Lobster triggers the OPC wave

One person can be an entire team. The "One Person Company" has evolved from a concept to an industrialized model.

Recently, the "Rainbow Orange OPC Community" in Minhang District, Shanghai, was officially launched, becoming Alibaba's first international OPC community deployed nationwide. Meanwhile, cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Suzhou have also intensively issued policy documents to support and encourage the development of "One Person Companies".

The rise of the AI agent OpenClaw (Lobster) has turned the idea of "raising a lobster as an employee" into reality. AI agents have evolved from large - model interfaces to "digital employees" capable of invoking tools and performing tasks, opening up new development possibilities for entrepreneurs and small - and - micro enterprises. An entrepreneurial revolution driven by AI agents has accelerated.

Governments and Tech Giants are Accelerating their Entry into the "One Person Company" Field

The "One Person Company" (OPC for short) can be regarded as a new form of the gig economy and digital nomadism. As AI has evolved from a "conversational" to an "executive" agent form, individuals can undertake standardized tasks such as coding, content creation, and customer service with the help of AI tools, forming a new entrepreneurial model of "individual + digital employee".

The key to transforming this model from a concept to a scalable one lies in the breakthrough of AI agent tools represented by OpenClaw in "autonomous execution" capabilities.

The fundamental difference between OpenClaw and traditional conversational models is that it has capabilities such as autonomous execution, process orchestration, multi - role collaboration, scheduled triggering, system control, and extended integration. Users can significantly improve overall efficiency through in - depth configuration such as multi - agent architecture, custom skills, and scheduled tasks.

This has also transformed the joke of "raising a lobster as an employee" in the geek circle into a productivity revolution sweeping across the entire industry.

In response to this emerging business form, local governments are highly enthusiastic, and policy support has been continuously strengthened. Since 2026, cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Suzhou have intensively introduced support programs related to OPC.

Guangdong Province has issued the "Guangdong Province Action Plan to Support the Innovative Development of Artificial Intelligence OPC (2026 - 2028)", clearly stating that 10 leading artificial intelligence OPC ecological communities should be cultivated in 2026, and a hundred communities will be built by 2028. Shanghai is also accelerating the introduction of OPC - related policies. The Lingang New Area has launched the "Super Individual 288 Action", offering a maximum of 500,000 yuan in computing power subsidies and 5 million yuan in financing support. Pudong Zhangjiang has introduced policies to provide up to 300,000 yuan in free computing power for newly registered OPCs.

It is worth noting that on March 23, the "Rainbow Orange OPC Community" in Minhang District, Shanghai, was officially launched. The community was jointly established by the Management Committee of Hongqiao International Central Business District, the Minhang District Government, Xinhong Sub - district, and the Hongqiao Alibaba Center under Alibaba. It is reported that nearly 100 shared office spaces will be opened in the first phase.

Alibaba is not the only internet giant entering the OPC field. Recently, the People's Government of Shangcheng District, Hangzhou, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Baidu. The Baidu Smart Cloud Qianfan Large - Model (Hangzhou) Industrial Innovation Center was established. Centered around Baidu's Qianfan large - model platform, it will deeply empower the OPC industry in Shangcheng District.

Behind the OPC Wave: A Reconfiguration of Production Relations

As the "One Person Company" evolves from a concept to an industrialized model, it changes far more than just the entrepreneurial threshold. It is also quietly reconfiguring the production relations in the digital age.

In the past, from the germination to the implementation of a business idea, it required the collaboration of multiple positions such as product, technology, operation, and marketing, resulting in high organizational costs. Now, agents like OpenClaw undertake the execution - level work, and entrepreneurs only need to focus on demand insight and resource integration. The smallest unit of an enterprise is no longer a "team" but "individual + digital employee".

Recently, at the "MBA Open Day" event held by the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Zhang Lingling, an associate professor of marketing at CEIBS, also said in an interview with Star Market Daily that the arrival of AI, especially agents, has brought many development opportunities for OPC.

"In the past, entrepreneurship required both in - depth knowledge in a vertical field and a wide range of knowledge, so it relied on team collaboration. This is why we regarded teamwork as a very important ability for enterprises in the past one or two decades," Zhang Lingling said. "Now, AI has significantly reduced the barriers to professional knowledge, and agents like OpenClaw have the ability to perform tasks, replacing repetitive operations. Individuals can then free up their energy to do real resource integration, which creates new possibilities for OPC."

Then why are tech giants flocking to enter the OPC field? A person in the industry told a reporter from Star Market Daily that when AI tools become popular, users no longer need "software" but "the results of tasks done". By supporting OPC, tech giants open up their platform capabilities to entrepreneurs, promoting their transformation from selling software to selling results. At the same time, they can also build an ecological moat of "platform + super individual" and gain the initiative in the next round of ecological competition.

Meanwhile, OPC has become a new outlet for employment with its advantages of low cost and high flexibility. The support policies such as computing power vouchers and free office spaces intensively introduced by various places not only attract a large number of AI entrepreneurs but also lay the foundation for cities to gain an edge in the next round of industrial competition.

Zhang Lingling also believes that the rapid development of OPC is highly in line with the national strategy. "Technological innovation should not be carried out blindly but based on scenario innovation and user insight. OPC start - ups apply AI more to traditional scenarios, especially at the intersection of technology and traditional industries, which can better solve the pain points of user needs in a specific scenario."

With tech giants competing for layout and local policies being strengthened, the wave of "One Person Companies" driven by AI agents is reconfiguring the production relations in the digital age and reshaping the entrepreneurial form and employment pattern with the new model of "individual + digital employee". From tool empowerment to ecological co - creation, this disruptive industrial revolution led by AI has just begun.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Star Market Daily", author: Li Jiayi. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.