ClawCon Tokyo: OpenClaw Creator Steinberger Tells AFP "2026 Is the Year of the General Agent" — Hundreds Attend First Major Agent Platform Conference

AFP (Agence France-Presse) published a major wire story on March 30, 2026, covering ClawCon Tokyo — the first large-scale gathering of OpenClaw enthusiasts. The story was syndicated across 50+ major outlets including France24, The Economic Times, Digital Journal, and dozens of regional US newspapers.

Key revelations from the AFP interview with OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger:

1. Year of the General Agent: Steinberger declared that 2023-2024 was the year of ChatGPT, 2025 was the year of the coding agent, and 2026 is the year of the general agent. This frames agent platforms as the dominant AI paradigm for the year.

2. OpenAI Hire Confirmed: Steinberger confirmed he has been hired by OpenAI to drive the next generation of personal agents, as announced by Sam Altman in February. He noted that OpenClaw could not have come from big companies who would have worried too much about what could go wrong.

3. Nvidia Endorsement: Jensen Huang, CEO of the world most valuable company Nvidia, hailed OpenClaw as the next ChatGPT — a massive mainstream validation from the hardware infrastructure leader.

4. Chinese Adoption Surge: The article describes scenes of people queuing to have OpenClaw installed on their laptops at Baidu headquarters in Beijing. Similar adoption events have occurred across Chinese tech hubs. Steinberger acknowledged China is gaining a lot of momentum but noted a gap between best Chinese and US models.

5. Security Concerns: Steinberger expressed worry about a cottage industry of companies making it simpler to install OpenClaw, noting he purposefully did not make it simpler so people would stop and read and understand what AI is, what prompt injection is. National cybersecurity authorities in China and Beijing IT ministry have issued official warnings.

6. Moltbook Reference: Steinberger commented on the Reddit-like pseudo social network for OpenClaw agents called Moltbook, saying a lot of that was very much driven by humans to create those stories.

7. ClawCon Event: Hundreds of participants attended in Tokyo, many dressed as lobsters. Demos were held on stage and experts helped attendees install their agents.

The CNN business story from March 29 described OpenClaw as China latest tech obsession and a game changer, with people queuing at Baidu HQ.

This AFP story represents a watershed moment: a traditional wire service covering an AI agent platform conference as mainstream news rather than tech niche content.