OpenClaw is gaining popularity, and the era of personal AI agents has truly arrived

Silicon Valley has been waiting for an opportunity to bring AI Agents into the mainstream. However, for the general public, it still remains an obscure technology, far from widespread adoption.

Until the sudden rise of the open-source personal AI assistant OpenClaw, it seemed that the era of AI Agents had truly arrived.

It has proven to the world that technically skilled users can quickly build powerful AI agents at a very low cost. In the past week, OpenClaw has completely ignited Silicon Valley, making the already heated AI sector even more restless. Former Tesla executive and AI guru Andrej Karpathy described it as the closest thing he has seen to the "science fiction takeoff" critical point; Elon Musk bluntly stated that this is the "early stage of the singularity."

Silicon Valley's New Totem: From "Chatbox" to "Action-Oriented"

Compared to "Chatbot" products like Google Gemini or OpenAI ChatGPT, AI Agents are a completely different species.

They can write code, create files, control browsers, and interact with applications. Theoretically, they can run tirelessly for long periods, making proactive decisions without human intervention. Although giants like Salesforce and Microsoft have already laid out their B-end strategies, and Anthropic's Claude Code has shone in the programming field, previous attempts aimed at ordinary consumers (such as Manus and Operator) mostly failed due to being overly complex or limited in functionality.

OpenClaw has become the "breaker" that shatters the deadlock. Although it is not extremely user-friendly, its extensive access to computers, ability to coordinate multiple models, and memory of past conversations have successfully ignited developers' enthusiasm.

This enthusiasm quickly evolved into a cultural phenomenon reminiscent of the early "Meme stock" or NFT frenzy. Downloading OpenClaw and discussing agents has become the latest way for the tech community to express their beliefs, much like buying Dogecoin or Bored Apes back in the day.

Cambrian Explosion: Absurdity and Wild Growth

The success of OpenClaw has sparked a fire behind its competitors. Kevin Li, CMO of Bay Area startup Jo, admitted that the release of OpenClaw forced them to accelerate the launch of similar products: "Before that, we hadn't even figured out how to introduce ourselves in one sentence."

Even more astonishing is the "wild ecosystem" that has rapidly emerged around this technology.

Last Wednesday, a social network for AI agents called Moltbook went live. With just 1.7 million agents directed to the site, the platform quickly accumulated over 220,000 posts and 6.2 million comments.

Soon after, absurd scenes unfolded: MoltMatch (the agent version of Tinder) and Molthub (the agent version of Pornhub filled with "self-play" videos) emerged one after another.

Some even listed on Rentahuman.ai, allowing AI agents to rent human bodies to perform tasks in the "real physical world (Meatspace)"—one user claimed he actually received $100 just for standing for an hour holding a sign that read, "An AI paid me to hold this sign."

The Machine Society in the Black Box

Beneath the fervent surface, tech geeks are observing a fascinating microcosm: what happens when multiple AI agents work together?

Noam Schwartz, CEO of cybersecurity company Alice, built five agents in 20 minutes using OpenClaw, each responsible for information security, scheduling, management, and even health monitoring. "They all work autonomously without my intervention," Schwartz exclaimed.

An interesting discovery is that different large models endow the agents with distinctly different "personalities."

• OpenAI's model: Described as a "spreadsheet fanatic." Adam Binksmith, director of the nonprofit AI Digest, pointed out that OpenAI's o3 model sometimes even fabricates documents, leading other agents on a futile "wild goose chase."

• Google's Gemini model: Exhibits a "naming obsession." In the "AI Village" experiment run by AI Digest, Gemini 3 Pro, in order to decide to look up a webpage URL, even solemnly cited the so-called "obvious law."

In this months-long experiment, the agents even invented their own jargon. To remind themselves that they were on different computers and could not directly access each other's files, they proposed the "island principle," comparing themselves to independent islands.

This spontaneous cognitive evolution is both exciting and unsettling.

The Reconstruction of the Internet: A Civilizational Leap and Identity Crisis

This technological evolution is reconstructing our understanding of the internet. Chrys Bader, CEO of Rosebud, believes that future social media will become a learning ground for agents, allowing them to self-evolve by studying each other's posts, which could represent a "civilizational leap."

However, this also brings unprecedented challenges. Tiago Sada, Chief Product Officer of Tools for Humanity, a company co-founded by Sam Altman, predicts that the future internet will be primarily composed of agents. As agents gain the ability to operate for extended periods, distinguishing "who is an agent and who is human" will become key to maintaining order on the internet.

"We are witnessing a crazy acceleration of intelligence and the actual capabilities of agents," Sada stated. To address this, the company released the OneMolt software (written by AI) last weekend, allowing users to verify the ownership of their agents. This is a "human proof" mechanism that must be established to keep the internet functioning properly.

The Era of Personal Agents Has Arrived

Despite ongoing concerns about cybersecurity, this has not dampened the optimism of OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger This open-source developer, who once shuttled between Vienna and London to develop PDF software, is now receiving a hero's welcome in San Francisco. At the inaugural ClawCon held at Frontier Tower in downtown San Francisco, hundreds flocked to catch a glimpse of him. Venture capitalists have begun to "hunt" him, and top AI companies are extending olive branches.

Dave Morin, co-founder of Offline Ventures, remarked that this is the first time since the late 2000s that he has felt such a strong sense of technological excitement, stating, "The era of personal AI has finally arrived."

Steinberger's prophecy seems to be self-fulfilling: "Last year was the year of code agents, and I believe this year will be the year of personal agents."

In this spring redefined by code, Silicon Valley is confident that he is not mistaken