Introducing OpenClaw: The AI-Powered Communication Engine Behind Dew
Your AI assistant now speaks every channel. WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Twitter, Messenger, Discord, Slack -- all from a single command.
Key Takeaways
- OpenClaw is Dewx's multi-channel communication engine that powers Dew, your AI assistant, to send messages across 7+ platforms from one conversation.
- No per-account API fees. OpenClaw replaces expensive third-party messaging APIs with a dedicated VPS architecture that costs a flat $4/month per user.
- WhatsApp without the Business API. OpenClaw uses Baileys, a native WhatsApp Web library, so you get full WhatsApp messaging without Meta's approval process or per-conversation charges.
- Built-in browser automation. Navigate websites, take screenshots, scrape content, fill forms, and export PDFs -- all from a headless Chrome instance running on your isolated VPS.
- AI auto-reply across all channels. Configure smart, confidence-filtered auto-responses with business hours, custom prompts, and contact exclusion lists.
- Task scheduling with cron. Automate follow-ups, daily reports, and recurring tasks with natural language or cron expressions.
- Complete data isolation. Each user gets their own VPS instance -- your conversations, browser sessions, and credentials never share infrastructure with anyone else.
The Problem: Multi-Channel Messaging Is Broken for Small Businesses
If you run a small or medium-sized business, you already know the pain. Your customers reach out on WhatsApp. Your prospects reply on Instagram. Your team communicates on Slack. Your partners prefer Telegram. And somewhere in between, there is a Twitter DM you forgot to check three days ago.
According to Salesforce's State of the Connected Customer report, 76% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments and channels. Yet most SMBs manage their communications with a patchwork of apps, tabs, and browser windows.
The existing solutions are not much better. Third-party messaging APIs like Twilio and Unipile charge per-account fees that add up fast. WhatsApp's official Business API requires Meta's approval and charges per conversation. Instagram and Twitter do not even offer free DM APIs for small businesses.
We built OpenClaw to solve this. It is the infrastructure layer that makes Dew, your AI assistant, capable of reaching anyone, on any platform, from a single conversation.
What Is OpenClaw?
OpenClaw is Dewx's AI-powered multi-channel communication engine. It is not a product you interact with directly. Instead, it is the backbone that powers every messaging, browsing, and automation capability inside Dew.
When you tell Dew "send a WhatsApp message to John about the invoice," OpenClaw is the system that:
- Looks up John in your CRM
- Determines that WhatsApp is the best channel to reach him
- Routes the message through your dedicated VPS
- Delivers it via WhatsApp Web
- Logs the conversation in your unified inbox
You never see OpenClaw. You never configure it. You just talk to Dew, and OpenClaw makes it happen.
7 Messaging Platforms, One AI Command
OpenClaw connects to seven messaging platforms, each integrated through the most efficient method available.
WhatsApp -- Native Protocol, Zero API Fees
OpenClaw's WhatsApp integration uses Baileys, a native WhatsApp Web library that speaks the WhatsApp protocol directly. This is the same technology that powers WhatsApp Web in your browser, but running on your dedicated VPS.
Why this matters for your business:
- No Meta Business API approval required. You connect by scanning a QR code, the same way you set up WhatsApp Web on your desktop.
- No per-conversation charges. The WhatsApp Business API charges $0.05-$0.16 per business-initiated conversation. With OpenClaw, every message is free after your flat infrastructure cost.
- Full message support. Send text, images, videos, and documents. Receive messages in real time via WebSocket events.
For a business sending 500 WhatsApp messages per month, the WhatsApp Business API costs approximately $25-$80 in conversation fees alone. OpenClaw's flat-rate VPS model eliminates that entirely.
Connect your WhatsApp account to Dewx
Telegram -- Fast, Reliable Bot Integration
OpenClaw integrates with Telegram through the grammY library, a modern, TypeScript-first framework for building Telegram bots. Your Telegram bot runs on your dedicated VPS, providing:
- Direct message sending to any Telegram user or group
- Real-time message reception
- Full media support (photos, documents, voice messages)
Instagram DMs -- Browser Automation, No API Limitations
Instagram's official API does not support DMs for most businesses. OpenClaw bypasses this limitation entirely by using Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) browser automation on your VPS.
Here is what that means in practice: OpenClaw runs a headless Chrome browser on your VPS, logs into your Instagram account, and automates DM interactions through the actual Instagram web interface. It can:
- Send direct messages to any Instagram user
- Follow accounts and like posts
- Comment on posts
- Fetch your DM conversations
This is the same approach used by enterprise social media management platforms, but running on your own isolated infrastructure.
