Google launched Gemini Spark at I/O 2026, a 24/7 personal AI agent running on Google Cloud infrastructure, directly competing with OpenClaw — the open-source self-hosted agent that recently surpassed 300,000 GitHub stars. The core tension is about where the agent lives: OpenClaw runs on hardware you own, while Spark runs on Google's infrastructure with seamless access to Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. The analysis argues that managed solutions historically win for mainstream users (Dropbox beat NAS, Gmail beat mail servers), but the personal agent case is different because it requires broad, active access to your most sensitive data — not just passive file storage. The self-hosted camp is positioned as a durable niche for developers and privacy-conscious users who want an agent that answers to them, not to Google.
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The split is about where the agent lives, not what it doesConvenience usually wins this fight, and Google knows itThe privacy bargain here is not the one Dropbox asked forMore stories from Google I/O:Sort: