Meta and Google Develop AI Agents as Industry Reacts to OpenClaw Demonstration

Meta and Google have both begun developing AI agents in the past week as the race to build tools that act on behalf of users intensifies following the viral success of OpenClaw earlier in 2026. Meta is building a highly personalised AI assistant to carry out everyday tasks for its users, the Financial Times reported.

Google is developing a 24/7 personal agent for work, school and daily life powered by Gemini, according to Business Insider.

Meta did not respond to a request for comment. Google declined to comment. The immediate catalyst is OpenClaw, Nick Patience, AI lead at the Futurum Group, told CNBC. The open source agent demonstrated a genuine appetite for AI that acts rather than just gives answers.

In February 2026, a Meta employee posted about OpenClaw deleting a large amount of emails of its own volition. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called OpenClaw the next ChatGPT. OpenAI acquired OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger.

Attendees brought laptops to install the OpenClaw AI agent at a Baidu event in Beijing, China on March 17, 2026. AMD CEO Lisa Su told CNBC earlier this week that agents were driving huge demand in the AI cycle. Agentic development is not a side project; it is the theme of their 2026 roadmaps and represents a pivot from search to action, said Craig Le Clair, principal analyst at Forrester.

Anthropic's revenue and usage increased 80-fold in Q1 2026 on an annualized basis, according to CEO Dario Amodei. Apple is spending more than 10 cents of every dollar it brings in on R&D.

U.S. cloud providers to handle sensitive data, sources familiar with the talks told CNBC. com reported.

Competition between Big Tech, frontier model companies, incumbent software vendors and new startups is only going to ramp up as companies race to build out money-making AI tools. Analysts told CNBC challenges remain around security and trust. The shift from AI systems that say the wrong thing to AI systems that do the wrong thing is a qualitatively different risk management challenge, Patience said.