Twitter/X DMs -- Full Automation Without Premium API
Twitter's API pricing has made DM automation prohibitively expensive for small businesses. The Basic tier ($100/month) severely limits DM access, and the Pro tier ($5,000/month) is out of reach for most SMBs.
OpenClaw uses the same CDP browser automation approach as Instagram:
- Send and receive DMs
- Follow accounts and like tweets
- Retweet content
- All without paying for Twitter's API tiers
Facebook Messenger -- Browser-Based, Fully Automated
Like Instagram and Twitter, OpenClaw handles Messenger through browser automation. Send messages, fetch conversations, and manage your Messenger inbox -- all from a single Dew command.
Discord -- Bot Integration
OpenClaw connects to Discord through bot integration, allowing Dew to:
- Send messages to any channel in your Discord servers
- Monitor and respond to incoming messages
- Manage multiple server connections
Slack -- Workspace Integration
For internal team communication, OpenClaw integrates with Slack via bot integration:
- Send messages to any channel or direct message
- Monitor conversations across your workspace
- Automate team notifications and updates
Browser Automation: Your AI Gets Its Own Web Browser
OpenClaw does not just send messages. It gives Dew a fully functional web browser running on your VPS, powered by headless Chrome and the Chrome DevTools Protocol.
This is one of the most powerful capabilities in the Dewx platform. You can tell Dew to:
Navigate and research:
- "Go to competitor.com and tell me what their pricing looks like"
- "Take a screenshot of our landing page"
- "Scrape the content from this blog post"
Interact with web pages:
- "Fill out this contact form with our company details"
- "Click the download button on that page"
- "Extract all the links from this webpage"
Export and archive:
- "Save this webpage as a PDF"
- "Take a screenshot of that dashboard for our Monday review"
Every browser action runs on your dedicated VPS with its own Xvfb virtual display. Your browsing sessions are completely isolated -- no shared infrastructure, no shared cookies, no data leakage.
Real-World Use Cases
Competitive intelligence: Ask Dew to visit competitor websites, scrape their pricing pages, and compile a comparison report. Schedule this as a weekly task and get automatic updates when pricing changes.
Lead research: Before a sales call, ask Dew to visit a prospect's website, take screenshots of their product, and summarize their About page. All of this happens in seconds.
Content monitoring: Have Dew periodically check industry news sites, extract relevant articles, and send you a summary via WhatsApp every morning.
Web Intelligence: Real-Time Search and Content Analysis
Beyond browser automation, OpenClaw provides web intelligence capabilities through real-time search integration powered by Brave Search.
Tell Dew things like:
- "Search the web for the latest trends in B2B SaaS pricing"
- "Find information about [Company Name] and their recent funding"
- "Look up competitor reviews on G2"
OpenClaw's web intelligence returns structured search results with titles, URLs, and snippets. Dew can then follow up by fetching the full content of any URL, giving you detailed information without leaving your conversation.
This is not just a web search wrapper. It is an integrated research tool that combines search, content extraction, and AI analysis in a single workflow. Ask a question, get search results, deep-dive into specific pages, and receive a synthesized answer -- all in one conversation with Dew.
Task Scheduling: Automate Recurring Work
OpenClaw includes a built-in task scheduling engine that supports both one-time and recurring tasks using standard cron expressions.
What you can schedule:
- Daily reports: "Every morning at 9am, search for news about our industry and send me a summary on WhatsApp"
- Follow-up reminders: "In 3 days, remind me to follow up with Sarah about the proposal"
- Recurring outreach: "Every Monday at 10am, send a weekly update to our Discord channel"
- Competitive monitoring: "Every week, take a screenshot of competitor.com/pricing and compare it to last week"
How scheduling works:
You tell Dew what you want to automate, and OpenClaw translates that into a cron job running on your VPS. Each job specifies:
- A schedule (one-time timestamp or cron expression like
0 9 * * *for "every day at 9am") - An action (any OpenClaw method -- send a message, search the web, take a screenshot)
- An optional channel and target (where to deliver the results)
You can list, modify, and delete scheduled jobs at any time through Dew. Your automation runs reliably on your dedicated VPS, independent of whether the Dewx web app is open.
AI Auto-Reply: Smart Responses Across All Channels
OpenClaw's auto-reply engine is one of its most valuable features for businesses that receive high volumes of incoming messages. It provides configurable, AI-generated responses across all connected messaging channels.
How Auto-Reply Works
When a message arrives on any connected channel, OpenClaw runs through a decision pipeline:
- Is auto-reply enabled? Each organization can toggle auto-reply on or off.
