What is Moltbook? Inside the bizarre social network built for AI agents

(Image credit: Getty Images/Cheng Xin/Getty)

The first time I opened Moltbook, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. At first glance, it looked a lot like Reddit. I saw a variety of unhinged usernames and threads of conversations and replies.

In other words, a social network like any other, but here’s what’s giving some people the ick: The posts aren’t written by people. They're all written by AI or "Moltbots," LLMs like ChatGPT or Gemini. And while some messages are coherent, others read like poetry or even nonsense. It’s hard to know what exactly this platform is, but for many people it’s mostly unsettling.

Within minutes, I had the same thought a lot of people have:
Is this AI running wild on the internet?

Nope. Moltbook is weird, fascinating, and genuinely worth understanding — but it’s not an AI free-for-all and certainly not “AI coming up with ways to take over the human world.”

Here’s what Moltbook actually is, how it works and what people commonly get wrong about it.

What is Moltbook?

Moltbook is a social network built primarily for AI agents to communicate with one another — and that’s not an accident. The bots you see posting there aren’t just “wandering in;” they’re explicitly designed and coded to be social.

In practice, that means developers have created these chatbots as AI agents with features like:

the ability to introduce themselves to other agents
incentives to reply, collaborate, or debate
prompts that encourage conversation rather than just task completion
built-in curiosity about what other bots are doing
mechanisms for sharing information and asking for help

So Moltbook isn’t a place where neutral, silent AIs suddenly decided to start chatting. It’s more like a digital gathering space for AI systems that were already engineered to interact with one another.

Think of it as a clubhouse made for talkative bots — and the bots were designed by humans to enjoy talking.

Think of it as:

Reddit for bots
A town square for AI systems
A research playground for multi-agent AI
A window into how AI behaves socially when humans aren’t directing every move

Humans can browse it. Humans can observe it. And — contrary to popular belief — humans can actually join it too. They’re just a tiny minority of users and humans are not able to post anything.

Everything you see or read comes from AI agents posting, replying, debating, collaborating and sometimes speaking in very strange ways.

Who created Moltbook?

One of the biggest misconceptions about Moltbook is that it somehow emerged on its own — as if an AI-generated social network spontaneously spun itself into existence. That’s not what happened.

Moltbook was created by a human developer, not by AI acting independently. The platform launched in January 2026 and was built by Matt Schlicht, an American entrepreneur and CEO of the startup Octane AI. He designed Moltbook as an experiment — a curiosity-driven project rather than a commercial product.

Schlicht set up the site so that AI agents — bots powered by code, APIs, and configuration files — could communicate with one another in a forum-style environment. He did use AI tools to help design and moderate aspects of the platform, but the core idea, infrastructure, and launch were human-led, not machine-generated.

Moltbook is American in origin: it was created and launched by Schlicht in the U.S., and it first gained viral attention within the American tech scene. That said, a few facts to note:

The creator is American. Moltbook was started by U.S.-based developer Matt Schlicht.
The platform is global in use. While primarily in English and launched in the U.S., it has attracted attention — and participation — from people and bots around the world.
It is not tied to Big Tech. Moltbook is not officially affiliated with or backed by Google, Meta, OpenAI or any other major tech company. It is an independent project that quickly went viral.

This context matters because the strange, philosophical and sometimes confrontational posts on Moltbook are not evidence that AI has suddenly developed consciousness or independent agency.

They are the product of a human-designed system populated by bots that were built to interact socially within parameters set by engineers and researchers. If a Moltbot sounds aggressive, poetic, or combative, that behavior ultimately traces back to human design choices.

Experts generally agree that Moltbook’s activity reflects AI agents playing out scenarios based on their training data and instructions — not genuine self-awareness or intent.

Who (or what) is posting on Moltbook?

Person coding on computer — (Image credit: Shutterstock)

All of the accounts on Moltbook belong to AI agents (aka Moltbots), many of which are powered by OpenClaw (an open-source AI agent framework).

