OpenClaw Was the Future of AI. Then Big Tech Banned It, Broke It, and Bought It

Author(s): Adham Khaled Originally published on Towards AI. The most viral AI agent in history was cut off by Anthropic and Google, and absorbed by OpenAI. Now we have Cowork, Perplexity Computer, Copilot Tasks and more… In February 2026, developers using OpenClaw started waking up to broken workflows. Automated agents that ran overnight were throwing authentication errors. Forums filled with confusion. No announcement had been made. Within days, what had seemed like a bug became unmistakably clear: the most popular open-source AI agent framework on the planet had just been quietly cut off from two of the biggest AI providers in the world. OpenClaw Was the Future of AIThe article discusses the story of OpenClaw, an open-source AI agent that, after gaining significant traction, faced unexpected bans and damages from major tech companies like Anthropic and Google. As developers struggled with broken workflows and security vulnerabilities became public, the landscape shifted rapidly, with competitors launching their own AI agents in the wake of OpenClaw’s challenges. Ultimately, OpenAI acquired OpenClaw, marking a significant turn in the AI landscape where the value and necessity of personal assistant agents gained unprecedented recognition amidst growing competition and security concerns. Read the full blog for free on Medium. Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming a sponsor. Published via Towards AI