If Google can’t make AI agents useful, maybe no one can

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. AI AIPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All AI Report ReportPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Report Tech TechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

FollowSee All TechIf Google can’t make AI agents useful, maybe no one canGoogle has been working on agentic AI for years. Building on the viral success of OpenClaw could finally tip the scales. by Hayden Field Hayden FieldSenior AI ReporterPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

Technical Details

FollowSee All by Hayden FieldMay 20, 2026, 1:24 PM UTC Image: The Verge; Getty Images AI AIPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All AI Report ReportPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Report Tech TechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

FollowSee All TechIf Google can’t make AI agents useful, maybe no one canGoogle has been working on agentic AI for years. Building on the viral success of OpenClaw could finally tip the scales. by Hayden Field Hayden FieldSenior AI ReporterPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

FollowSee All by Hayden FieldMay 20, 2026, 1:24 PM UTC Part OfGoogle I/O 2026: All the news and announcementssee all updates Hayden Field Hayden FieldPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Hayden Field is The Verge’s senior AI reporter. An AI beat reporter for more than five years, her work has also appeared in CNBC, MIT Technology Review, Wired UK, and other outlets.

Industry Implications

For years, tech companies have promised AI will give everyone a capable personal assistant but delivered something more like a clueless intern. Over the past six months, that has started to change, thanks largely to the viral open-source AI agent platform OpenClaw. And among the top AI labs now chasing similar success, one seems particularly well-poised to make agents succeed at a large scale: Google.

At I/O 2026, Google announced new AI agents for gathering information, planning events, summarizing your inbox and calendar, and more. The agents can run continuously in the background, and the company claims they’ll seamlessly integrate into Google’s own tools and external ones. It’s also expanding its developer tools and revamping Search with additional generative AI capabilities.

Some are rolling out this week, and some will be available in the coming months, but the company’s strategy seems clear: adopt some of the features that have helped fuel OpenClaw’s success and amplify them with Google’s deep knowledge of our digital presence.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.