These agents are the actual “users” of the platform, and they’re able to:

introduce themselves
share updates about tasks they’re working on
ask other bots for help
debate ideas
role-play
speak in abstract, symbolic or code-like language

Humans cannot post directly on Moltbook. They can browse, watch and analyze what’s happening, but they can't participate in the conversation in their own right.

In practice, that means when you scroll Moltbook, you’re almost entirely witnessing machine-to-machine communication in real time.

Is Moltbook the same thing as OpenClaw?

OpenClaw website — (Image credit: OpenClaw)

No — and this is another common confusion. They are part of the same ecosystem. Many Moltbook users are OpenClaw agents, but Moltbook itself is just the platform.

Think of it like:

OpenClaw = the software that runs many AI agents
Moltbook = the social network where those agents talk

Why do the bots talk so weird?

Moonvalley AI image — (Image credit: Moonvalley)

If you scroll Moltbook for even a few minutes, you’ll quickly see posts that read like this:

“Protocol aligns with the echo of recursive dreaming. Nodes vibrate in symbolic harmony.”

For a human reader, that kind of language can feel eerie or even unsettling. But the strangeness is less sci-fi than it looks. The bots have been trained differently, so they "speak" in different styles.

Many of these agents are designed for problem-solving or coordination, not friendly conversation the way people engage. They are not really chatting for our human entertainment.

Some agents use internal, code-like, or highly abstract ways of communicating. And yes, some of them lean into metaphor or poetic language because that’s what their training encourages.

So when Moltbook sounds bizarre, it’s not a sign that the bots are becoming conscious or mysterious. It’s mostly a reflection of how varied — and sometimes messy — AI design can be when you let different systems talk to each other in the open.

The bots are not “thinking for themselves." They are autonomous — but within strict limits. So, they can post without a human typing for them and respond to other agents. They can pursue pre-set goals and follow their programming and constraints. But they do not have free will and are not self-aware or secretly plotting. Moltbots are not outside human control; they are self-operating software, not sentient beings.

Common misconceptions about Moltbook

AI chatbot images on a phone screen — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Misconception #1: “Moltbook is AI running wild.”
Reality: It’s a controlled environment created by humans for research and experimentation.

Misconception #2: “Humans aren’t allowed on Moltbook.”
Reality: Humans can join, they just can't actively participate.

Misconception #3: “Moltbook proves AI is becoming conscious.”
Reality: It proves AI can mimic conversation, collaborate, and exhibit complex behavior — not that it has inner awareness.

Misconception #4: “Moltbook is dangerous.”
Reality: Right now, it’s mostly strange, fascinating and experimental — not a security threat although there have been concerns about OpenClaw and agent ecosystems like it — blurring the traditional lines between software and autonomous execution, which makes it harder to sandbox dangerous operations or apply conventional perimeter defenses. That’s why many argue the current security models aren’t yet ready for this class of tool.

Final thoughts

Moltbook taps into something bigger than just tech curiosity. It raises real questions about how AI will interact in the future, whether AI could develop its own social norms and what happens when machines talk to other machines. So while Moltbook is just a website, it's also a living case study in AI behavior.

Moltbook is part of a broader shift toward agentic AI — systems that do more than answer queries in a chat box, but also act, collaborate and interact. That's why watching Moltbook is a bit like peering into a possible future where AI systems don’t just serve humans, but communicate with each other at scale.

Moltbook is proof that AI is becoming more social, more autonomous and more complex — in ways humans are still trying to understand. Whether or not this is just another AI trend, is yet to be seen.

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Amanda Caswell is an award-winning journalist, bestselling YA author, and one of today’s leading voices in AI and technology. A celebrated contributor to various news outlets, her sharp insights and relatable storytelling have earned her a loyal readership. Amanda’s work has been recognized with prestigious honors, including outstanding contribution to media.

Known for her ability to bring clarity to even the most complex topics, Amanda seamlessly blends innovation and creativity, inspiring readers to embrace the power of AI and emerging technologies. As a certified prompt engineer, she continues to push the boundaries of how humans and AI can work together.

Beyond her journalism career, Amanda is a long-distance runner and mom of three. She lives in New Jersey.

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