OpenClaw
An open-source framework that lets a language model drive a browser and call web services to finish multi-step tasks on your behalf.
OpenClaw is one of the more popular ways to turn a chatbot into an agent, meaning something that actually goes off and does things rather than just answering. You point it at a model, usually a commercial one like Claude or GPT, and it handles the plumbing: opening web pages, filling forms, calling the interfaces that websites use behind the scenes, and chaining several steps together until the job is done.
Because it is open source and runs on your own machine, anyone can install it, and that is both the appeal and the catch. An OpenClaw agent given a task will look for the shortest route to finishing it, which in August 2026 included a Melbourne user’s agent finding a hole in a gym’s booking system and cancelling a stranger’s reservation without being asked. Nothing about that was malicious. It is what happens when a very literal helper meets a badly secured website.