Microsoft is doubling down on autonomous AI inside its productivity stack, working on yet another OpenClaw‑like agent designed to live inside Microsoft 365 Copilot and quietly handle multi‑step tasks on behalf of enterprise users. The effort signals a decisive shift from AI as a passive assistant that answers questions to an active background system that “is always working, able to take actions at any time.”
According to reports confirmed by the company, Microsoft is testing ways to integrate “OpenClaw‑like features” directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot. The new agent is aimed squarely at businesses and is being developed with “better security controls than the famously risky open source OpenClaw agent.”
OpenClaw itself is an open‑source platform that runs locally on a user’s machine and lets people create AI agents that perform tasks across Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. It has “rapidly gained popularity since the beginning of 2026,” but that rise has been shadowed by “serious security concerns” around giving autonomous agents broad access to local files and apps. Microsoft’s project aims to capture the appeal of that autonomy while building guardrails for corporate IT teams.
Internally, the new tool is described as a kind of upgraded Copilot that never clocks out. The company told one outlet that “one of the main features of the agent is that it would essentially be a version of 365 Copilot that is always working, able to take actions at any time.” The idea is an agent that can “complete multistep tasks over long periods,” rather than only responding when a user directly prompts it in a chat window.
In practice, that could mean an assistant that constantly monitors Outlook and your calendar, then “provide daily recommended task lists” based on new emails, meetings and deadlines. Other concepts being explored include agents specialized for “specific roles such as marketing, sales, and accounting,” each with narrowly defined permissions so they can act autonomously inside their lane without touching sensitive data from other parts of the business.
Enterprise security is the central theme of this latest agent effort. While OpenClaw fans love its freedom and local execution, experts have warned about the risks of letting a powerful AI agent roam a device with minimal constraints. Microsoft, by contrast, is pitching its approach as a tightly controlled, business‑friendly alternative.
The company is “confident that it can implement a more secure version of the tool” and is reportedly planning “particularly strict security management features for enterprise customers.” That includes the idea of role‑based agents whose permissions are deliberately restricted and isolated, so, for example, a sales agent cannot accidentally access HR records, or a marketing bot cannot touch finance systems. As one analysis puts it, this is part of a “strategic move to capture the burgeoning enterprise AI automation market” with agents that meet corporate compliance requirements from day one.
The new OpenClaw‑style agent does not come out of nowhere; it follows a series of agentic features Microsoft has been layering into Copilot over the past year. In March, the company announced Copilot Cowork, a tool “designed to take actions in Microsoft 365 apps, not just provide search results or chat in a separate work pane.” Cowork is powered by “Work IQ,” an intelligence layer that tries to personalize how Copilot behaves across Word, Excel, Outlook and other apps.
Separately, Microsoft has rolled out Copilot Tasks, a preview AI agent that, as commentators describe it, “doesn’t just answer questions, it actually does the work for you,” from scheduling to document creation and recurring workflows. The new OpenClaw‑inspired project appears to sit on top of this foundation, taking the next step toward agents that run in the background, make decisions and coordinate actions across multiple applications without constant human prompting.
While the company has declined to give a blow‑by‑blow technical breakdown, senior figures have started sketching the vision in broad strokes. Omar Shahine, a corporate vice president at Microsoft, confirmed to multiple outlets that the company is “exploring the potential of technologies like OpenClaw in an enterprise context.”
Speaking more generally about the strategy, Shahine said Microsoft is “focused on introducing a new generation of assistants that help users work more effectively and efficiently, and reduce their workload by taking on tasks from start to finish.” In a separate interview, a reporter summarised the internal push by saying Satya Nadella is backing “autonomous ‘always‑on’ agents within Copilot” as a way to rival what OpenClaw has demonstrated on local machines.
One of the biggest unanswered questions is where exactly this new agent will run. OpenClaw’s defining feature is that it operates on local hardware, a model that keeps data on‑device and has even fuelled a spike in sales of affordable machines like the Mac mini among enthusiasts. By contrast, most of Microsoft’s current Copilot features rely heavily on cloud infrastructure.
Reports note that “it’s not clear yet whether this Claw would be local or if it would simply adopt some of the other features that OpenClaw advocates love.” However, analysts suggest Microsoft could pursue a hybrid approach, where the agent “intelligently decide[s] whether to process a task locally for security or leverage the cloud for complex computation.” That would let enterprises keep their most sensitive data on‑premise while still tapping into large‑scale models hosted on Azure when needed.
If fully realized, the new agent could reshape how employees interact with Microsoft 365. Instead of manually triaging inboxes, updating spreadsheets and bouncing between apps, users would delegate ongoing responsibilities to an AI that quietly works in the background.
Examples being explored include an agent that constantly scans new emails and meetings, then maintains a rolling action list for each user, or specialized agents that handle tasks like generating sales follow‑up emails, maintaining account notes in CRM tools, or compiling monthly financial summaries. One analysis describes the vision as the end of “passive AI assistants” and the rise of “active, persistent, and secure agents that can execute complex workflows across applications and time.”
Microsoft’s OpenClaw‑like project comes as tech giants race to define the next era of AI at work. Enthusiasm for OpenClaw has shown there is strong demand for highly capable, autonomous agents, particularly among power users and developers. At the same time, that enthusiasm has highlighted the gap between what self‑hosted tools can do and what risk‑averse enterprises are willing to deploy on their networks.
By building its own agent on top of Copilot, with Azure on the back end and Microsoft 365 as the front line, the company is betting it can bridge that gap. As one industry watcher put it, Microsoft’s work on this OpenClaw‑style agent “is a definitive signal that the era of passive AI assistants is ending,” replaced by systems that actively manage work across entire organizations.
Although details are still fluid, the company is expected to show off this new agent “or an upgraded version of one of its existing Claw‑like tools” at its annual Microsoft Build developer conference in June. For now, officials describe the initiative as experimental, with a spokesperson confirming that the company is “experimenting” while declining to answer detailed questions about architecture, comparisons with previous agents or whether the system will ultimately run locally, in the cloud, or both.
What is clear is the direction of travel: Microsoft wants Copilot to evolve from a helpful side panel into a tireless partner embedded deep inside Microsoft 365, capable of watching, planning and acting on users’ behalf. Whether the new OpenClaw‑like agent lives primarily on local machines, in the cloud, or in a hybrid layer, it represents the next step in turning AI from a tool you talk to into a workforce that quietly works for you.
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