Mozilla’s new CEO: AI is coming to Firefox, but you can turn it off

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 .