Mozilla updated its Firefox Smart Window AI browsing mode on August 18, 2026, adding the ability for AI chats to pull from current web information and display source links in responses. The new capability comes through a partnership with Exa, a web search provider.
Smart Window can now also automatically suggest tab groups — including finding and closing duplicate tabs — and show visual previews of previously visited pages when users search their browsing history using natural language. In a live demo, the feature surfaced browsing history results such as “running shoes I looked at last week” alongside images pulled from those previously visited sites.
Mozilla’s head of Firefox, Ajit Varma, told The Verge that Smart Window remains an opt-in beta feature with no confirmed date for a full release. It was originally announced as “AI Window” and has since expanded to include a dedicated AI Controls section in Firefox settings, where users can disable all AI features or selectively turn them on or off. Future updates are planned to include surfacing of recent browsing journeys and AI-powered autofill for online forms.
Users can select which AI model powers Smart Window, with current options including Google’s Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite, OpenAI’s oss-gpt-120b, Alibaba’s Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507, or a local AI model. Varma said the model choices are intended to support “digital sovereignty,” allowing users to select AI from companies in their region.
On privacy, Firefox AI senior staff product manager Steve Truong said all supported third-party models operate under zero-data-retention contracts, meaning user prompts are processed in memory and not stored for model training, advertising, or human review. Mozilla itself also does not retain user chats on its servers without explicit user permission.
Varma described Mozilla’s approach as “agnostic,” aiming to offer AI features for users who want them without requiring adoption across the board. “We’re a neutral party on the internet and we want to cater to everybody,” he said.
Source: The Verge