Cloudbot AI Assistant: What it is, how to try it

Interest in Clawdbot, an open source AI personal assistant, has been building from buzz to buzz. Over the weekend, online chatter about the tool reached viral status — at least, as viral as an open-source AI tool.

Clawdbot has developed a cult following in the adoptive community, and AI geniuses in Silicon Valley are oversharing best practices and showing off their DIY Clawdbot setups. The free, open-source AI assistant is often used on dedicated Mac Minis (although other setups are possible), where users give it access to their ChatGPT or Claude accounts, as well as email, calendars, and messaging apps.

Clawdbot has become so popular on X that it has reached meme status, with developers sharing tongue-in-cheek memes about their Clawdbot setup.

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So, what is Cloudbot 🦞, how can you try it, and why is it suddenly the talk of the town in Silicon Valley?

Cloudbot is an AI personal assistant

As mentioned earlier, Cloudbot is an open source AI assistant that works locally on your device. The tool was created by developer and entrepreneur Peter Steinberger, who is best known for creating and selling PSPDFKit. The tool is often associated with the lobster emoji, for reasons that should be obvious.

Clawdbot is the best example of agent AI, meaning it is a tool that can automate and complete multi-step actions on behalf of the user. The year 2025 was supposed to be the year of AI agents; instead, many high-profile AI initiatives have failed to deliver results, and there is a growing sense that AI agents are hitting a wall.

However, Cloudbot users say the tool delivers where previous assistants failed. The AI ​​personal assistant remembers everything you’ve ever told it, and users can also give it access to their email, calendar, and documents. In addition, Cloudbot can take personal action. So, Clawdbot not only checks your email, but it can send you a message when a very important email arrives.

Based on its viral success, I would be shocked if Steinberger was overlooked by AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Mashable reached out to Steinberger to ask about Cloudbot, and we’ll update this post when we hear back.

How to try Cloudbot

Steinberger has uploaded the Clawdbot source code to Github, and you can download, install, and start experimenting with Clawdbot right away. (Find Cloudbot on Github.)

That said, downloading and setting up Cloudbot isn’t as easy as downloading a standard app or piece of software. You will need some technical knowledge to run Cloudbot on your device. There are also serious security and privacy considerations to consider. More on that in a second.

You can use Clawdbot on Mac, Windows, and Linux devices, and the Clawdbot website has installation instructions, system requirements, and tips.

Do not try Cloudbot without understanding the risks

Part of the reason why Clawdbot succeeds where other AI agents have failed is that it has full system access to your device. That means it can read and write files, run commands, run scripts, and control your browser.

Steinberger is clear about the fact that running a Cloudbot has some risks.

Using an AI agent with shell access to your machine… bitter,” reads the FAQ. “Clawdbot is a product and an experiment: it integrates the behavior of a frontier model into real messaging environments and real tools. There is no ‘perfectly secure’ setup.” (Emphasis in original.)

Users can access the Clawdbot security testing tool on Github, and the Clawdbot FAQ also has a helpful security section. A subsection titled “The Threat Model” notes that bad actors can “try to trick your AI into doing bad things” and “Social engineering access to your data.”