Mozilla recently confirmed that it’s shifting gears and bringing AI features to its Firefox browser. However, according to the newly appointed CEO Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, the AI features will always be optional and possible to switch off completely.
“AI should always be a choice—something people can easily turn off. People should know why a feature works the way it does and what value they get from it,” Enzor-DeMeo wrote in a blog post.
The goal here is to combine new AI features with Mozilla’s long-standing focus on privacy, in a bid to strengthen Firefox’s position in a market where browsers like Perplexity Comet, Opera, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas are profiling themselves around built-in AI.
While Mozilla’s sudden embracing of AI is disappointing for many Firefox fans, it’s perhaps unsurprising given the company’s recent struggles. Firefox’s worldwide browser market share has stagnated between 2% and 2.5% over the last year, with a small but noticeable downward trend in recent months. In 2024, Mozilla laid off 30 percent of its staff.