What are claws? The next AI term you’ll need to know.
Source: Mashable Tech
By Alex Perry – Tech Reporter
Published on February 24, 2026
Alex Perry is a tech reporter at Mashable who primarily covers video games and consumer tech. Over the past decade he’s reviewed games, smartphones, headphones, and laptops—and he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. He’s a Pisces, a cat lover, a Kansas City sports fan, and can be found on Bluesky at yelix.bsky.social.
Credit: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
It seems like every week or two there’s a new AI buzzword flying around the internet. This week, it’s “claws,” a fresh type of AI assistant.
Many people—from prominent AI evangelists to regular folks on message boards—have started using the term in recent weeks, which can feel pretty alienating if you aren’t totally plugged into the AI ecosystem. To fully understand claws, you need to be familiar with:
- OpenClaw (aka Clawdbot)
- Agentic AI
- A few other recent AI trends
So, let us give you a basic breakdown of what claws are and why everyone is talking about them.
What Are “Claws”? – A Simple Explanation
A claw (in this context) is a special type of open‑source AI personal assistant that runs locally on a device—often a Mac Mini. By granting it access to your calendar, email, coding tools, web browsers, AI models, and more, your “claw” can autonomously perform tasks on your behalf:
- Answer emails and schedule meetings.
- Write code for a new app while you sleep (by connecting it to your ChatGPT or Claude account).
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Recently, AI researcher Andrej Karpathy posted a mini‑essay on X about “tinkering with claws.” Karpathy is the person who helped coin the term “vibe coding” — the AI buzzword of 2025. When he throws around new AI lingo, the community takes notice.
“It’s become popular to run claws locally on a Mac Mini, Apple’s very powerful little desktop computer. However, you can run them on other devices; Raspberry Pi boards are a popular alternative.”
Where Does the Term Come From?
The name is a direct reference to Clawdbot, an open‑source AI assistant with read‑level access to a user’s device.
- Clawdbot recently rebranded to OpenClaw to avoid Anthropic’s crosshairs.
- Its inventor was later hired by OpenAI (read more).
In Karpathy’s post he also lists several OpenClaw alternatives:
- NanoClaw
- ZeroClaw
- IronClaw
- …and more
These agentic AI assistants are now one of the hottest movements in AI.
TL;DR
Claws are locally‑run, open‑source AI assistants that can automate personal and professional tasks. They’re especially popular on Mac Mini (or Raspberry Pi) devices, and a growing ecosystem of variants is emerging. If you’re curious, give one a try—otherwise, you’ll be just fine.
About the Author
Alex Perry – Tech Reporter at Mashable
- Covers video games and consumer tech.
- A Pisces, cat lover, and Kansas City sports fan.
- Find him on Bluesky: yelix.bsky.social
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