Sam Altman said he used to wake up to an “unpleasant task” every morning: responding to messages.
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So, he built a solution with AI.
In a conversation with Stripe cofounder Patrick Collison, the OpenAI CEO said he used OpenClaw, an AI system designed to take actions across apps, to manage his morning communication overload by building a new app.
It was the app Altman “had always wanted to work,” he said.
“It’s like this very unpleasant task to wake up in the morning and have to go through all this stuff,” he told Collison. “So I was like, ‘All right, I’m finally going to be able to automate this.'”
Altman didn’t explain how the app works or how it responds to his litany of morning messages. He told Collison — who also described himself as an “OpenClaw evangelist” — that the agent was a turning point for him.
“OpenClaw has been one of my biggest ‘This is magic AGI moments’ ever in the field,” Altman recounted to Collison. “It’s like a much more magical experience than it sounds like.”
OpenClaw is part of a broader shift in artificial intelligence. Unlike earlier chatbots that primarily generated text, newer agent-like systems can take actions across apps and workflows — handling tasks like sorting messages, drafting replies, and prioritizing information.
The new system quickly gained attention inside OpenAI. The company hired OpenClaw’s creator, Peter Steinberger, earlier this year, as it pushes deeper into so-called agentic technology.
Altman said he’s since rebuilt the messaging system using Codex, OpenAI’s code-generation model, and is experimenting with similar tools for other tasks, including home automation.
His comments come as OpenAI and its competitors race to build more capable AI systems that can plan and execute tasks on their own. Altman recently said the company’s April-released flagship model, GPT-5.5, has already been used for more open-ended requests — including generating ideas for real-world events, like its own launch party.
