Meta, Google enter AI agent race as ‘agentic wars’ heat up

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Earlier this year, agentic AI tool OpenClaw went viral and everyone and their grandmas were queuing up to get the digital assistant downloaded on their devices. 

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang was effusive with praise, calling the tool the “next ChatGPT,” and OpenAI snapped up OpenClaw’s creator Peter Steinberger (a sign of the AI lab’s own intent in the space).

A few months on and the race to develop agentic tech — AI tools which can perform tasks for users — is beginning to heat up among Big Tech. 

In the past week, both Meta and Google have been reported to be working on AI agents. Meta is building a “highly personalised AI assistant to carry out everyday tasks” for its users, the Financial Times reported. Google is developing a “24/7 personal agent for work, school and daily life, powered by Gemini,” according to Business Insider.

Meta did not respond to a request for comment and Google declined to comment. 

“The immediate catalyst is OpenClaw,” Nick Patience, AI lead at the Futurum Group, told CNBC. “The open source agent demonstrated a genuine appetite for AI that acts rather than just gives answers.”

Competitive pressure is the visible driver, but there’s a “deeper logic,” he added. “Agents represent the point at which AI platforms shift from cost centres to revenue infrastructure, whether through commerce, advertising or enterprise productivity.” 

For tech companies like Google and Meta, which both have large advertising and ecommerce businesses, agents that conduct transactions could be a “major value driver,” said Malik Ahmed Khan, senior analyst at Morningstar. 

Ultimately, Big Tech companies see AI agents as a way to boost user subscriptions and retain platform control, Gartner Analyst Arun Chandrasekaran told me.

“Agents can create more engagement, utility and lock-in customers on their platforms due to the ability to deliver more tangible value,” he said. “Also, agents have higher stickiness due to the continuing learning and user context they gain over a period.”

But security and governance around AI agents is still a work in progress. In February, a Meta employee went viral after posting about OpenClaw deleting a large amount of emails of its own volition. 

Then there’s the trust problem and how enterprises can manage the risk of an AI agent doing the wrong thing.

“The shift from AI systems that say the wrong thing to AI systems that do the wrong thing is a qualitatively different risk management challenge,” said Patience. “Most enterprises, and arguably most vendors, aren’t yet equipped to handle it at scale.”

Regardless, AI agents are set to continue to dominate analyst chat. AMD CEO Lisa Su told CNBC earlier this week that agents were driving huge demand in the AI cycle. 

“Agentic development is not a side project; it is the theme of their 2026 roadmaps and represents a pivot from search to action,” said Craig Le Clair, principal analyst at Forrester.

Competition between Big Tech, frontier model companies, incumbent software vendors and new startups is only going to ramp up as companies race to build out money-making AI tools, Arjun Bhatia, co-head of tech equity research at William Blair, told me.

“The agentic wars are well under way,” he added.

SoftBank recorded it’s best day since 2020 earlier this week, with shares soaring 18%, amid a broader tech-fueled rally that saw Japan’s Nikkei 225 surge to record highs. The company’s gains were amplified by its close ties to Arm and AI lab OpenAI, said one commentator.