Mozilla is steadily integrating AI into Firefox, but with a different philosophy than most browsers:
AI is optional and user-controlled. The biggest turning points came with
Firefox 148 and
Firefox 150. Firefox 148 introduced the new
AI Controls panel, giving users a central place to manage or completely disable AI features. Firefox 150 extended this idea further by adding
enterprise policy support (AIControls), allowing organizations to centrally enable or block AI features across multiple systems. At the same time, Firefox continues to rely on a mix of
external AI providers (like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini) and
task-specific/local AI features, instead of shipping one built-in LLM. This makes Firefox one of the few browsers where AI is both powerful and fully optional.
Timeline of Firefox AI features
- Firefox 133 → AI chatbot sidebar introduced
- Firefox 143 → Microsoft Copilot added as provider
- Firefox 148 → AI Controls added for users
- Firefox 149.0.2 / 150 → AIControls policy for administrators
What changed in Firefox 148?
Firefox 148 introduced the
AI Controls section in Settings.
This allows users to:
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