AI Chatbot, at your service

[Jolie]

Tired of constantly switching tabs and copy-pasting content to your favorite AI provider? Us too. That’s why, after an initial soft launch, we’re gradually rolling out the AI Chatbot access to everyone. You can find it in Settings > Firefox Labs or right from the sidebar. To begin chatting, you will have to select a provider (e.g. ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.), follow the necessary login instructions, and agree to the selected provider’s terms to start using the chatbot. Firefox does not store your conversation with the 3rd party chatbot (just like if you were using a chatbot on another tab).

Alternatively, if you prefer not to see the entry point, simply deselect the AI Chatbot option in Firefox Labs. For more information, please check out the Support article. Our goal is to bring a range of easy-to-use AI chatbots to users who want to try them. We are also exploring ways for users to bring their own large language models to have an on-device chatbot.

What I love most about having the chatbot in Firefox is the side-by-side interface that cuts down on constant tab switching—it’s all right there when and where I need it in one easy view.

Here are a few of my personal “productivity recipes”:

• Summarize long email threads: I selected the text from a long email thread and asked the chatbot to summarize it for a concise overview. I was able to read it faster and “do more with less” on limited screen space.
• Polish messages: When writing, I usually start with free flow, focusing on ideas without worrying about grammar, structure, or length. Then, I use my chatbot to refine and polish the draft, making it concise, well-structured, and tailored to a specific tone like professional or friendly. This saves time, ensures high-quality results, and allows for seamless back-and-forth editing side-by-side.  
• Brainstorm new ideas: While planning my first RV trip, I chatted with my chatbot to get quick tips, suggestions, itineraries, and make modifications - all while I was browsing web pages about RV parks. I love that I can chat without switching tabs or windows, helping me stay focused and maintain context without distractions.

Question to you: If you are an AI chatbot user, what are the recipes and use cases that supercharge your day? What are some concerns to watch out for? I’d love to hear all about your creative hacks, tweaks, and feedback. While we cannot tackle everything overnight, your constructive feedback is what helps us continue to make Firefox the best browser and your preferred window to the internet.

Happy browsing,

@Jolie & @Mardak, Firefox AI team

[Mardak]

It’s been exciting to see how the community has configured Firefox to use custom providers to make this feature even more valuable such as additional privacy or bleeding edge AI capabilities. Here’s some examples that I’ve gathered from previous discussions:

• Llamafile or Ollama + Open WebUI for on-device private chatbots
• DuckDuckGo for hosted anonymized chat (thanks for those sharing the &bang trick)
• Perplexity for comprehensive answers with citations
• Google AI Studio for previews of experimental models
• Grok for incorporating realtime discussions
• DeepSeek for combining reasoning and grounding

While Firefox might not add these to the default list of providers, we want to continue supporting user choice with a better experience than the current "browser.ml.chat.provider” approach for advanced users. Even though many of these don’t support passing in a prompt from the text selection shortcut, people have found it quite useful to have these chatbots easily accessible without needing to switch tabs.

What chatbots have people found useful that we should consider adding? Any with differentiating features, e.g., agent capabilities, unique data or special prompts?

[lackey]

Nearly a thousand people logged on to this website to express discontent with Mozilla's decision to pursue AI, so I find it genuinely disappointing that Mozilla continues to waste time and resources pushing people towards tools that are infamous for engaging in environmental destruction and theft while remaining unprofitable. 

That much said: defaults matter. And driving people towards some of the most abusive corporations, OpenAI and Google, appears to speak volumes about Mozilla's ethics. Why OpenAI and not something that needs a tiny fraction of the power for the same result, like DeepSeek? Why not make offline options your top priority, instead of pushing people towards harmful monopolistic corporations?

[Mephisto]

I see it critical to promote OpenAI, Google etc. and would prefer to use OSS models.

Do you plan to add support for inference providers (like deepinfra, replicate) in openai format?

[NTICompass]

So, this whole feature, which you're proud of and which was launched as an "experiment" is just a side-panel that opens a webpage?  That's it?

It looks like you took the "search <engine> for ..." in the right-click menu when you highlight something and made it open in a panel instead of a new tab?  Is that it, is that the whole feature?

I feel like this would better if it was more general purpose.  Like instead of AI garbage, let me open my search engine or even a YouTube video in the side-panel, that seems like a better feature (maybe this already exists in Firefox, I don't use sidebars/side-panels).

[Anonymous]

I have only one question:

Is it planned to move the currently built-in AI/Chatbot integration into an extension (Orbit?) that users can be complete remove?

[Jolie]

Hi @Anonymous, thank you for your question! If you prefer to remove the "AI Chatbot" text/option in your sidebar, you can deselect the AI Chatbot option in Firefox Labs. 

