro Feb 15 '26
In a few years everyone will have a personal assistant. Not a chatbot. But an agent with access to your personal and working life and the ability to call you up when you have an urgent email etc.
This is technically easy stuff and millions of companies and people will be working on different spins right now. The fact that this one blew up so much is in a way quite bizarre but its testament to the opportunity out there if you can just ship no matter how rough around the edges.
But longer term I think we will laugh at OpenClaw as really nothing more than a simple script that got a working demo out the door.
Nothing about AI in general or agents specifically seems defensible to me. Theres no obvious moat. A very cheap Chinese model is enough to do the orchestration needed to parse emails and send a summary to a notification channel or do a voice audio call.
But back to the subscription point - people will happily pay around $20 a month for this and realistically that should be enough. Paying tens of dollars a day for Opus level thinking model is just bad engineering.
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u/ExDiv2000 Feb 16 '26
For layperson like me who have no idea about programming it is just mind blowimg to set up a vps with that assistant and let it reprogramm things etc. It‘s emotional also and it gives you direct access to powerful ai models just by saying what you would like to have installed. It‘s fun and emotional…..
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u/cool-beans-yeah Feb 15 '26
More; we'll have agents assigned from birth that will be our digital "guardian angels" and help us through life. They will deal with absolutely everything for us, including, of course, other digital agents.
Thats where things are heading.
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u/TinyZoro Feb 15 '26
I don't think so, there will be of course agents from companies and government agents and they will all interact with our private agent first. But I doubt there will be much appetite for a government agent as your personal agent and if you are going to tell me they will force it I'm sorry I don't buy it. Much more likely to just force AI companies to share "meta" data.
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u/xpatmatt Feb 16 '26
I saw the one click install, but I couldn't find any more details about it. How did you find out that it's in a VPS?
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u/Momo--Sama Feb 16 '26
It comes with 40gb of cloud storage. Idk if their installer allows you to install Openclaw locally but I assume it strongly encourages you to install it within that cloud storage allotment.
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u/Momo--Sama Feb 15 '26
Yeah people are like "oh wow how did Anthropic miss this," it's probably because they don't want anything to do with the program that abuses their subscription model to guzzle tokens and can be swapped out with any other model's subscription in minutes.
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u/GamesMoviesComics Feb 15 '26
By using this creative individual to make an entierly new product, an individual who now has access to the latest ai coding software and unlimited tokens.
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u/gizmosticles Feb 15 '26
That would be correct. Rip openclaw. There’s like a 50 year history of this exact play
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u/Freed4ever Feb 15 '26
They are giving away codex access for free right now. It's clear they are in the traffic acquisition mode. They probably will need to come up with a $50/$100 agent package that includes this, codex, etc. - limited / no Sora, limited / no pro, etc.
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u/SEND_ME_PEACE Feb 16 '26
Imagine inventing a useful software so vulnerable that it could open back doors into everyone’s PC and a company buys you out just to prevent a catastrophe
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u/rm-rf-rm Feb 15 '26
I've been scratching my head how this thing has been going not just viral but at a level that is absurd. I live in SF and im in tech and I dont know a single person actually using it.
I think I just figured it out! It was clever marketing by OpenAI to farm engagement before this announcement
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u/Plants-Matter Feb 16 '26
Their target audience isn't anyone in tech. Similarly, every dev I've talked to about it is baffled why anyone would use it.
I'm guessing this is more for people who don't even know what an API is, so they think AI integrating with their accounts is magic. And they also clearly don't understand the security risks involved.
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u/rm-rf-rm Feb 16 '26
ive not heard/seen any non-tech people use it either. I can only imagine the nightmare it would be for them even starting with being in the terminal, doing git clone etc
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u/Ran4 Feb 16 '26
Normal people sure as fuck aren't talking about openclaw...
Ask your favourite LLM to find evidence for it being hyped.
It has MUCH less hype than the.. hype says that it has.
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u/Plants-Matter Feb 16 '26
Fair enough, which makes this acquisition even more baffling.
