Building AI the Firefox way: Shaping what’s next together

[Jolie]

Hi everyone,

We recently shared how we’re approaching AI in Firefox with user choice and openness at the center of everything we build. We’ve heard from many of you who’d prefer not to have AI in your browser at all, and we get it: We will soon provide additional settings for you to control how AI is used (or not) in Firefox.

Nonetheless, standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or the people who use it. That’s why we see it as our responsibility to shape how AI integrates into the web, in ways that promote openness, transparency, and choice. That way, users and developers can use it freely, help shape it, and truly benefit from it.

You’ve already seen this approach in some of our latest features:
💬 AI Chatbot in the sidebar – Access your preferred chat assistant without switching tabs.
📱 Shake to Summarize on iOS – Quickly summarize pages and stay focused on what matters.

Now we’re working on something new, and we’d love your input.

What is AI Window?

AI Window is an intelligent space we’re building that lets you chat with an AI assistant and get help while you browse, all on your terms.

✅ Completely opt-in: You decide if and when to use it.
🔄 Model flexibility: Pick the AI model that best fits your needs.
⚙️ Full control: Easily toggle it on or off anytime.

Help us shape the future

We’re still early in development and want your feedback. Starting today, you can sign up to receive updates.

[ILostMyName]

Save the planet, spare your developers some time, no AI needed in Firefox.

A long time user, when Firefox was called Phoenix.

[meejah]

Why?

Sprinkling "AI" on everything is *exactly* the thing that will turn your biggest fans away. Chasing the latest scam is wasting resources, wasting everyone's time, and taking away from your own ability to make a great browser. We want an awesome FOSS browser to surf the open web. "AI" is not part of this. Nothing has made me more likely to find a different browser than this (although your flirtation with cryptocurrencies was close)...

Stop it.

[alexismichaud]

@mozilla What a lovely user base you have! Please, please do listen. 
"There's ample historical evidence that "progress" (or "technology moving forward") can and has been stopped or highly restricted. Sometimes standing still is the most sensible thing to do and delivers the greatest benefit."

[Thunderbeans]

For pity's sake, please let this die. AI cannot and will not ever be able to do anything its advocates claim. It's harmful to education, to the environment, to people seeking work, and already making researching anything online nigh on impossible.

You'll be increasing your own operating costs with something that benefits nobody.

I left Google and Chrome precisely because their latching on to this garbage-producing nonsense was the last straw for me. I moved to Firefox specifically because it wasn't entertaining this AI stuff in any way. Do I really need to go hunt down another browser?

[MikeTaylor]

Nonetheless, standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or the people who use it. That’s why we see it as our responsibility to shape how AI integrates into the web.

I believe C. S. Lewis's comment on integrating AI into Firefox said it best:

"We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of [AI in Firefox] it's pretty plain that [the Mozilla Foundation] has been making some big mistakes. We're on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on."

[Sherri]

The demographics of users who use Mozilla products is *literally* people trying to escape AI & privacy-hostile tech elsewhere.

How tone-deaf can Mozilla be?

No one wants this.

[SunnyGolds]

If this feature is not easily removable, I along with a large portion of your userbase will be moving away from Firefox.  This is a tremendous misstep by the Mozilla team -- yet another in an increasingly long line of missteps.  

Read the room.

[andy_twosticks]

No. Just no. Nobody who understands what "AI" is wants this, and you are wasting development time and squandering Firefox's reputation by persuing it.

Just stop.

[PsyChuan]

i don't understand why. literally no one wants this. the only people excited about AI are the people selling it and they have a financial interest in it. why are you continually pushing this? you have almost unanimously negative feedback each time you announce more AI features, i can only assume there's someone high up in Mozilla who's fallen for the hype hook line and sinker

[Cvh-123]

Mozilla again not listening to any real user on horrid energy sapping data stealing AI slop. Opt in is such a laugh when you have to search for hidden options in about config every single update. I want a real clear opt in with all AI off else. Oh forgot, you can’t do that because that would reveal how it’s such a complete lie that this is what anyone wants..  

[Leahni]

I'm begging you to stop trying to add AI and redirect your efforts to things that are actually useful and aren't kneecapping all efforts to not let the world burn.

