Apple explores building AI agent to rival OpenClaw with autonomous software control

Apple Could Build an OpenClaw Competitor Eventually

Apple may eventually build a direct competitor to OpenClaw, an agentic AI system capable of autonomously operating software on behalf of the user, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes. Writing in his Power On newsletter, Gurman says he expects Apple to develop a system that could fully operate iPhone, iPad, and Mac software on the user's behalf. The prediction comes on the back of comments made by Apple's Siri engineering chief, Mike Rockwell, following last week's WWDC keynote. Rockwell appeared to leave the door open for Siri to expand beyond its current capabilities, describing the new engine underpinning the assistant as "a completely modern architecture" built with extensibility in mind: [An agent is] something that is operating on a loop of information coming in, making decisions, and then taking action. And ours is primarily request based today. But the underpinning architecture for Siri is a completely modern architecture, and so our ability to extend in the future is is very similar. Apple's SVP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, acknowledged the broader category but was measured in his framing of it, describing the space as experimental and saying that finding the right user experience remains the priority, while stopping short of ruling out Apple's eventual participation. Apple's upcoming Siri implementation is newly rebuilt on a large language model foundation, and remains a request-based system. Full computer-use agentic functionality of the kind offered by OpenClaw and similar tools from Google and Anthropic would represent a significant expansion beyond what Apple announced last week.

Apple Could Eventually Bring An OpenClaw-Like Competitor To Multiple Platforms, Offering Personalized AI Agents At Flexible Pricing

The AI agent craze caused a purchasing frenzy as consumers didn't want to miss out on the chance to be able to run programs like OpenClaw to completely automate their mundane tasks and save time. With Apple's unified memory architecture, the company is in a unique position to introduce a major selling point that will complement Siri AI, and that's introducing its own version of OpenClaw, Codex, or Cursor. Currently, there are limitations to these AI agents, which the Cupertino firm can bypass as part of its robust "Services" segment. Running Apple's AI agent for an unlimited time could be the company's most valuable marketing battle cry, but there are still various obstacles in place While there's no concrete plan for Apple to bring its AI agent to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, or other platforms, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes that this could be the company's long-term direction. Currently, AI agents are limited in their functionality by the number of requests a user assigns, with the free version offering a certain limit until you're required to proceed with a subscription plan. With Apple's AI agent, there might not be a need for a monthly subscription, as the company could simply bundle it with its monthly Apple One bundle. As exciting as this possibility sounds, there are many variables to discuss, with security among the most crucial. By default, AI agents like OpenClaw, Codex, and others are required to ask the user's permission before making any changes to a Windows file system or registry, and most of the time, that access is locked. However, users can simply allow these agents complete access to their entire computers, leaving them at risk of data loss or even theft. Building massive data centers and powerful chips with sufficient unified memory isn't even going to be Apple's biggest headache in bringing AI agents to its platforms, but the security risk that comes along with it is. If the California-based giant is too stringent about user privacy, it might limit the agent's functionality, leaving the aforementioned options a better alternative to those who don't mind offering complete access to their hardware. However, if Apple also introduces this flexibility and a multitude of incidents occur where the agent goes "rogue" with sensitive data and credentials, it's going to be a PR nightmare for the company. While we strongly side with Gurman on his assumptions regarding Apple's plans, we believe it's going to be in a more controlled fashion. As always, the company might be late to the party, but as long as it has a refined product on its hands, that's what matters. News Source: Mark Gurman Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.