is The Verge’s senior AI reporter. An AI beat reporter for more than five years, her work has also appeared in CNBC, MIT Technology Review, Wired UK, and other outlets.
The woman at the door wore a plush lobster headdress.
She sat in the front hallway of a multistory event venue in Manhattan, beside a bundle of wristbands. If she granted you one, the world of ClawCon beckoned behind her — full of vibey pink and purple lighting, lobster claw headbands, multicolored name tags, sponsor information stations, and a demo stage underneath a skylight. Hundreds of people were gathered to celebrate OpenClaw, the AI assistant platform created by Peter Steinberger in November 2025.
OpenClaw (previously known as Clawdbot and Moltbolt) has quickly become popular in the tech industry for being open-source, in contrast with AI agent services from big labs like Google, OpenAI, and others. Practically, it’s still an unpredictable tool that can pose major security risks. But this community sees it as a grassroots crusade and a noble pursuit, offering an escape hatch from an industry controlled by a handful of people at leading AI companies.
“AI was controlled by the big labs,” Michael Galpert, one of the event’s hosts, told The Verge. “This is kind of a watershed moment where Peter kind of busted down the doors.”
More than 1,300 people had signed up for the Wednesday evening event at Ideal Glass Studios, which was billed as a free-to-attend, meetup-style “social-first gathering — not a gated, developer-only conference or a traditional corporate trade show.” (The number of actual attendees, I hear, was capped at about 700.) The event was part of a “tour” of global meetups — following a similar San Francisco event last month and preceding ones in Miami, Austin, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Madrid, and more. Its budget seemed modest, but the organizers had spared no expense on a buffet table worthy of a wedding, piled high with on-theme lobster claws, lemons, Tabasco sauce, charcuterie boards, clusters of grapes, and floral arrangements.
Galpert — a member of the AI community, whose resume includes a stint working on Fortnite for Epic Games — said the idea specifically came about via Discord, which is fitting because one reason for OpenClaw’s initial popularity was the ability to chat with one’s agent via typical messaging services like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Discord.
Photo by Hayden Field / The Verge
People milled about near a step-and-repeat, a bar, and silver “CLAWCON NYC” balloons glinting in recessed lighting — some wearing lobster necklaces or lobster headbands. I also spotted a blue plush jellyfish hat, a plush horse hat, and a pair of angel wings. A dance floor would beckon later, but the DJ wasn’t yet on the clock.
“All your friends and family probably think you’re crazy, and the whole point is for you to be in a room with other crazy people so it’s normal,” Galpert said onstage to kick things off. “Yes, you’re wearing a lobster headband, you’re here on a Wednesday night talking about agents and bots and the future of personal AI. It’s normal now for us, it’s kind of not normal for the rest of the world. So it’s going to be on us to help sort of shepherd that new era that’s started already.”
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