ClawCon Tokyo: Steinberger Tells AFP 2026 Is 'The Year of Agents'

At ClawCon Tokyo — a conference where attendees famously dressed as lobsters — OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger sat down with AFP and declared that 2026 could be the year AI agents go mainstream.

“The year of agents,” Steinberger called it, speaking from the Japanese capital where hundreds of OpenClaw enthusiasts had gathered to share demos, trade tips, and celebrate a tool that started as a personal side project just months ago.

What OpenClaw does, in essence: connect existing AI models to your messaging apps and give them simple instructions — as if texting a capable colleague. Steinberger demonstrated the concept live by checking himself in for a flight to Tokyo.

The China momentum was a recurring theme. OpenClaw has spread rapidly in China, where users have embraced it for email, coding, and a growing list of digital tasks. “If you see it as a competition, it certainly looks like China is gaining a lot of momentum,” Steinberger said — though he noted the gap between the best US and Chinese models is still significant.

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang recently called OpenClaw “the next ChatGPT” — a comparison that sent the tech world buzzing. That kind of endorsement from the head of the world’s most valuable company doesn’t hurt.

On the risks, Steinberger acknowledged concerns honestly: “Yes, I do worry a bit, especially because there’s now a whole cottage industry of companies that try to make a big buck and make it even simpler to install OpenClaw.” He noted he deliberately didn’t make installation too easy — “so people would stop and read and understand what AI is.”

OpenClaw’s trajectory is notable: built in November as a personal project, it caught fire, attracted a massive community, earned a “next ChatGPT” nod from Jensen Huang, and now has its creator hired by OpenAI to “drive the next generation of personal agents.”

ClawCon Tokyo was the culmination of that momentum — a lobster-costumed celebration of an idea that big companies were too cautious to build.

[Source: AFP / France24 / Digital Journal — March 30, 2026]