Yep, we’re using OpenClaw to date now

Ben Guez has “a bunch of potential international women inside [his] DMs”, thanks to an automated script he set up using OpenClaw, Claude code and trial roles on Instagram.

“I think it’s crazy, like the potential is insane right now,” Gueza content creator and startup founder, told TechCrunch. “I’m not sure everyone will like it, but I mean, it works.”

How can Guez woo so many women? First, he uses the open source AI agent OpenClaw to track the results of World Cup matches. After each game, OpenClaw triggers Claude to create and post a nearly identical Instagram.test rollusing the same template. In the video, Guez stares dejectedly out the window of a train car, with the caption: “I can’t believe {COUNTRY} is lost… If girls from {COUNTRY} need emotional support… my DMs are open.”

Guez has posted the same message, minus the country name, more than a dozen times. But you won’t see that when you look at their profile, because trial reels don’t appear on a creator’s public page. Since launching this automation, Guez has received over a million views and 200 DMs in just a few days. That volume is even more impressive considering that Guez says in his profile that he will only answer DMs sent through him Canaryits AI language learning app, which means these women need to download his app.

You have to hand it to him: Guez really takes ‘work smarter, not harder’ to another level. But once these women realize that he actually doesn’t care about Tunisian football, wouldn’t they feel played?

“They’re not angry, they’re more impressed, like, ‘Oh, you’re thinking outside the box, you’re a genius,’” Guez said. ‘I think as long as you’re open [about] what you’re doing, I think it’s good.

TechCrunch was unable to independently verify these women’s actual responses, so we’ll have to take Guez at his word. But we can tell you that Guez isn’t the only one getting creative with the viral AI assistant. While Guez’s methods are a bit more outrageous, other people see OpenClaw as a way to streamline the process of setting dates.

Jeff Weisbeinfounder of a tech PR firm, uses OpenClaw to help him figure out where to go on dates in different South Florida neighborhoods.

“I meet women from different parts of South Florida, so I don’t know all the restaurants or things to do,” Weisbein told TechCrunch. “I just let my bot do all the research and create a document with links to why it’s a choice for whatever type of date it is.”

When I tell him about Guez’s OpenClaw plan, he bursts out laughing.

“I don’t think I’m using OpenClaw to its full potential,” he said. “But certainly in terms of using OpenClaw to facilitate a task that I would otherwise have to do manually.”

Like Guez, Weisbein doesn’t hide the fact that he uses AI tools to plan dates (though it backfired when a woman told him, “I hate AI agents”). In some ways, asking OpenClaw where to go for happy hour in Fort Lauderdale isn’t that different from Googling the coolest neighborhood bars, but Weisbein says he’d draw the line at using AI to mediate his actual conversations with women.

“I’ve seen people create bots and ways to swipe using OpenClaw, and I wouldn’t do that. They say it’s a numbers game, but if that’s what it takes… that seems like a pretty terrible way to do it,” he said. “I don’t think you should delegate your communication to AI when you’re in a relationship with someone.”

People seem reluctant to let AI get involved once there’s an actual connection, but a tech worker named Cailey said that once she’s decided to end a flirtation, she doesn’t mind using Claude to break things up.

“I started using Claude and created an automation that creates ‘I don’t want to see you anymore’ messages based on a few key terms I entered about the date. Then they were automatically sent to me at random times so I didn’t have to worry about when to send them,” she told TechCrunch. “It worked really well until I told someone I was on a date with, who I then had to send an automated message to, and he asked if he was speaking to Claude or Cailey.”

What’s worse: being ghosted, or being broken by an AI?

OpenClaw rocked the tech world with its potential when it went viral this spring, but security advocates have continually warned users about the dangers of giving an AI assistant unilateral control over all your accounts.

For Lazer Cohen, the co-founder of the security-focused OpenClaw alternative Nanoclawthere are steep privacy implications associated with outsourcing personal relationships to AI, even if his company advertises date scheduling as a possible use case on X.

“Any time you give an agent access to personal information and accounts, you need human approval,” Cohen told TechCrunch. “We’ve all heard the stories of OpenClaw creating dating profiles for people without their knowledge or consent, or OpenClaw dating coaches telling other groups that they are also being used as dating coaches.”

NanoClaw has found its way into Cohen’s love life, though he uses it in a way that’s a little healthier than mass-produced reels that heartbroken football fans ask to slide into his DMs.

“My wife and I personally use our NanoClaw assistant, Rosie, to manage our five children’s schedules,” he said. “But ‘claws’ are widely used to help couples reach the child-rearing stage.”