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.

[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.

[RoanneCD]

Dear gods keep AI out of this browser. 

The whole reason I stepped over to FireFox was because you guys hadn't forced down my throat yet. 

Well, guess I'll go searching for a browser without AI bull**bleep**. (If there are any left.)

[lululemotjuste]

Came here to echo what I see many others have already said. No one wants this and moreover no one wants you to be spending your time and resources on this.

What I cannot fathom is why you think things like "get help while you browse" is a compelling selling point. Get help while I browse??? With what??? And summaries from a LLM chatbot that is confidently wrong and hallucinates half the time??? In what world is this improving my user experience.

You are an internet browser. I want you to block my ads, protect my privacy and security, not hog all my RAM, let me organize my tabs, and otherwise get out of the way while you show me the g*dd*mn internet!! Having to shut off new AI bloatware everywhere like playing whack-a-mole IS THE DISTRACTION. 

[MargaretCampos]

That's cool and all, but AI, or actually, LLMs are all pretty **bleep**ing bad, I genuinely know 0 people who'd want this. Much less with NO ways to turn it off. You just ruined YEARS of trust with this decision. I hope your shareholders are happy, because I'll be looking for a new browser from now on.

- A normal every day user.

[Bico]

No way. If y’all integrate this LLM nonsense into Firefox I am dropping it like a hot lump of uranium. The only reason I seek out Firefox is because you don’t integrate all these privacy killing technologies into your software. If I wanted you to “keep up” with other browsers… hell, I might as well just use Chrome or Edge for all the good your product will be.

[SteveBoi]

Jolie - serious questions

- what exactly does AI bring to a browser? 

Can you tell me why I should have help using a browser?

What does your new CEO think that AI will bring to Firefox? And by answering I need a non-techies, plain language explanation, not tech-speak about "how AI integrates into the web."  What does that even mean?  Are you planning to have AI that detects other AI-originated content in a search-engine inquiry response? 

[CHaSeD]

I doubt you'll receive a serious answer, as I don't think one exists. I think the real answer is something along the lines of "C-Suite demanded this change" which is beyond stupid.

[Caz]

Every time a company promises that their implementation of <useless feature nobody wants> is secure, actually, there's a data breach three months later.

Nobody needs genai in a browser, it wastes resources and hallucinate answers. 

Twenty years of Firefox use ended, I'll find something else. Disappointed. And frankly even if you turn around everyone who went to another browser because of this will just stay with that because you threw away our trust and everyone is just so tired of switching away from software all the time now that every CEO wants to actively destroy the planet. If Mozilla goes down now it's well deserved. You guys don't have the market share to alienate the type of person who downloads Firefox. 

[artsandstuff]

NO. We do NOT want any more AI tools AT ALL.

[aiplagueavoider]

All of this sucks. Literally no one wants AI garbage mucking up the browser people are switching to in order to avoid AI garbage. This is an extremely disappointing change and everyone involved should be ashamed. AI is killing the planet and making our lives worse for no reason. If Mozilla insists on going all-in on this scam then I'm out, I'll switch to something else. 

[meganer13]

Many of your users have chosen this browser to get away from AI and/or tracking features that we don't want. Now you're adding these features? Have you lost your marbles? This is a great way to drive away your userbase! 

[Limone]

This is honestly embarrassing.
Me and other Users use Firefox because you go (mostly) against the grain. Ai is not the future. Not when you have to correct its useless output. Its inefficient, riddled with misinformation and mistakes, not to mention the strain it puts on the environment. Because thats what we needed. 
Don't compromise on the exact qualities that make firefox appealing, (privacy, no bloatware, adblockers etc) youre already on shaky standing compared to the million of chromium browsers. Do you really think that this will get you new users?? if anything you will actively alianate the users you have.

I dont want some **bleep**ing ai. If I need help then theres a million forums or people I can ask. 

> "Nonetheless, standing still while technology moves forward doesn’t benefit the web or the people who use it"

What an absolutely laughable justification. Oh! everybody else is crashing their car into a wall, so lets follow suit :DDD Ai does not benefit people. The miniscule ""benefits"" you can squeeze out of this worthless waste of resources has never been able to outweigh the sheer amount of cons. 

[logical2u]

Hi Jolie (and the Mozilla team reading),

I have been exclusively using and recommending Firefox for at least 15 years, probably more like 20. This insistence on including AI by default in your browser has caused me to halt this advocacy. If things continue as they are, I'll soon be recommending people avoid or replace your browser.

I strongly encourage you to reconsider your current and future approach to these tools. Your idea of opt-in seems to be "have it installed and turned on but you don't need to actually use it", but this opens all of your users to novel LLM attack vectors and falsely over-represents tool adoption and use. It's also a dark pattern in your design - and considering many of your users specifically sought out Firefox because of the dark patterns in other browsers, they're not going to stick around once you implement them.

