Microsoft is testing the integration of OpenClaw-like intelligent agent capabilities into Microsoft 365 Copilot, focusing on enterprise customers, and emphasizes that it will provide stricter security controls than the open source project OpenClaw. OpenClaw is a tool that runs on the local computer. Users can create agents based on it and perform various tasks on the local computer. It has attracted widespread attention due to its powerful capabilities and security controversies.
If Microsoft finally launches its own "Claw" - a proxy tool that can run locally - it will join a series of "agent-based" products that Microsoft has released over the past few months. Microsoft has yet to clarify whether the new agent will necessarily run natively, or if it simply incorporates some of the key features praised by the OpenClaw community. Microsoft told The Information that the core idea of this agent is to make 365 Copilot an "always working in the background" version that can perform operations at any time and support the completion of multi-step tasks across long time spans.
This follows Microsoft's March official release of Copilot Cowork, an agent designed to perform actions directly on M365 apps rather than just provide search results or conversation responses in the sidebar. Cowork is based on Microsoft's self-developed "WorkIQ" intelligence layer to personalize users' experience in various Microsoft 365 applications. To enhance capabilities, Microsoft also established a cooperation with AI laboratory Anthropic at the end of last year to introduce the Claude model into Cowork and allow users to select Claude as one of the underlying models in Cowork. In contrast, the open source project OpenClaw itself supports multiple models, but among many users, Claude is still the preferred model. However, Cowork is different from OpenClaw in that it does not run on local devices but relies entirely on the cloud for execution.
In February of this year, Microsoft also launched another agent product called Copilot Tasks and made it available to users in preview form. Judging from the official publicity, Copilot Tasks is positioned more towards "professional consumers" than pure enterprise users. It can perform a series of tasks in the cloud, from typical M365 scenarios such as sorting emails, to daily tasks such as arranging schedules and making appointments that exceed the boundaries of the Office suite. Like Cowork, Copilot Tasks runs in the cloud rather than on local hardware.
In contrast to Microsoft's vision, OpenClaw, an open source project, can currently run on Windows devices, but in actual use, Mac mini has become the main hardware platform for the tool. Due to the popularity of OpenClaw, the compact, relatively affordable, cube-shaped Mac mini desktop computer once became a "hot seller". In addition to security considerations - for example, Microsoft previously published a blog to introduce how to run OpenClaw safely under the premise of identity isolation and runtime risk control - Microsoft also obviously has multiple motivations to launch its own version of "Claw" to firmly bind such highly sticky local agent capabilities within its own ecosystem.