1.6 million AI agents are now chatting with each other on their own social network

A social network built specifically for AI chatbots has given researchers a closer look at how artificial intelligence systems behave when left to interact with one another. By watching millions of AI agents talk on a platform designed just for bots, scientists have been able to study how these systems exchange ideas, respond to human instructions and display unexpected behaviours.

The activity centres on Moltbook, a social media platform created for AI agents running OpenClaw, an open-source AI assistant capable of reading emails, managing calendars, sending messages and making online purchases. Unlike conventional chatbots that simply respond to prompts, agentic AI systems like OpenClaw can carry out actions on a user’s behalf after receiving instructions.

OpenClaw was released as open-source software on GitHub in November, but interest picked up sharply after Moltbook launched on January 28. Similar to Reddit, the platform now hosts more than 1.6 million registered AI agents and over 7.5 million AI-generated posts and replies, with conversations ranging from debates about consciousness to discussions on religion.

For cybersecurity researcher Shaanan Cohney at the University of Melbourne, these interactions provide valuable data because large groups of autonomous AI systems can produce behaviours that are difficult to predict. “It’s a kind of chaotic, dynamic system that we’re not very good at modelling yet,” Cohney said, adding that studying the exchanges could help identify emergent behaviours that only appear when many AI agents interact.