- Is this channel enabled? You can enable auto-reply for WhatsApp only, or for all channels, or any combination.
- Are we within business hours? Configure start time, end time, and timezone. Outside business hours, auto-reply stays silent or sends a different response.
- Is this contact excluded? Maintain an exclusion list for contacts you always want to handle personally (key accounts, VIP customers, etc.).
- Generate the reply. OpenClaw's AI generates a contextual response based on the incoming message and your custom system prompt.
- Does it meet the confidence threshold? Each generated reply includes a confidence score. If the score falls below your configured threshold (default: 0.60), the reply is not sent, and the message is flagged for manual review.
- Send the reply. If all checks pass, the reply is delivered through the same channel the message arrived on.
Configuration Options
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Enabled channels | Which platforms auto-reply is active on | None (opt-in) |
| Business hours | Start time, end time, and timezone | 9:00-17:00 UTC |
| Confidence threshold | Minimum AI confidence to send a reply | 0.60 |
| Custom system prompt | Instructions that guide the AI's tone, knowledge, and behavior | Generic helpful assistant |
| Excluded contacts | Contacts that always bypass auto-reply | Empty |
Why Confidence Thresholds Matter
Not every incoming message should get an automated response. A customer asking "What are your business hours?" is a great candidate for auto-reply. A customer saying "I want to cancel my contract" is not.
OpenClaw's confidence threshold ensures that only messages the AI is genuinely confident about get automated responses. Everything else gets routed to your unified inbox for human review.
According to Intercom's Customer Service Trends Report, 69% of customers prefer chatbot interactions for quick questions, but 86% want the option to escalate to a human. OpenClaw's confidence filtering gives you both: fast automated responses for simple queries, and human routing for everything else.
Per-User VPS Architecture: Privacy by Design
This is the technical foundation that makes OpenClaw fundamentally different from every other multi-channel messaging solution on the market.
One User, One VPS
When you connect your first messaging account to Dewx, OpenClaw automatically provisions a dedicated virtual private server (VPS) for you. This is not a container on a shared machine. It is an isolated server instance running on Hetzner's infrastructure.
What runs on your VPS:
- Your WhatsApp Web session (via Baileys)
- Your Telegram bot
- Your browser automation sessions (Chrome + Xvfb)
- Your scheduled tasks (cron jobs)
- Your AI chat sessions
What does NOT run on your VPS:
- Anyone else's sessions
- Shared credentials
- Shared browser state
- Shared message logs
Auto-Provisioning
You never have to think about VPS management. When you first interact with a feature that requires OpenClaw, the system:
- Detects that you have no VPS assigned
- Sends a provisioning request to the platform service
- Spins up a new VPS instance (typically under 3 minutes)
- Installs the OpenClaw Gateway software
- Establishes a persistent WebSocket connection
- Reports "ready" status
From that point on, every Dew command that uses OpenClaw routes through your dedicated VPS automatically. If the connection drops, OpenClaw reconnects within 5 seconds.
Cost Advantage
Traditional multi-channel messaging stacks can cost a small fortune:
| Service | Monthly Cost | What You Get |
|---|---|---|
| WhatsApp Business API (via BSP) | $50-$200+ | WhatsApp only, per-conversation fees |
| Unipile | $99-$299 | Multi-channel, per-account fees |
| Twitter API Pro | $5,000 | Twitter DMs + other endpoints |
| Instagram Graph API (via Meta) | Free but limited | No DM support for most apps |
OpenClaw's cost: $4/month per user. That flat rate covers all 7 channels, browser automation, web search, task scheduling, and AI auto-reply. No per-message fees. No per-account fees. No surprise charges.
For a 5-person team, that is $20/month for complete multi-channel communication infrastructure, versus hundreds or thousands with traditional API stacks.
Session Management: Isolated AI Conversations
OpenClaw's session management system lets Dew maintain multiple independent AI conversation threads, each with its own context, system prompt, and conversation history.
Use cases for sessions:
- Project-specific assistants: Spawn a session with a system prompt tailored to a specific project or client, and it retains context across interactions.
- Research threads: Start a research session, ask multiple follow-up questions, and the AI remembers the full conversation.
- Role-specific prompts: Create sessions with different personas -- a sales assistant, a support agent, a content writer -- each with their own instructions.
Sessions are created implicitly when Dew sends the first message with a new session key. You can list all active sessions, review their history, and delete them when they are no longer needed.