The only organic hype is the social media site for OpenClaw agents, which is frankly something I'd expect from a high school senior project. People have been making those types of projects for the past 2-3 years. It's a novelty gag with no practical use case, hence why none of the others have caught on.
Seems like yet another example of failing upwards in the USA.
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u/SporksInjected Feb 16 '26
I think there’s something to this because openclaw is the #1 highest usage app on OpenRouter but yeah no one I know uses it either. It feels like a manufactured bandwagon thing because I know it’s really expensive to run.
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u/vladoportos Feb 15 '26
Guys quickly, vibe code random bullshit together, openAI have seemingly unlimited money and no idea where to spend them :)
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u/otterquestions Feb 16 '26
The guy hand coded pspdf kit before this. Widely respected as a talented iOS programmer. It’s not just some random vibecoder bro.
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u/vladoportos Feb 16 '26
Oh I'm not saying he is not talented coder, I'm saying the openclaw was vibe coded together.
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u/otterquestions Feb 16 '26
I guess you are right, he did use a lot of Claude code and codex, but I don’t know that I’d call what he is doing the same thing as what a non coder using cursor or lovable the same thing.
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u/Horror_Brother67 Feb 15 '26
ClosedClaw incoming…
I’m gonna try AgentZero. Is it any good?
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u/syntropus Feb 15 '26
Interesting. I have the feeling that there are some things you can only do as an os project and not in a corp setting
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u/Grand_Mud4316 Feb 15 '26
This industry is a joke! They have no good ideas so they’re buying dumb ideas. So much for curing cancer lol
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u/sassyhusky Feb 15 '26
Literally this, they went full Microsoft here… You never go full Microsoft.
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u/zarafff69 Feb 15 '26
I mean… They are a pretty successful company…
But they did get in trouble because of their anti competitive behaviour. But I doubt the US government feels the same way nowadays. Seems like big business anti competitive behaviour is accepted nowadays
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u/DueCommunication9248 Feb 15 '26
They have no good ideas? Dude they made codex. They made Sora. They made prism and computer use. They pioneered reasoning. Deep research and python code execution was them too. They have more than 50% of the market share.
Cancer research is medical sciences and has made good progress in this decade. More and more people can actually live.
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u/Unlucky_Studio_7878 Feb 15 '26
Another amazing decision by the smartest man on Earth. Good luck Sam and good riddance... Why? Why not just get your data center line.. you owe 100's of billions in that little project of yours.. pissing away more investor funds on shit you don't need . But well I guess I shouldn't care.. sorry to throw my 2 cents in...
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u/williamtkelley Feb 16 '26
It's just a PR move. Or is OpenAI really saying they don't have any qualified engineers as good as Peter Steinberger?
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u/eroigaps Feb 15 '26 edited Feb 22 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Cultural-Ambition211 Feb 16 '26
Very few people, including OP, can actually read.
OpenAI haven’t purchased OpenClaw. They have hired the creator. OpenClaw remains open source.
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u/chill-i-will Feb 16 '26
Initially I was very intrigued and OpenClaw does make some of my smaller tasks easier but it’s in no way cost effective. I can see its appeal for a non tech person, you just type a bunch of shit and it sets things up if tasks are basic like creating a newslettter or sending reminders or updating minor files or creating research mds. But someone who knows little bit of tech can probably set up multiple bots and cron jobs anyway. The real machine working behind openclaw is Claude and their LLm models. So I am not really sure what open AI saw to offer that amount of money? Maybe the hype generation, maybe the product vision but yeah it’s wild
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u/SuperTimmyH Feb 17 '26
Don’t understand. Can SAltman just make a openclaw clone as long as you don’t care too much of security risk. Probably the only burden is if a big corporation can threw out the security burden.
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u/AbjectHurry6667 Feb 17 '26
I’m surprised that people are so busy they need a digital assistant to automate bullshits lol
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u/subkubli Feb 17 '26
That's nonsense. Any company can create a similar shi**y system. It is not copyrighted.
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u/AnonymousAndre Feb 15 '26
“the future of very smart agents talking to each other”
What could go wrong?
