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.

[nicenightmare13]

I use Firefox because I don't want AI slop. Stop destroying your browser by changing one of the few things that made you stand out. 

[lukadolphin]

As someone who appreciates Mozilla’s previous—and I say previous for a reason—stance on privacy, I cannot understand by in good conscience starting to incorporate AI is a good idea in any respect. Majority of these programs are not intelligent and are built on copyrighted material, and have the propensity to share private data or invite bad agents to access said private data. 

An inclusion of AI, something that is notoriously unreliable and ALSO extremely costly for the complete lack of actual innovation it provides, is honestly backwards thinking and something that will send me away from using Firefox as a browser at all. 

I stick with Firefox because I respect its values, but if genAI is incorporated then I will lose all respect for the browser. Like others have said, if I want bloated AI slop garbage browsing experiences then I’ll just move back to Chrome.

I think you should take all your feedback very carefully and consider exactly what your user base wants, and perhaps how sticking to avoiding AI and its issues you could instead draw in more users who respect that as a stance. Food for thought. 

[AppleZang]

I'll be succinct, and express my true feelings: **bleep** off with the AI bull**bleep**. 

[freefall4242]

I have no interest in AI whatsoever. If AI becomes more important to Firefox, I will seek alternatives.

[leftblank]

PLEASE keep all AI features opt-in only / fully removable

[astbaum]

Not interested in any A feature in firefox. I can search and read all by myself without AI shoved in my throat, thanks.

Going to look for an alternative.

[Diawl]

We don't want this.

This tech bro crap is really tedious.

No one using firefox wants this AI slop nonsense.

[xx_k4nd1_xx]

adopting AI is not "moving forward," it's implimenting the latest gimmick. it's a trend. Firefox users don't like tech trends, what we want from a browser is simplicity, reliability, safety and trust. We do not trust AI. I'm already seeing large amounts of people switching to Waterfox, who has announced their refusal to latch on to AI tools and has the exact same UI and principles as Firefox used to have. This is not what your target demographic would want, and you're already bleeding users.

[KZ-1]

I don't know if y'all are being paid some sort of big bucks to shoehorn AI into the browser, but you need to understand that unless you are getting "new wildly overpriced Teslas for every employee" kind of money, you will lose more than you gain with this. People are not using Firefox because they want "Edge but orange" or "Chrome but with a cute fox."

We are using it, I am using it, because it lets me disable AI bull**bleep** and install whatever addons I want without complaining that my adblocker is going to drive Google into financial ruin. And standing still while technology moves forward is a perfectly valid option when the technology being developed is SO untested, SO controversial, and SO bad for both the people using it (AI psychosis) and the environment being abused by it.

[MozillaLost]

It is clear Mozilla no longer aligns with their users.  This is a sad moment in internet history. 

[CHaSeD]

That's what happens when parasites make it into the C-Suite.

[2-or-more-chars]

+1 "no thank you" from me. I moved from Chrome to Firefox because it wasn't capitalising on the latest trends and actively making the user experience worse for profit. It was just a simple, functional web browser. GenAI being integrated into searches is, in fact, capitalising on the latest trends and actively makes my browsing experience worse. For profit, probably.

If Firefox continues to pivot to genAI, then at least make it available as an extension. Do not integrate it as a core feature. I do not like playing whack-a-mole in about:config just to disable a specific feature every time I install it.

If you continue with these terrible management decisions for the next several updates, I will be switching browsers. If the hand that once fed me is now feeding me poison, then our contract is up and I reserve the right to bite it. It looks like I am no longer your target audience, along with many others in this thread.

[bigdinosaurguy]

hey you do realize this is gonna make people leave and stop using the product, right?

like literally the reason most people are using firefox is because its one of the last mainstream browsers that isn't drinking the AI force kool-aid. the ceo seems out of touch w/ what the userbase ACTUALLY wants, especially in this day and age. 

we as a society are a majority just tired of having ai shoved down our throats, especially it's time and time again made our world worse to be in and not better. the more ai you integrate, the more energy , and resources it will rob from communities, and by extension, your users.

there are alternatives out there and if you don't put this idea in the trash where it belongs, we will go to them.

[SRos]

Wow way to set fire to your own house. This is utter dog**bleep** and is only going to drive your users away, myself included.

[Ghosthunting]

Bit of advice; you should probably understand your userbase. There are other non-chromium alternatives to Firefox. Your product isn't all that special. Microsoft has already begun slashing their AI budget because they saw the writing on the wall, nobody is using their AI features, and Microsoft is a nearly-inescapable tech giant, unlike Mozilla. You cannot afford to betray the interest of your userbase.

[cell]

Keep your slop to yourselves. Nobody wants it. I want to able to excise any and all AI from my browsing experience - I do not want AI to touch anything I do. I will drop this browser like a hot potato if you continue to insist upon polluting my browsing experience - it's bad enough you have to fiddle with about:config to turn this garbage off. 