[worst-idea-ever]

"We here at Mozilla Firefox are excited to announce that we will be shooting ourselves in the head. As I'm sure you're aware, audience of anti-Head-Shooters, Shooting-Yourself-In-The-Head is the hot new innovative technology that has never killed anyone ever. We know this because nobody who has shot themself in the head has told us they died, and the people waving guns around are very insistent that this is the Way Of The Future. On an unrelated note, our new CEO who gave us the gun has just gotten a wage increase. Why? :gunshot:" 

[Solarmama]

To quote user @TheZeldaZone on Mastodon, "Hello, we're Firefox, The Only Browser That Hasn't Hit Itself In The **bleep** With A Hammer. For years now, folks have used us because of our un-hammered **bleep**. Now, you may be wondering why today we've brought this hammer and pulled out our **bleep**. Well, I'm glad you asked--"

I use Firefox to be entirely free of AI interference and influence and because of your commitment to self-determination and privacy. According to statements from your new CEO, you're planning to cram more AI stuff into my beloved browser. I have appreciated that Firefox has made it easy for me to pick and choose when and how I incorporate newer tech options and to curate my online experience. Firefox should do that with any and all AI things you want to add and see how well it gets adopted. Maybe make a version of Firefox that uses AI, and one that doesn't, and see how that goes? I would bet money that you'd see that more people want the non-AI version of your products. Don't make me have to find another browser who is actually truly committed letting their user base Choose Their Own Adventure with a non-AI, privacy-committed product. Make yourselves stand out early, and when the AI bubble inevitably pops (already on its way) you'll be out in front to pick up the pieces. 

[Arrowan]

You understand that the reason anyone recommends Firefox is because it's not bloated with unwanted AI features, yes? And that putting in these features will alienate a large part of your userbase and will stop recommending it, yes?

"Wow, we love how our competitors install a raw sewage pipe directly in users living rooms, so we want to do that too! Don't worry though, instead of discharging it immediately like they do you'll have the option of deciding when you want to start the flow (for now)! 🤗" You guys understand how you sound, right??

[jlwork]

NO **bleep**ING AI!

[manndelion]

AI is a terrible idea. The only reason I'm still using Firefox is because it *hasn't* forced slop on its users like the other browsers. Guess it's time to move on.... Thanks for ensh*tting the bed.

[Escapist83]

I guess it's time to switch to a different browser then.

[mcmk]

No.

[Dnamra]

I'll be transparent with you, I along with a significant portion of your user base will be switching browsers as a direct result of your implementation of wasteful, useless A.I. 

[scribbly7]

AI isn't the future, it's an overhyped trend that's going to crash in a couple of years. it's incapable of being reliable because it's just glorified text prediction. everyone who dislikes AI is moving to firefox to get away from it, so I don't think that this move is going to go over very well with your userbase

[BlakeC]

It is such a shame that Mozilla is now so out of touch with the core of their userbase. The ability to toggle these features is not what users are looking for; a safehaven from these features is what Firefox used to represent for us. The majority of active Firefox users made the choice to switch to the browser in order to protect their data and aquire digital security. AI features are the antithesis to this safety in every regard - AI is an enterprise predicated on the amalgamation and analysis of users information. The fact that Mozilla is willing to integrate these features at all, even if they are optional and togglable for users, is a distinct betrayal of users' trust and will cause a mass exodus as we search for a browser that does what Firefox once did: values our privacy.

[silverel]

I have been using Firefox for years and made an account explicitly to give feedback after hearing about the new CEO and further pursuing even more AI "features".

STOP. Turn Back. Make your own product that is separate and see if ANYONE chases after it.

Jamming AI into everything DOES NOT make it desirable. It only encourages people to use forks and leave the community in disgust.

Listen to your feedback.

[farmerzeke]

PLEASE DON'T CORRUPT FIREFOX WITH AI!!!

[junijwi]

Leadership that can't make a distinction between the vast umbrella of AI tools and the destructive hype train of generative AI is not leadership that understands the current technical climate. Not to mention, generative AI and LLM are insecure: https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/prompts-are-not-fit-for-purpose/

[AngelOShadows]

I moved to Firefox specifically to avoid AI. Partially because of how inaccurate it is (and how dangerous that can be), and partially because I find it just bloats my computer. It's something I don't want to use, and something I won't use-- but having it there, even in the background, even in a closed little window, just makes everything run slower.

Of course, AI is also just a trend, that most people don't want. Just because you're a CEO or a shareholder does not mean you know what people want, it just means you have more money to back your decisions. You do not know best, the masses do.

Have you asked the masses? It does seem, at least, that the masses are responding here.

[charizardi]

This is extremely disappointing and will affect how much longer I end up staying with Firefox. It doesn't matter to me that there is an opt-out option. It is disappointing to see Firefox investing time and money into something that is the antithesis of WHY many people choose to use Firefox. This is time and money that could go towards other Firefox improvements that would really set it apart from other browsers, but investing in AI drives it towards all the things I and many others are trying to distance from. Firefox's value is in its privacy protection. Bringing AI into it compromises privacy in a major way, and will lead to the loss of that part of its userbase.

[wolferahmite]

Greed has gotten the best of you yet again, and it will be your downfall.