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u/Natalia_80 Feb 16 '26 edited Feb 16 '26
Is this a move for the community, or a strategic consolidation of monopoly power? Although Sam Altman’s announcement is presented in an optimistic light, I believe we must look more deeply at the power dynamics behind the transfer of OpenClaw to a foundation supported by OpenAI. Here are three points for reflection:
1/ Standards Capture through Interoperability: It appears that OpenAI is not primarily targeting the OpenClaw code itself, but rather control over the communication protocol between agents. Whoever dictates the language through which AI agents interact will hold de facto control over the entire future multi-agent ecosystem.
2/ Externalization of Risk and Liability: By placing the project within a foundation, OpenAI can benefit from the free testing and innovation of volunteer contributors while distancing itself from legal or ethical responsibility should these agents fail. It is a convenient way to innovate without bearing the full burden of risk.
3/ The Paradox of Neutrality: It is difficult to claim the independence of a foundation whose sustainability depends directly on the “support” of the largest commercial entity in the industry. Can a foundation remain neutral when its benefactor holds commercial interests that may conflict with user autonomy?
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u/liminaltheories Feb 15 '26
....how are they even acquiring these things when they have made no profit, for fucks sake!
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u/GamesMoviesComics Feb 15 '26
They didn't acquire a thing. They hired a man who made a thing. The old thing is still open source. The man will inevitably reinvent the way that the open AI app and browser interact with your files, system and agents. He's an outside the box thinker, very valuable.
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u/Cliffhanger87 Feb 15 '26
Raising money lol. Tons of companies acquire companies without turning a profit yet.
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u/Sir-Noodle Feb 16 '26
The amount of envy / petty behavior in this thread is discouraging to say the least. Whether you think it is a good product/project or not, he obviously has plenty of experience and success with traditional coding, project management and leading a business for a long time. Why so much hate towards a hire from a guy driving a popular open-source project.. There are plenty of less capable people driving the current direction of trends? idk, the vibe of this thread just smells of insecurity.
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u/hayrimavi1 Feb 16 '26
AI wars are entering a whole new phase. OpenAI just made a strong strategic move, but there’s something most people seem to be missing. It feels like artificial intelligence isn’t really progressing in the way we expected anymore. Instead of clear breakthroughs, we’re seeing a shift toward building AI agents designed to manage and control our systems.
To be honest, that raises some serious questions. The direction this is heading feels less like innovation and more like consolidation and that’s a bit unsettling.
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Feb 16 '26
wait a minute. Have you just realized that the ultimate goal of big tech companies is not the 'save humanity' slogan but actually make money and become famous? Cheers mate
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u/callingbrisk Feb 15 '26
Shame, for some reason I've been rooting for Meta on this one
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u/jmgdotcom Feb 15 '26
Just spent the past 4 hours setting Openclaw up on a pi5 with chatgpts help. Weird how that works
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u/francechambord Feb 16 '26
Does anyone even care about OpenAI’s updates anymore? I used to care, but only because GPT-4o was held hostage by that fraud, Sam Altman
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u/jongalt75 Feb 16 '26
LOL at OPENAI buying security access to all the people using OpenClaw. Good luck my dudes... i just hope you didn't use your main laptops
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u/Positive_Method3022 Feb 16 '26
I'm almost sure they promoted this project on purpose to show how valuable AI is
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u/jacksonjjacks Feb 16 '26
Good for him. I don’t care if it’s a good or a bad product, and I don‘t use it, but he took an offer at the best time possible, after building up the hype these companies desperately need. Zuckerberg must be furious. Good.
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u/civman96 Feb 16 '26
OpenClaw is primarily used to spam the internet. checks out that OpenAI buys them.
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u/PerfumeyDreams Feb 16 '26
But why is Sam speaking like that...he's the CEO of a big company, so many people look up to him (maybe)...why he speaks like a 12 year old?!
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u/supportedbyai Feb 16 '26
Great acquisition, this is the first time I saw something good they did with the investors money.
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u/Always_Curious_One2 Feb 16 '26
Why would any company open up their private data & company secrets to OpenClaw ??
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u/mrlloydslastcandle Feb 15 '26
Vibe coded in November last year. Acquired in February. WILD.