Every board should be testing Open Claw – or risk flying blind
Open Claw shows what happens when almost any digital function can be wired up to AI. Whether the product itself wins or fails, the direction is set – and the responsibility for it lands on the executive floor.
Why this commentary matters
Open Claw is a new AI system the tech press is currently debating. Whether it sticks as a product is an open question. The question that should occupy boards is a different one: why is something like this possible right now? Open Claw bundles powerful AI models into a system that doesn’t just answer, it acts. Boards need to engage with that – not eventually, but before others define the facts on the ground.
The real shift
The debate is asking the wrong questions. The real shift isn’t in the name “Open Claw”; it’s in the principle behind it. A few months ago, a system like this would simply have been impractical: too slow, too expensive, too narrow in context. Only the most recent quality jumps from OpenAI, Anthropic and others make it possible for an AI to stay live in the loop and act on its own. Not as a tool – as a permanent digital colleague.
Why this lands on boards
As long as AI is a tool, you can delegate the assessment. Once it works alongside you continuously, you can’t. Responsibility for AI agents that take decisions on their own sits, by necessity, at the top: liability, compliance, data protection, employment law. And it includes the question of which strategic decisions are actually still reserved for humans.
What to do now
Whether Open Claw fails or succeeds doesn’t change the direction. The development will continue: faster, broader, less controllable. Boards that don’t test it themselves now lose the feel for what will be possible in their own company within months. This is not an IT-department job. This is leadership.
I wrote the full commentary for Handelsblatt. This is a first impression.