[Funcrunch]

As with some other commenters here, I've created a profile and am posting here for the first time to say I'm NOT interested in any AI features in Mozilla products. Please make any such features fully opt-outable. Thank you from a long-time user of Firefox and Thunderbird.

[Cheeps]

I'm adding my voice to the chorus, I don't want AI. I don't want to have to constantly disable AI features with new updates, or with every new installation. I've been using Firefox since the Pheonix days and I've started to use other browsers recently because of Mozilla's constant disregard for its users. 

As other users have suggested, if Mozilla is dead-set on AI, do not integrate it into Firefox, let users install it manually as an add-on or as a different download version. 

[princeofsky]

Toggle it off!

[JohnyGalt]

I understand the skepticism in comments - many are tired of AI being shoehorned into everything. But I think there's an important distinction Mozilla is making here that gets lost in the criticism.

They're not forcing AI on us - this is opt-in. That's fundamentally different from what most tech companies do. The difference between "we're adding AI whether you like it or not" and "here's an optional tool, use it if it helps you" is actually huge.

Yes, there's legitimate concern about where this technology is heading, but Mozilla's approach here is actually reasonable: AI is becoming a part of the web regardless. So let's at least make sure it's built with transparency, choice, and user control.

The "do nothing" approach sounds noble until you realize it just means other browsers will shape how AI integrates into the web, and you'll have even less say in it.

If you don't want to use AI Window - don't. But having the option, with full control and the ability to toggle it off instantly? That's actually how it should work, and how i would personally want it to work.

I'm more interested in whether Mozilla follows through on these promises than in whether they attempted this at all.

[51Cards]

No, just no.  Just focus on the browser and leave stuff like this out of it.  This feels like when Firefox decided to shove Pocket into the browser (thankfully dead now).  If nothing else A. give me a great big off switch at the top of the settings to make it completely disappear, and B. do this quickly so you can stop diverting development resources away from just making a better browser.  Years later I still can't get Tabs where I want them yet there is apparently dev time for things like this.

[LeatherOtter1]

I made an account to reply. I don’t want any AI features at all in my browser. 0 none natta. I won’t recommend your browser to people as long as it has any ai sloptastic features. It gets a bad rating on the app stores as long as the feature is there. Put the resources that you’re using to piss off your biggest advocates into something to distinguish yourself instead. Be the anti AI browser, help users block their data from being hoovered up by these machines. Do better or just let Mozilla die, if you won’t give us a meaningful alternative then there is no reason for Mozilla to exist at all.

[The_Owlbear]

Pretty sure the best way to implement AI is to not do that, and make a better browser instead.

Stop wasting time and resources on this nonsense. I hear you saying that if you don't embrace new technology, you get left behind. The Zune was new technology. So we're NFTs. Some new technology is bad guys.

Just… quit.

[Kinetix242]

Mozilla - Read the room! Nobody wants this in Firefox - we want the light, fast, useable, non-slop-related browser that we've trusted for years.

You are destroying trust at an AI-accelerated pace. Congratulations. Who's supporting you when the users go away?

I want firefox to be buildable without any AI-related feature, period. I want a web browser, that's it.

[bjo]

Hell no! Let's switch to Vivaldi which avoids all this AI bull**bleep**.

[Unwanted]

Your power users do not want this feature. Can you focus on performance and compatibility instead?

thanks in advance

[lackey]

Do you want our feedback, or do you want positive feedback? 

[cgranade]

The adoption and promotion of AI by Mozilla is, at core, both a failure of leadership and a betrayal of users and the open web in general. In particular, it must be noted that:

