​Feature Request: Support Custom APIs or Regional Providers for the AI Sidebar

[Glorious-years]

The Problem:

The current AI Sidebar feature in Firefox supports excellent models like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini. However, users in certain regions (such as mainland China) cannot access these services due to network restrictions. This renders the built-in AI sidebar completely unusable for a significant portion of your global user base. ​

The Solution:

Please consider adding one or both of the following options to the AI settings:

​Custom API Configuration: Allow users to input their own API Base URL, API Key, and Model Name (e.g., supporting standard OpenAI-compatible endpoints). This is the most flexible solution, empowering power users to connect to local models or alternative AI providers. ​

Regional AI Providers: Add native support for popular and accessible AI models in other regions (e.g., DeepSeek, Kimi, etc.). ​

Why this matters:

Firefox has always championed user choice, privacy, and customization. By opening up the AI sidebar to custom APIs, you ensure that this powerful new feature is truly accessible to everyone, regardless of geographical restrictions, while also appealing to developers and privacy-conscious users who prefer local models.

[PabCML]

Strong agreement on the need for OpenAI-API compatibility here!

[rb81]

I would add to this the following points:

Definitely make this a Firefox-native chat window. Users can either connect their frontier/regional accounts or add API keys for a list of providers. This could work the same way Cline works (in VS Code). This would allow users to use Ollama as well.

Integration with the browser window needs to be much better to be truly useful. Summarizing pages isn't practical, and highlighting and sending text to the chat window is almost the same as simply copying and pasting the content. Idea: allow the AI chat window to "see" the browser page for in-chat context. With a custom chat window, this is easy to implement. The user can simply toggle whether or not the AI has "visibility" to the page being browsed. It can then access the source code to search/find content.

I would also emphasize the need to give users much better control over this AI feature for it to be considered private and secure, in true spirit of the Mozilla/Firefox ethos.