Peter Steinberger, the developer behind the fast-rising AI assistant OpenClaw, has join Open AI, marking a significant talent acquisition in the race to build intelligent personal agents.

Steinberger announced the move in a blog post, citing a desire to focus on global impact rather than company building.

OpenClaw, formerly known as Clawdbot and Moltbot, gained rapid attention for positioning itself as an AI assistant capable of executing real-world tasks, from scheduling meetings to booking travel.

The project also drew attention for its naming changes, including one prompted by a legal challenge from Anthropic.

Steinberger said that while OpenClaw had the potential to become a large standalone company, his personal motivation lay elsewhere.

He described joining OpenAI as the fastest path to deploying advanced AI agents at global scale.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed that Steinberger will lead efforts on next-generation personal agents.

He also stated that OpenClaw will remain open-source under a foundation model, with continued support from OpenAI.

The move highlights OpenAI’s strategy of absorbing independent innovation while keeping certain tools accessible to the broader developer community.

Source: TechCrunch