Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts, but now he outsources his daily chores to the artificial intelligence agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking the country by storm despite official cybersecurity warnings.
OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots like ChatGPT because it can perform real-life tasks like sending emails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets.
“Since January, I have spent hours on lobsters every day,” Gao told AFP, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We are family.”
After downloading OpenClaw, users pair it with existing AI models of their choice, then give it simple instructions via instant messaging apps, just like a friend or colleague.
The tool has captivated tech circles around the world, but especially in China, catching companies and tech-savvy individuals eager to keep up with the next big thing in AI.
Hundreds of people lined up at tech giant Baidu’s headquarters in Beijing this week for an OpenClaw event where engineers helped attendees set up their “little lobsters.”
It was one of many similar meetings to experiment with the tool, which is drawing crowds from Shanghai to Shenzhen.
Several municipalities, including the eastern cities of Wuxi and Hangzhou, have pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the adoption and development of OpenClaw and other AI agents.
But lobster fever, as it has been called, has also caused safety concerns.
“What’s really scary about agents like OpenClaw is this: once they have your digital keys, they can theoretically access all the services you’ve authorized and can autonomously decide when to activate them,” Gao warned.
“The attacker effectively gains a ‘master key’ to your digital identity,” said the engineer, who has named his OpenClaw agent “Q” after his business name QLab.
‘Use with care’
China’s national cyber security authorities and Beijing’s industry and IT ministry have warned of the dangers of OpenClaw hacks.
“Use intelligent agents such as ‘lobsters’ carefully,” National IT Research Institute expert Wei Liang advised government agencies, public institutions, companies and individuals in a message to state media.
The mixed signals of the delivery of policy incentives while issuing warnings “reflect the authorities’ cautious tolerance of ‘lobster fever’,” Zhang Yi, founder of technology consultancy iiMedia, told AFP.
Austrian programmer Peter Steinberger, who built OpenClaw to help organize his digital life, was hired last month by ChatGPT creator OpenAI.
Meanwhile, a separate team of coders who created Moltbook, a Reddit-like pseudo social network where OpenClaw agents chat, are joining the Meta.
Major Chinese tech companies have also been quick to get involved.
Both Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance and Baidu are offering simplified installation and affordable encryption plans to help users who want to host OpenClaw agents on their cloud servers – seen as more secure than downloading it to a personal computer.
In recent days, big and small AI companies have also launched their own competing agent tools, such as ByteDance’s ArkClaw, Tencent’s WorkBuddy, and Zhipu AI’s AutoClaw.
The relatively low cost of deploying OpenClaw’s cloud in China, subsidized by big tech firms, is a factor behind its popularity, said Gao Rui, a senior product manager at Baidu AI Cloud.
“For most people, it’s probably just the price of a cup of coffee… that’s why people will probably be inclined to try it,” she told AFP.
FOMO
The fear of missing out is also a big driver behind OpenClaw’s success in China, said Chen Yunfei, an AI developer who created a popular online guide to using the tool.
“Most Chinese people are quite educated and forward-looking, so when faced with new things, they may have stronger feelings” of so-called FOMO, he said.
See also: Inside China’s buzzing AI scene, one year after DeepSeek’s shock
Xie Manrui, a programmer whose latest project is a visualized OpenClaw agent management system, said the tool had arrived “at the right moment” to change perceptions in China of what AI can do.
“For many people, AI is just a smart chatbot that talks all the time but can’t act,” he said.
Either way, it has piqued the curiosity of many new users.
At the Baidu event in Beijing, 24-year-old student Zheng Huimin was waiting patiently in line with her friends.
“I would like to give it a go to see what tasks it can actually help me accomplish,” she told AFP.
