Microsoft’s OpenClaw team takes on the personal assistant challenge
By Mary Jo Foley
Published on May 4, 2026.
Microsoft's OpenClaw team, led by Corporate Vice President Omar Shahine, is taking a step towards creating a personal assistant and platform for building proactive agents using the open-source framework, OpenCLaw. The team, which already has a working agent prototype and over 3,000 daily users inside Microsoft testing “Project Lobster” the team’s OpenClAW-based desktop environment, is up from 100 users a week ago. The vision is to create an always-on agent team that works 24/7 on users' behalf within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Despite Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella previously dismissing OpenClaws as a security risk, Shahine's team aims to create a more robust, enterprise-friendly virtual assistant. He also highlighted the need for enterprise-hardened offerings, including their own Microsoft Teams presence, and integration with the Microsoft Graph.
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