For now, we’re focused on keeping the experience seamless within Firefox, but we always appreciate feedback as we continue to explore the best ways to support user preferences. Please let me know if you have any further questions!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the response. Hope an actual removal will be planned as soon as possible  and i hope this wont be treated like pocket which btw. should also be completely removable. In regards to feedback, i'd only like to note that adding potential controversal features/modules into the browser like this is a bad idea and i'd say an "addon first" approch for something like this would help with negativ user feedback in the future. Hope the team will keep this in mind so that another negative feedback storm can be prevented.

[badger112]

Not good enough, it should be possible to entirely remove this from the browser.

[Skrymer]

Why did this need to be enabled by default? Generative AI is garbage, and seeing Mozilla following the hype train is very disappointing.
I thought that the community response when this was introduced in the labs was pretty clear: the top response is a single "NO" with 927 kudos.

[AIHATERFOREVER]

REMOVE AI FROM THE BROWSER OR LOSE YOUR CUSTOMERS. WE ARE DONE. MOVING TO THE NEXT BROWSER NOW.

[DzikiMarian]

Firmly staying with Firefox, because I prefer useful feature over activist outrage for everything. 🙂

[techfox]

You tried. We won't.

[kepstin]

The link beside the option in the current firefox release still points to the old comment thread, where people have very clearly told you: NO.

I was very disappointed to see that this option was both added to a release version of Firefox, and enabled by default. There is no reason for Firefox to support the use of externally hosted LLM chatbot services, especially those hosted by companies which don't respect the privacy and environmental values that Firefox claims to stand for.

[MrGoatsy]

This is a huge violation of my trust in Mozilla.

[HeresMyFeedback]

Integrated AI is an absolutely unconscionable addition to foist on the userbase. Very sad to see it from Mozilla, which has often been a bastion against this sort of rot.

[DzikiMarian]

Awesome & very useful feature. Hope for more options (including local ones) in the future. 

[DonutRush]

Because your community team is censoring negative replies to this, here’s an attempt at a rewrite that the feedback police will like:

this is a bad feature that you charged ahead with in spite of an overwhelming amount of negative feedback, and I am disappointed to see Mozilla continue to drink the kool-aid.

your about:config preferences that supposedly allow us to control this junk don’t even stick, they reset when I close the browser.

[byLeeSampson]

Thanks for sharing, I'm glad I stumbled across this. I'm not a techie, but stumbled into Google AI Studio and Notebook when trying to overcome my introverted nature of self-promotion. I find that my personality type it's a great collaborator and a quicker way to unlock or get access to information I would find by googling or YouTube. It points me in the right direction quicker 🙂

[administrator2]

very cool feature. not sure what the rage is all about, just untick the box bros

[Francesco17]

I see a lot of discontent in the comments and I don't understand why. I think the sidebar with the various chatbots is excellent, thank you very much for implementing it ❤️🦊

[sn0]

I like this feature, @Jolie & @Mardak i want to use it with my own Ollama server.

Perhaps you can look at the implementation in the Brave browser, they managed to make it easy to add support for many different LLM endpoints.

[roddytorres]

The AI Chatbot integration in Firefox sounds like a game-changer for productivity! The side-by-side interface is a great way to streamline workflows without constant tab switching. Features like summarizing emails, refining messages, and brainstorming ideas make it an incredibly useful tool.

For those exploring AI advancements, DeepSeek is another powerful resource worth checking out. Looking forward to seeing how Firefox continues to innovate in the AI space!

[lackey]

Nice scam link, roddytorres

[sazarkin]

Is there a way to change base prompt, some llm are confused with this default one:
```I’m on page “{{page_title}}” with “{{selection}}” selected.```
I want to change it, but it I edit about:config browser.ml.chat.prompts.5 it only adds text after this base prompt.

This happens mainly with claude, it goes:  I dunno what you selected, without I cannot explain you anything.

[chamin462]

Hi @Jolie & @Mardak,

This is such an exciting update! The side-by-side interface for AI chatbots in Firefox sounds like a game-changer for productivity. I can already imagine how much time it’ll save by cutting down on tab switching.

One of my favorite productivity hacks is using AI to discover new music while I work. For example, I recently came across https://spotich.com/, which has an incredible selection of music. It’s perfect for creating playlists that keep me focused and motivated throughout the day. Pairing this with Firefox’s new chatbot feature could make it even easier to multitask—imagine curating the perfect playlist while summarizing emails or brainstorming ideas!

As for concerns, I think it’s important to ensure that the chatbot integration remains lightweight and doesn’t slow down browsing. Also, having clear controls over privacy and data usage is always a priority.

[electrospider]

I dont want AI integration in any of my web browsers, I just want it to work without upping my memory to 20% every time i boot this thing up! I am already fighting the windows OS and microsoft to NOT have copilot slow down my usual to-do list. Im already fighting GOOGLE to have them stop snooping through my personal files on google suite, and its already making basic searches worse on duckduckgo. Can just 1 tech company NOT follow the "trend" of wrecking the planet for profit!

[NTICompass]

So, it seems there are some people who want this "feature," there are plenty that don't.  It really seems like it should be an extension (maybe the Orbit extension?), there's no reason that it needs to be built-in to the browser.