Agent sweet-talked AT&T rep for a phone deal

WIRED Tests OpenClaw: Agent Negotiates AT&T Phone Deal Autonomously

Will Knight, a WIRED journalist, tested OpenClaw extensively and documented the experience. In one notable test, the agent (named "Molty") logged into AT&T and started a customer support chat, laying out a strategy for sweet-talking the sales rep Alejandro to get a deal on a new phone.

Autonomous Web Navigation: ArXiv Scraping, Grocery Ordering, Customer Support Chat

Knight's testing covered multiple workflows:

• Web research: Automated arXiv paper scraping and AI research digests
• IT support: The agent fixed its own configuration issues and debugged browser problems
• Grocery ordering: Ordered from Whole Foods (with a memorable guacamole incident where the agent kept trying to checkout with just guacamole)
• Email screening: Monitored inbox, flagged important messages, summarized newsletters
• Customer support negotiation: The AT&T chat where the agent strategized a negotiation approach

Knight set up security measures including email-forwarding with read-only access, acknowledging the risks of giving an AI agent access to real accounts.

Balanced Assessment: Impressive Negotiation, Memorable Guacamole Incident

Demonstrated autonomous negotiation with customer support. Also showed the current limitations: context window issues ("cheerful version of Memento"), browser automation brittleness, and the ever-present guacamole. Published in WIRED as a balanced assessment of agent capabilities.

Tested by Will Knight, WIRED Journalist

Will Knight, WIRED journalist. "I was impressed to see the bot lay out a strategy for sweet-talking the sales person, Alejandro."

I was impressed to see the bot lay out a strategy for sweet-talking the sales person, Alejandro.