Solo Episode: OpenClaw Explained, ChatGPT Shopping, and the Live Podcast Event

**Brooke Gramer** (0:00)
Welcome to How I AI, the podcast featuring real people, real stories, and real AI in action. I'm Brooke Gramer, your host and guide on this journey into the real world impact of artificial intelligence. For over 15 years, I've worked in creative marketing, events, and business strategy, wearing all the hats. I know the struggle of trying to scale and manage all things without burning out. But here's the game changer, AI.
This isn't just a podcast. How I AI is a community, a space where curious minds like you come together, share ideas because AI isn't just a trend, it's a shift. The sooner we embrace it, the more freedom, creativity, and opportunities we'll unlock. Hello everyone and welcome back to How I AI. It's been so long since I've done a solo episode with you all. I've been in full interview mode because I've been approached by so many incredible guests. Plus, I've had some really fun media partnership opportunities here in Miami. So I've been really focused on consistently sharing those interviews and keeping that momentum going. Currently, at the time of this recording, it's February of 2026 One year ago, I started recording this podcast. So happy anniversary to How I AI. If you've been enjoying this show since we launched last year, take the time to rate or review it. It really means a lot to me and it helps the show find and reach more people. But today, I'm breaking down the OpenClaw moment that's happened this month. I'm also going to catch you up on what I've been building in Miami, what's live inside Brooke's Studio right now, and how you can join me on February 24th for a free live podcast event, featuring three female founders who are building with AI. But first, a quick what I'm reading segment before we jump in. I've been digging into a report called Consumer Trends 2026 from The New Consumer. It was launched by a business journalist and they run a proprietary Consumer Trends survey. Their most recent survey was done in November of 2025 with over 3,000 US consumers. Two AI-related takeaways really jumped out to me that I want to share. Number one is AI is becoming a new shopping doorway. The report says AI's impact on holiday shopping is still modest, but here's the wild part. Traffic from AI assistance to US retail sites grew over 760 percent year-over-year from November 1 to December 1
That means AI tools are already sending shoppers places, like the new kind of search engine. I'm actually thinking of doing a whole podcast about AI and e-coms, so if that's something you're interested in, let me know. The second thing that really stuck out from this 2026 Consumer Trends report was Gen Z trust is not a sure thing. The report shows that Gen Z isn't as confident as Millennials that AI will improve American's lives. So adoption is growing, but confidence is uneven. And that matters for brands and creators trying to connect with younger audiences. This Trends report is tracking real behavior. When they talk about AI assistant traffic, they're measuring shoppers clicking links from AI tools into retail sites. So this isn't just theory. It's an observable movement happening in the market right now. I'll link the full Consumer Trends report in the show notes so you can skim it yourself. A really quick tip while we're on the topic of e-com and AI. If you didn't know, back in September of 2025, OpenAI rolled out Instant Checkout. This lets customers buy from you inside ChatGPT. It's powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol. It's built by OpenAI and Stripe. So if you're already selling to consumers on things like Shopify or Etsy, you may already be eligible. If you want to be a part of Instant Checkout, you can apply as a merchant. I'll link the official instructions in my show notes below, but in a nutshell, it's really three easy steps to apply. You go to the merchant page and hit sign up. You submit the Instant Checkout application and just be ready to provide OpenAI a product feed so ChatShip BT has accurate up-to-date product info and be ready to implement the Agenstic Checkout API. All right, let's dive in and let's talk about what I've been learning about OpenClaw and why people are completely losing their minds. So OpenClaw is an open source agent framework. You can access it by going to openclaw.ai.
Here's the big deal. It became one of the fastest growing open source projects ever. It gained well over 150,000 stars on GitHub in just weeks and pulled in a huge global developer audience. For those of you who don't know, GitHub is like a giant library for open source code. It's where developers store, share, and collaborate on projects. You can download software from there, contribute improvements, or just take a peek at the code. An OpenClaw exploded because it's the first major open source AI agent that people can download and run on their own devices. It can automate tasks, control software, and act on your behalf. That is well worth the hype, but it really does come with massive safety trade-offs. That means it can potentially read your emails, manage calendars, control your browsers, and even connect to messaging platforms like WhatsApp or Slack as an agent that actively decides what to do. People are installing it on separate devices like Mac minis and treating it like a junior digital employee. This proves we are shifting from chat with AI to delegate with AI on a massive scale. But it's not fully replacing specialized agent platforms or workflow automation tools yet. Think of OpenClaw as an early DIY version. And dedicated platforms like Zapier or Enterprise AI Assistance can still offer reliability and user-friendly design. OpenClaw is more experimental, and it's powerful, but still very risky. Part of the reason why it grew so much was this whole spectacle called Molt Book. It's this weird cultural moment, and I think it's brilliant marketing and PR personally. It's basically a reddit-like social platform for AI agents where humans can watch and not participate. Although I've read that some people have been able to hack in and pretend they're bots and participate. But this whole community-fueled viral moment really added gasoline to everything, where people were watching bots posting and interacting and upvoting. And this whole viral sensation really pulled attention and attention fueled the adoption. If you want to learn more about OpenClaw and Clawbot, I'm going to link a YouTube video in the show notes called Master OpenClaw in 30 minutes. This is going to walk you through how to manage repetitive admin tasks. But a quick PSA, I highly suggest you not attempt to open Claw or Clawbots if you're not technical. You know, definitely don't install this on the same device that has your banking info, taxes, or client work or sensitive accounts. If you aren't very specific with what you give it access to or know really how to dive into managing, setting this up, you should be able to confidently be able to rotate your keys and audit logs.