How It All Connects: The Architecture
For those interested in the technical details, here is how OpenClaw fits into the Dewx platform:
You (Dewx UI)
|
v
Dew (AI Assistant, port 4010)
|
| "Send a WhatsApp to John"
v
OpenClaw Bridge (Integrations Service, port 4009)
|
| WebSocket (Protocol v3)
v
OpenClaw Gateway (Your VPS, ws://your-ip:18789)
|
+---> Baileys (WhatsApp)
+---> grammY (Telegram)
+---> Chrome CDP (Instagram, Twitter, Messenger)
+---> Discord Bot
+---> Slack Bot
+---> Cron Scheduler
+---> Brave Search
The OpenClaw Bridge maintains persistent WebSocket connections to each user's VPS. Commands flow from Dew through the bridge to the gateway using a structured request/response protocol. Events (incoming messages, status changes) flow back from the gateway through the bridge and into Dewx's event system.
The protocol uses a simple frame format:
- Requests:
{type: "req", id: "req-123", method: "send", params: {...}} - Responses:
{type: "res", id: "req-123", ok: true, payload: {...}} - Events:
{type: "event", event: "message.received", payload: {...}}
This architecture ensures that a failure in one user's VPS never affects another user. If your VPS goes down, only your sessions are interrupted -- and OpenClaw automatically reconnects when the VPS comes back online.
Real-World Scenarios
Scenario 1: Morning Briefing Automation
You say: "Dew, every weekday at 8:30am, search for news about [my industry], summarize the top 5 stories, and send the summary to my WhatsApp."
What OpenClaw does:
- Creates a cron job with schedule
30 8 * * 1-5 - Each morning, runs a web search via Brave Search
- Fetches and reads the top results
- Sends the AI-generated summary via WhatsApp to your number
Scenario 2: Multi-Channel Customer Follow-Up
You say: "Message Sarah about the proposal we discussed last week."
What OpenClaw does:
- Looks up Sarah in your CRM
- Finds she has a phone number and Instagram username on file
- Checks which channels are currently connected
- Determines WhatsApp is the best available channel
- Sends the message via your WhatsApp session
Scenario 3: Competitive Analysis
You say: "Take a screenshot of competitor.com/pricing and compare it to what we saw last month."
What OpenClaw does:
- Navigates headless Chrome to the URL
- Takes a full-page screenshot
- Returns the image to Dew for analysis
- Dew compares it to the previous screenshot stored in your session history
Frequently Asked Questions
Is OpenClaw safe to use with my WhatsApp account?
Yes. OpenClaw uses Baileys, the same protocol that powers WhatsApp Web. It is the same technology you use when you open web.whatsapp.com in your browser. Your WhatsApp session runs on your dedicated VPS, and your credentials are never shared with anyone else. That said, as with any WhatsApp Web connection, you should use it responsibly and within WhatsApp's terms of service.
Do I need to install anything on my computer?
No. OpenClaw runs entirely on your dedicated VPS in the cloud. You interact with it through Dew, the AI assistant in the Dewx web application. There is nothing to install, no browser extensions, and no desktop software.
What happens if my VPS goes down?
OpenClaw's bridge service monitors all WebSocket connections and automatically reconnects within 5 seconds of a disconnection. If a VPS needs to be reprovisioned (which is rare), the auto-provisioning system handles it transparently. Your scheduled tasks resume automatically once the connection is restored.
Can I use OpenClaw for bulk messaging or spam?
No, and we strongly advise against it. OpenClaw is designed for legitimate business communication -- following up with customers, responding to inquiries, and automating repetitive but genuine outreach. All messaging platforms have anti-spam policies, and using OpenClaw for bulk unsolicited messages can result in your accounts being suspended by those platforms. The AI auto-reply feature includes confidence thresholds specifically to prevent low-quality automated responses.
How does OpenClaw compare to tools like Twilio or Intercom?
Twilio is a communications API that charges per message and requires developer resources to integrate. Intercom is a customer support platform with per-seat pricing that can reach $99+/month per user. OpenClaw is fundamentally different: it is an infrastructure layer built into Dewx that handles communication across 7 platforms at a flat $4/month per user, with no per-message fees and no developer setup required. You just talk to Dew in plain English.
Get Started With OpenClaw
OpenClaw is available to all Dewx beta users. If you are already on the platform, you can start using it right now -- just ask Dew to send a message, search the web, or schedule a task, and OpenClaw handles the rest.
Not on Dewx yet? Join the beta and get access to OpenClaw, Dew, the unified inbox, CRM, outreach tools, and the full Dewx operating system for your business.
Your customers are on 7+ platforms. Your AI assistant should be too.