// ZDNET — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
Opera will run AI locally in your browser now – why that’s a gamechanger and how to try it
Thanks to the newly proposed WebAI web standard, the company will start shipping local AI models with its flagship browser.
Opera just made a bold choice: Thanks to the newly proposed WebAI web standard, the company will soon be shipping local AI models with its browser. By doing so, Opera’s AI ensures that your queries and/or data remain on your machine.
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According to Opera, because this new feature uses open-weight AI models, anyone can build on top of those models without running expensive AI infrastructure or paying for every request. That equates to more innovation for the Opera browser.
Most browsers include AI that depends on the cloud for responses; a user’s data is not limited to the local machine and could be used by third-party organizations to train LLMs or even build profiles.
Opera aims to resist that trend by leaning into local AI, made possible by open-weight models that have become smaller and more capable, while hardware continues to become more powerful.
“A lot of what people want from AI doesn’t need a data center. Your laptop can already do it, without sending your data anywhere,” said Krystian Kolondra, EVP Browsers and AI at Opera. “We first shipped local models to developers in 2024. Now we’re bringing them to everyone. More models and tools are coming, and you’ll always decide what runs on your machine.”
Opera also plans on bringing more open models optimized for specific devices, as well as more tools to make it easier to build browser experiences on local AI.
WebAI is a newly proposed web standard (backed by companies like Google and Microsoft) that allows websites and extensions to use browser-hosted AI. Opera’s implementation of WebAI is model-agnostic and built around open-weight models, so users can select models from the likes of Google and Apple.
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