• AI in its current form is only possible because of stolen labor. Open source is a user freedom movement, but it's also a labor movement. Adopting and promoting AI betrays the labor principles of open source, and should be avoided on those terms alone.
• AI in its current form imposes massive, massive environmental costs, the scope of which we barely understand due to secrecy on the part of AI model vendors. Open source is, amongst other things, a means of making old or discontinued hardware work, and is to that degree, also an environmental movement. Adopting and promoting AI betrays all those who depend on a functioning environment on Earth (I dare say that's likely all of us).
• AI in its current form does not work. Time and effort spent chasing a technology that fundamentally cannot do what it promises to do is time and effort that could be spent supporting the open source community instead.
• AI in its current form is, in practice, a spam generation technology that has displaced immense amount of creative labor and that has promulgated disinformation at a startling rate. Adopting and promoting AI betrays the civic responsibilities to uphold creative endeavors and the importance of truth.
• Perhaps most critically of all, AI in its current form is predominantly developed by and profits fascist movements. The philosophical basis of LLM technology as an extension of early-aughts eugenics movements is exceedingly well documented at this point, and does not need rehashed here. Rather, it is critical to note that eugenics movements are inherently fascist. Adopting and promoting AI features is a betrayal of all those who are hurt and oppressed by eugenicist and fascist movements.

This is not the first or even the second time that Mozilla has betrayed its users, its community, its planet, and its the creative labor that makes the open web something worth fighting for. Mozilla is at this point acting on the side of the closed, slop-flooded web, acting on the side of the oppressor, and acting on the side of capital owners. I hope that Mozilla leadership can be convinced that, in 2025 especially, betraying users, laborers, creators, and indeed the entire planet is the wrong path.

[VikVektor]

Keep the AI **bleep** out or Ill move to iceweasel. 

[Bosko_vidor]

Do not want.

at all

[jjkusaf]

This is unfortunate.  I mean, it's great that it's "opt-in" ... but I would hope Mozilla focused more on core features of Firefox, not chasing this AI slop.  

AI getting shoved into everything, by everyone, is so tiring.

[glyph]

The problem that we who dislike slop features have is not just a problem of features or settings. It is an issue of governance. This is a waste of Mozilla's resources and we object to it being developed at all, let alone embedded in a security-critical program like our browser.

We all want you to stop wasting your resources and our time by chasing this destructive fad at all. Take a lesson from Valve's recent hardware release, and just… don't. Work on other features, exciting features, interesting features that you can just announce and that do not require a page of throat-clearing about how you already know everybody hates it.

[Ben123]

Please don't waste your time on this. Please

[Anonymous]

Sounds interesting, signed up for updates.

Already getting huge benefits with quick easy access to Chatbots 
It has helped and continues to help with with various projects, to just simple quick answers or a web search.

[Jolie]

Thank you for your support - we thrive to bring values to uplift your every productivity!

[KCK]

Are you really only replying to the one guy who's excited about this **bleep**?

I haven't seen a reply to the much larger group of people **bleep**ting on you all for this decision. Are y'all really just going to ignore the majority and implement it anyway? Pretend like you don't hear your community? 

You know you're going to push away your most dedicated, right?

What's the point of using Firefox if you're just trying to be Chrome? You need to explain this thought process. 

[ogre_bones]

This has to be trolling. 

[ltlnx]

Hundreds of replies objecting this.

One (1) anonymous comment is in support.

Employee replies to said comment without addressing any others (other than talking about an off-switch - not the main problem here).

If your management is making you do this, I'm sorry and I hope you find a better job soon. If you are personally doing this... just know that you're bearing the weight of all the other commentators' disappointment.

[DonutRush]

Classic Firefox devs, only respond to the AI glazers encouraging them to do what Mozilla already wanted to do.

[Dick_Nation]

Appalling behavior. Ignoring every one of the hundreds of comments telling you this is wrongheaded and to redirect your effort, reply to the single one that's giving you a clap on the back.

[nimu]

you're just gonna ignore the 99.9% of comments of people saying you made a **bleep**ty decision and answer the single guy with a positive comment?

also: what the **bleep** does "bring values to uplift your every productivity" mean?

[MightyK]

Oh of course you ignore literally everyone telling you this is a bad idea and only reply to the only knobslobber in support of this trash. Go **** yourself.

[Almo2001]

I really don't want AI in the browser. Like not even a teeny bit.

[Anonymous]

[Deleted]

[ogre_bones]

I'm not as short-sighted as you are and I'm not interested in turning it off. I'll just use something else, period. 

You can go use your copypasta on somebody else. Maybe you'll have better luck.