As Mozilla envisions Firefox’s future, we are focused on building a browser that empowers you to choose your own path and gives you the freedom to explore without worry or compromises. We do this through a few foundational ideas – simplifying the online experience, protecting your privacy and offering meaningful choice.
Our commitment to these principles guides us as we begin small-scale tests of our first generative AI features in Firefox Nightly. Grounded in Mozilla’s years of research and advocacy for building trustworthy AI, our approach has been intentional and methodical.
Earlier this month, we announced a pioneering AI-powered accessibility feature: local alt-text generation for images within PDFs. By generating alt-text locally on your device, Firefox ensures your data remains private. As we develop it further and learn from the deployment, our goal is to enable users with screen readers to better understand images that would otherwise be inaccessible. We will continue to invest in local models that enhance user experience without compromising privacy.
Whether it’s a local or a cloud-based model, if you want to use AI, we think you should have the freedom to use (or not use) the tools that best suit your needs. With that in mind, this week, we will launch an opt-in experiment offering access to preferred AI services in Nightly for improved productivity as you browse. Instead of juggling between tabs or apps for assistance, those who have opted-in will have the option to access their preferred AI service from the Firefox sidebar to summarize information, simplify language, or test their knowledge, all without leaving their current web page.
Our initial offering will include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral, but we will continue adding AI services that meet our standards for quality and user experience.
Providing choice in AI services is important for many reasons. First, you should be able to choose the service that works best for you, and not be locked into a single provider. Second, all of these models are still being developed and improved. None are perfect, and each has its own unique strengths and weaknesses. Offering options gives people an opportunity to experiment with many services to find the one that’s most helpful in solving the problem they have. AI is an ingredient that can make your experience better; it doesn’t need to replace the tools you already know and love.
While testing various services, we’ll also look for ways to improve the market overall. We’ll call out practices we want to improve, from copyright to consent to privacy, and give Firefox users the information they need to make informed decisions about the AI tools they choose to use.
At Firefox, we strive to create a better internet for all and empower you to choose what that means for yourself. In everything we do — from challenging the status quo by pushing the industry toward better privacy practices, to creating better performance benchmarks across all browsers and prioritizing user experience — we aim to shape a future of browsing that helps you choose a better, more personal and meaningful internet.
Thank you for being part of this exciting journey.
Ian Carmichael, SVP of Firefox