Just because the horde of lobotomite business ghouls pushing this trash are so stupid they need a robot to do their thinking for them doesn't mean the rest of us are so inept, and it's frankly insulting you seem to think we are.

[Kinana]

This is exactly the kind of thing that would cause me to stop using Firefox immediately.

[cookie123]

**bleep** off. We do not want your AI bull**bleep**. Pull out or lose your userbase.

[cookie123]

The entire reason a majority of people switched from Chromium browsers to Firefox is to get AWAY from AI integration exactly like this. To implement this proves you are no different than the rest of the failing businesses who rely on it and that you have a critical misunderstanding of your user base. No one wants this. Get rid of it.

[qaaya]

If you do this I will simply switch browser. I don't understand the need to do this, I don't understand the need to AI everything. Please, please don't.

[KingQuokka]

right?

This new cuck of a CEO comes in and is so out of touch, Mozilla will die because of this bull excrement.

[Opalesse]

I use Firefox to avoid AI and would love to have more features to help me avoid AI on the web. 

[jay4]

Many people started using Firefox so they could have more privacy and less that AI **bleep**. You're ruining perfectly functioning browser with this stupid nonsense

[jay4]

Stop ruining the perfectly fine browser with your stupid AI crap. 

[authenticaussie]

lol i made a nice message and then the dumb log in feature deleted it all. Oh well.

• LLMs lie and hallucinate information, I don't want that ""helping"" me
• There have been a bunch of reports showing that private data is being stolen via prompt injection, YIKES BRO
• Environmental impact ?? Anybody??? Can we hear a shout out to the environment?? 
• I love general AI, I love automation. I hate that AI has now singularly been reduced to genAI, a creature sloughing along, built of the Frankensteined creations of hundreds of uncompensated (or, poorly compensated) writers and mathematicians and artists. genAI is a beast that has been built from theft to perpetuate theft, and as a creative I'm so freakin' tired of seeing it everywhere on the internet 

I got firefox because i was so sick a chrome + google tracking every little thing I did, and I wanted SOMETHING at least marginally less "off the freaking walls morally dubious" from a company, to wit, firefox advertised itself as such (or, at least, customisable to such)

I appreciate that this sh*t is all opt-in, but like. Is this an ""opt in"" like the last AI update y'all did, where we had to go and turn the thing off? Or is this an ACTUAL opt-in, where you get asked to turn it ON?

[KingQuokka]

I am deleting Firefox the second you push AI on us.

AI is cancer, your new CEO is cancer, nobody is asking for this.

How bloody out of touch can you be?!

[eirikaily]

The only good thing Mozilla had was that it was anti ai. They're literally shooting themselves in the foot and shooing away their users by adding something so unnecessary and that nobody asked for

[fauxfruit]

Another long time firefox user chiming in to say please don't pivot into "AI" bloatware. Yes, some LLMs can be useful, but not in my web browser. I do not want this cluttering up my browser. I already spend enough of my energy trying to get rid of chat bots on individual sites or trying to detect misinformation regurgitated by a glorified spellcheck. I don't want that integrated into my browser. This technology may have it's usecases, but this is not it.

Please focus on the thing so many of us have switched to firefox for: privacy and security. The current "AI" trends are the opposite of that, as the actively monitor what a user is doing in order to function. That is the last thing I want in my web browser.

[Tray]

The idea that "AI" is inevitable and users just have to stop complaining and accept the future is condescending horse**bleep**.  Tech companies spent trillions of dollars building a chatbot that gets answers wrong half the time and now want to force us to use their defective product.  **bleep** that.  In a few years when this tech fad ends, an "AI window" will be as silly as "metaverse integration."  You are wasting time and money on an unwanted, useless """feature."""

[kb4]

I swapped to firefox from chrome a few years ago specifically to avoid bloat and have more privacy. I have zero interest in AI. If you're going to force this, bare minimum have it be opt-in, otherwise you will be losing a user.

[Apollo_01]

I like and work a lot with artificial intelligence. But Mozilla is heading in completely the wrong direction if it believes the world needs yet another AI browser. Quite the opposite is true: in a world full of AI tools, we need tools that are simple, secure, and fast, that simply do what people want them to do without any machine learning stuff getting in the way.

What Mozilla should do to remain relevant and relevant would be to simply make Firefox a really good browser that you can trust; one that is modular and can be expanded with all kinds of features, but is lean and secure if you want it to be. The option to activate some AI stuff is not enough; the AI stuff shouldn't be there at all if you don't want it.

[Benarim]

Like many others I also want to go on record saying that I do not what any AI whatsoever in Firefox. It is not a matter of opt-in versus opt-out, this is a matter of your users telling you clearly that we do not what any AI integration at all. The future we want to shape together does not use AI.

