Local AI, Agentic Experiments, and Blown Minds

To learn more about Local AI topics, check out related posts in the Local AI Series 

AI Disclaimer I love exploring new technology, and that includes using AI to help with research and editing! My digital “team” includes tools like Google Gemini, Notebook LM, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity.ai, Claude.ai, and others as needed. They help me gather insights and polish content—so you get the best, most up-to-date information possible.

This blog post discusses the author’s journey into the world of local AI and agentic experiments. Starting with “vibe coding” and coding agents last year, the author then discovered AgentZero, a local, self-contained AI agent in a Docker container, which allowed for cloud-independent experimentation. In January, the author moved on to ClawdBot (now OpenClaw), another local AI tool that, unlike AgentZero, can fully interact with the device it runs on. This capability, combined with real-world integrations like Gmail and WhatsApp, proved to be a “fascinating and slightly unsettling” experience. The author promises a deeper dive into local-first AI, autonomy, and agent access in a future post.

Last year, I spent a lot of time in the world of vibe coding and coding agents — Claude Code, Cursor, Kilo, and several others. It felt like the tooling itself was evolving week by week, and the way we work with code was quietly but fundamentally shifting.

Then last November, during the holidays, I stumbled across AgentZero.

AgentZero is a local, self-contained AI agent packaged neatly inside a Docker container. Everything you need, running on your own machine. No cloud dependency maze — just spin it up and start experimenting with agentic workflows. I was hooked almost immediately. It genuinely felt like standing at the front edge of a wave that hadn’t fully broken yet.

In January, I went a step further and began exploring what was then called ClawdBot — and this was a very different experience.

ClawdBot (now OpenClaw) is also a local AI tool, but instead of being neatly boxed in, it’s free to fully interact with the device it runs on. That difference changes everything. I created a fresh Gmail account, connected WhatsApp, and started playing. Watching a local agent operate with real-world integrations was equal parts fascinating and slightly unsettling — in the best possible way.

Fast-forward to today, and ClawdBot is now OpenClaw and… WOW. Just WOW.

Mind Blown! But I’m not sure I have much more cerebral material left to blow.

There’s a lot more to unpack here — especially around local-first AI, autonomy, and what it means to give agents real access to tools and environments — so a deeper post is coming soon.

For now, I just wanted to share what I’ve been nerding out on in my spare time lately.