Microsoft embraces OpenClaw
Nadella throws open his arms to the Clawfather. Also: Codex comes for normies, Uber's tokenmaxxing crackdown, Perplexity's inference play, and more.
It’s Tuesday, and Microsoft led today’s AI news with all of its announcements at Build. Mentions of OpenAI in the keynote: 5. Mentions of OpenClaw: 28.
Friday’s scoop revealing Scout, Microsoft’s first proactive AI agent for Copilot, buried the real news that Satya Nadella announced onstage at Build today: Microsoft is fully embracing OpenClaw.
When Scout is released more widely later this summer, it will be powered by OpenClaw, and Microsoft will contribute its security guardrails back to the project’s open-source ecosystem. As Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, responded to me on X today, Scout is “not OpenClaw-like, it is the OpenClaw gateway.”
Microsoft getting in bed with OpenClaw makes a lot of sense. You only welcome a growing, open framework onto your turf when you’re confident you control the ground it stands on. In this case, Microsoft is doing what it does best: being a platform company rather than trying to own too much of the stack.
Microsoft also gets to ride the agent wave in a way its main hardware rival won’t. Even with OpenClaw’s initial buzz driving a surge in Mac Mini purchases, it’s highly unlikely Apple will create a white-glove experience for OpenClaw like Microsoft has with Scout and MXC on Windows, which runs OpenClaw in a contained, safer environment. A big question I have now is how much Apple will lean into agents at WWDC next week, if at all…
