You've used ChatGPT, right? You ask it questions, and it gives you answers. Now imagine something different: you give it a task, and it goes and does that task in the real world. That's the gap between a conversational tool and an agentic tool.
ChatGPT runs on OpenAI's servers and forgets your context between sessions. OpenClaw runs on your own hardware, persists memory across conversations, and connects directly to your services. If ChatGPT is a reference librarian, OpenClaw is a personal assistant who has the keys to your house.