Mozilla is ebullient on the benefits AI can bring to users of the Firefox web browser, and already offers (as you may have been bugged by callouts to) a sidebar for interacting with chatbots, AI summaries, and AI-powered tab grouping.
Now it’s going further, adding a new, dedicated “AI Window” mode to Firefox.
Firefox AI Window is described by Mozilla as “a new, intelligent and user-controlled space we’re building in Firefox that lets you chat with an AI assistant and get help while you browse, all on your terms.”
“With AI Window, you have the option to opt in to our most intelligent and personalized experience yet — providing you with new ways to interact with the web,” it adds.
It’s currently in an early stage, but Mozilla has launched a sign-up form for interested users to be notified of updates and gain preview access. When launched fully, the feature will be opt-in; Mozilla says users can choose to not use it.
How well Firefox AI Window can compete with dedicated AI browsers like Perplexity’s Comet and OpenAI’s Atlas – both Chromium-based browsers not yet available on Linux – or Google Chrome’s deepening Gemini integration remains to be seen.
What’s clear is that Mozilla see AI as the future of Firefox.
Mozilla AI: All In
Regular readers may have seen me refer to Mozilla as being “all-in” on AI, and that isn’t (only) a churlish initialism: the company’s leadership see AI as the next stage of the web, where agents browse for us, generate what we want to say, and allow us to cognitively offload.
“What does the text on the page in front of me say, but explain it like I’m actually interested.”
Mozilla says “standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or humanity” so it sees its responsibility to “shape how AI integrates into the web — in ways that protect and give people more choice, not less.”
And “choice” is, presumably, why there’s the constant in-app nags to “try” CoPilot, Gemini, ChatGPT, et al integration inside of the browser.
The leadership is staking its future relevance on some of this stuff sticking, and not all of it involves redirecting users to companies run by billionaires. It offers its own (ropey) on-device AI-generated link summary previews and tab grouping features.
This month’s Firefox 145 update brought low-level changes to enable browser AI agents to easily do things on behalf of users. It’s likely those changes were added, partly, to benefit this new new AI Window mode – agentic web is viewed as the next big thing.
Plus, as I’ve mentioned in some of my recent coverage of Firefox, the browser’s developers are working on a new Firefox AI feature called ‘Page Buddy’. It’s not clear if that work was for what’s now known as Firefox’s AI Window, or if it’s separate.
Goosing for whose benefit?
I can’t help but feel there’s a disconnect. Mozilla has been frenetic in adding the same kinds of AI features other browsers offer and framing it as giving users “choice” — but it’s a choice between the same kind of things.
For OpenAI, et al it’s easy to see the point of their AI browsers: it’s about isolating us from each other, devaluing human-made content, and eroding our own sense of agency and competence to ensure our interactions are mediated through their products.
Money, basically.
For Mozilla, I’d expect more; for it to ask deeper and more fundamental questions as to how AI can be used thoughtfully and respectively to further the open web and preserve that wide-eyed wonder we all had when we first got online, finding the world at our fingertips.
Pitting up a “window” between people and the web feels a bit off-brand.
As long as users do have a choice to swerve the bits they don’t want, and use the bits they do — ideally, without Mozilla constantly trying to steer them towards using preferred options — then few will have issue.
Sign up for AI Window waiting list