I have used Firefox since 2005. I had hoped that you understood why people made the conscious, active decision to switch to Firefox instead of continuing to use Chromium browsers. It is nice to be able to customize how the browser behaves and looks but the main draw for many of us is privacy. To not have our data shared and sold, especially not to AI companies that try to pretend they aren't profiting off of human art and creativity without giving anything back.

Your entire target userbase is people who do not want anther Chrome clone. Please use your developers' time to fix existing issues and improve the features already in place instead of trying to jump onto a ship that has already sailed and is actively sinking.

This development runs contrary to everything Mozilla has stood for and if this is where you intend to go then we will leave.

[ARDENT_38]

If your AI features are so "completely opt-in" and "full control" as you claim, I should not need to grasp around blindly in my about:config settings trying to recover every scrap of RAM I can find. All of these granular AI settings for tabs, chatbots, summaries, and so on should have one AI box to tick to shut them all down and stop melting my computer, with the dozen other conditions and options being greyed out unless I turn it back on. I won't be relying on Firefox for my work anymore, until optimisation and efficiency become a priority again. 

[DeathKoala]

How about instead of wasting developer resources adding plagiarism-powered lie machines that actively kill the planet and worsen application performance to A WEB BROWSER, you focus your time on adding actual features, like support for wide color gamut and HDR? And maybe throw your new idiot CEO into the ocean or something, since he insists one boiling it for his moronic fantasies anyway. 

[turntechGodhead]

NOPE!!! NO AI AT ALL!

Implementing AI into Firefox AT ALL will be a privacy/security concern for all its users, even those than turn those settings off! Not to mention the environmental waste and other ethical concerns. 

If Firefox implements AI, even as an optional feature, I Will be searching for a different browser.

[Meem55]

A huge big NO!
Many people nowadays don't trust is you can "disable" things. If Mozilla Firefox decides to add AI as a kind of module that can be removed, leaving the browser a kind of "bare bone", fine.
Otherwise: no thank you. 

[Battlenuts]

The whole reason why I chose firefox was to avoid the en**bleep**tification of other browsers and the lack of AI. Now you're doing this **bleep**. AI is not the future and a future with using firefox is certainly disappearing. Why can't your developers just focus on making the browser more usable and stable and unique in an ocean inundated with AI slop? Firefox is unique, but going for this AI bull**bleep** is just gonna make it just another drop in the slop bucket of browsers. Insanely disappointing news. At the very least make it an opt out option for AI, and not force it on everyone.

[jahn_reinhard]

You have a huge opportunity here to provide your user base with a completely unique product: a fully AI-free browser that may even BLOCK AI features. And you are flushing this down the drain. AI is not the future, it's bloaty spyware that your users do not want. LLMs will go the way of the dodo in a few years and you will have lost your core user base. 

I don't know what's so difficult to understand about this. You cannot compete with Chrome on Google's terms. Every baby knows that to remain relevant you have to innovate, and yet Firefox chooses not to. You have just shot yourself in the foot and announced to the world that you plan to join Chrome in the sewers - don't come crying when you inevitably get sepsis.

[RavenDragons]

I do not want to use ai, full stop.

Ai at its core is not ready for public use, and yet here we are. Ai is not truly "intelligent" it is a learning algorithm that copies and follows commands. These commands hold no bias, no informed decisions. It is easily exploitable for malicious use, which is one of countless reasons why people sought out Firefox for its lack of ai features, as a last bastion of the internet free of predatory "Artificial Intelligence"

If you go down this path, you will undoubtedly use countless users, seeking more alternatives, free of ai. Do what you will, but choosing ai is your funeral Mozilla. 

[bornhater]

New Mozilla CEO Anthony Enzor-DeMeo: are you kidding me. I come to Firefox because I want to get away all of the pointless nonsense being pushed over and over again by the other ridiculous browsers. You have not won at any single point by following the trend. You have won by respecting your userbase and understand you are who we go to when we want to jump ship. I jumped ship over privacy concerns. Now waves of new users are jumping ship because they're sick of AI in every search query they may or may not be able to turn off (and generally can't turn off). So, I am FAILING to understand why we're doing this. You're the lifeboat. That is your job. That is the only way Firefox has been growing for years now. Why are you putting a hole right in front of us in our lifeboat and going 'The hole is the future!!!'. All of the word of mouth for years for Firefox has been "you want to jump ship, this is the best and biggest lifeboat!!!"

There are other lifeboats. You do not grow out of not being a lifeboat by becoming the reason people are jumping off the ship. I refuse to believe you're this disconnected from reality. Capitalists are very good at making money.

Anyways, lovelies: I've heard good things about a couple of other lifeboats. Waterfox, Librewolf, Zen. I'm not jumping ship just yet, but who knows how Mozilla will respond to its actual user base 😉

Should have run this with a focus group first, bestie, not the official announcement.