OpenAI’s Chief Executive Sam Altman announced on Sunday that the developer of the popular AI agent OpenClaw will be joining their organization, and the platform will “exist within a foundation as an open source initiative that OpenAI will consistently back.”
Previously named Clawdbot and Moltbot, OpenClaw debuted last month thanks to Austrian programmer Peter Steinberger. It has garnered significant attention due to its presence on social media, attracting consumers and enterprises eager for products that can independently perform tasks, make choices, and act on behalf of users without ongoing human oversight.
In a message on X, Altman stated that Steinberger is “joining OpenAI to lead the future of personal agents.”
“He is incredibly talented with numerous brilliant ideas regarding the future of intelligent agents collaborating to accomplish very beneficial tasks for individuals,” Altman noted. “We anticipate this will quickly become integral to our range of products.”
While no specifics were disclosed, AI corporations, including OpenAI, have been investing heavily to recruit leading AI professionals. In May, OpenAI purchased Jony Ive’s startup io, which focuses on AI devices, for more than $6 billion. Meta and Google have also been investing billions to attract AI developers and researchers.
OpenAI, recently valued at $500 billion and aiming to increase that figure, is facing fierce competition in the generative AI sector, especially from Google and Anthropic, whose AI systems are being utilized by businesses to manage more operational tasks.
Anthropic’s Claude has been gaining notable traction recently, particularly with the release of Claude Code, and the firm recently unveiled Claude Opus 4.6, which boasts improved coding capabilities, prolonged task sustainability, and enhanced quality in professional outputs, according to the company.
Anthropic attained a valuation of $380 billion during a funding round that concluded earlier this week.
OpenClaw has rapidly gained popularity in China and can be integrated with local language models, like DeepSeek, and tailored to function with Chinese messaging applications through customized configurations. Chinese search platform Baidu intends to provide users of its primary mobile application direct access to OpenClaw, a representative informed CNBC.
Some experts express concerns regarding the transparency of OpenClaw, along with the potential cyber threats from users’ capacity to modify it in nearly limitless ways.
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