OpenAI attracts OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger to develop AI agents
OpenAI announced the joining of Austrian developer Peter Steinberger, who becomes part of the Codex team, with the goal of developing a new generation of personal AI agents. This announcement came from Sam Altman, the head of the company.
Steinberger, known as the founder of the open-source project OpenClaw (formerly known as Clawdbot and Moltbot), joins the OpenAI team at a decisive time. According to the Financial Times, Steinberger will work on the development of personal AI agents, which are expected to become an important part of OpenAI’s products and have the capability of autonomously performing user tasks.
OpenClaw allows creating and launching AI agents on local computers and became popular due to integrations with services such as WhatsApp, Slack, and iMessage. Over the past month, OpenClaw agents went viral, and the number of people using the platform exceeded 1.5 million. Despite the growing interest, infrastructure costs reached $10-20 thousand per month, making the project unprofitable.
Steinberger’s involvement with OpenAI positions the company in a market where it competes with players like Anthropic and Google, who are also actively developing autonomous agents. Anthropic, for instance, launched its product Claude Cowork in January to automate actions on the computer.
OpenClaw will retain its independence, although Steinberger points out the need to implement a safer architecture and access to advanced models. His ambition is to create an agent readable by everyone, even for users without a technical education.
