Day 11 of 28 · OpenClaw Challenge
Web Browsing & Research
⏱ 7 min
📊 Beginner
Your agent knows your email, your calendar, and your preferences. But so far it's been living inside your world — your tools, your data.
Today we open the door to the entire internet.
Not a search engine — a researcher
When you Google something, you get a list of links. You click, you read, you compare, you summarize. That work is on you.
When your agent browses the web, it does all of that. It searches, reads full pages, extracts the relevant parts, and gives you a finished answer. You get the output — not the homework.
Knowledge Check
What's the key difference between your agent browsing the web and you using Google?
A
The agent searches, reads, synthesizes, and summarizes — you get the finished result
C
The agent can only access certain websites
D
The agent uses a secret search engine
Google gives you links. Your agent gives you answers. It does the reading, comparing, and summarizing that you'd normally spend 20 minutes on, and delivers a ready-to-use result.
Here's what this looks like in practice:
Compare the top 5 project management tools for a 20-person engineering team. Include pricing.
Researching — this will take a moment...
Here's your comparison:
| Tool | Best For | Price/user/mo | Free Tier |
|------|----------|---------------|----------|
| Linear | Engineering velocity | $8 | Yes (10 users) |
| Jira | Enterprise customization | $7.75 | Yes (10 users) |
| Asana | Cross-team collaboration | $10.99 | Yes (limited) |
| Shortcut | Simplicity | $8.50 | Yes (10 users) |
| Notion | Docs + tasks combined | $8 | Yes (limited) |
**My recommendation for a 20-person eng team**: Linear. It's purpose-built for engineering workflows, has the best GitHub integration, and engineers consistently rate it highest for speed and UX.
Want me to dig deeper into any of these?
↻ Replay conversation
Knowledge Check
How is this different from asking ChatGPT the same question?
A
The agent visited current websites for live pricing and features, while ChatGPT would use potentially outdated training data
B
The agent just copied from one website
C
ChatGPT would give a better answer
D
It's not — ChatGPT would give the same result
ChatGPT relies on training data that might be months old. Prices change, features get added, new tools launch. Your agent went to the actual websites and pulled live, current information.
Research that saves hours
Some tasks would take you an hour of tab-hopping. Your agent does them in seconds:
What did our competitor Acme Inc announce this week?
Checking their channels...
Acme Inc activity this week:
📢 **Blog** (Tuesday): Announced a new enterprise tier with SOC 2 compliance. Pricing starts at $50/seat.
🐦 **Twitter** (Wednesday): Teased an AI-powered feature for "automated reporting." Launch in Q2.
💼 **LinkedIn** (Thursday): Posted 3 engineering job listings — all focused on machine learning. They're building an ML team.
🔗 **Press**: No press coverage this week.
**Takeaway**: They're moving upmarket (enterprise + compliance) and investing in AI. Worth discussing with your product team.
Can you summarize this into a one-pager I can share with the team?
Done ✓ — saved "Acme_Competitor_Update.md" to your Documents folder.
Formatted with sections for Blog, Social, Hiring, and Strategic Takeaways. Ready to share.
↻ Replay conversation
Knowledge Check
In the competitor research example, how many different sources did the agent check?
A
Four — blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, and press coverage
B
Two — website and Twitter
C
Just one — their website
D
It didn't check any sources — it guessed
The agent checked their blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, and looked for press mentions. Then it synthesized everything into a single, actionable summary. That's research assistant-level work, done in seconds.
Live data, not stale knowledge
This is a crucial distinction. A chatbot answers from what it learned during training — which could be months or years old.
Your agent goes to the live internet every time. Current prices. Today's announcements. This morning's news.
That's the difference between an encyclopedia and a research assistant.
Final Check
When would you use your agent's web browsing instead of just asking it a question directly?
A
Whenever you need current, real-time information that might have changed since the AI's training
B
Only when Google is down
C
Only for technical topics
D
Never — the agent always knows the answer already
Use web browsing for anything time-sensitive: current prices, recent news, latest announcements, live data. For general knowledge that doesn't change (like "what is photosynthesis?"), the agent's built-in knowledge is fine.
🌐
Day 11 Complete
"Your agent doesn't just know things — it goes out and finds them. Live, current, real."
Tomorrow — Day 12
Reading Documents & Files
Beyond the web — let's teach your agent to read your own documents, PDFs, and files.