How Microsoft is bringing OpenClaw to the masses

Hello again, and welcome back to Fast Company’s Plugged In. Like most tech-company keynotes, the one this week at Microsoft’s Build developer conference in San Francisco featured a few special guests. They ranged from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (who’s in a dead heat with Open AI’s Sam Altman for the distinction of being the industry’s most omnipresent executive) to music/investing duo The Chainsmokers to Mayo Clinic CEO Gianrico Farrugia. But the most intriguing guest star of the bunch was easily Peter Steinberger, creator of the open-source AI agent platform OpenClaw. Steinberger—whose day job, as of February, is at OpenAI—had good reason to take Microsoft’s stage. Among the two-hour-and-22-minute Build keynote’s major themes was the company’s enthusiasm for OpenClaw and desire to make it accessible to a broader audience. The news reflecting that included a new OpenClaw app for Windows and a technology for sandboxing OpenClaw agents—or “claws”—so they can’t wreak accidental havoc with data. “Watching a claw trying to delete all of your desktop files and just fail makes me really happy,” beamed Steinberger. “Because six months ago, that totally would have worked.” And then there are Autopilots, a new type of Microsoft agent. I didn’t catch their OpenClaw connection at first: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella mentioned it only briefly and elliptically during the keynote address. Though Autopilots incorporate OpenClaw code and functionality, they’re meant to be safe enough for businesses to roll out without fretting about them destroying or leaking proprietary information. They also operate partially in the cloud rather than assuming you’re willing to run them on a computer that’s powered up 24/7. (For many OpenClaw enthusiasts, that machine is a Mac Mini dedicated to the task.) Microsoft says it plans to release many Autopilots. It’s starting with just one, called Scout, that it’s making available as an experimental release for custome