Browser maker Opera has introduced a new web standard called WebAI, letting users run AI models directly in the browser without relying on the cloud.
Opera stresses that WebAI is not tied to a single model, but is built for a wide range of open-weight systems. It cites Google’s Gemma, an open-weight model first launched two years ago; on Mac, WebAI can also use Apple’s own on-device foundation models.
WebAI is currently available as an early preview in Opera’s flagship product, Opera One. Opera GX, aimed at gamers and streamers, and Opera Neon, which can get work done through agents, will follow soon. However, users have to turn it on themselves before the feature works.
Privacy and Cost: Two Key Selling Points
The benefits of open-weight models are very practical: they can usually be downloaded for free and used freely, and because the weights are public, developers have more room to customize them as needed. They are not as open as fully open-source models, though, so there are still limits on use and modification.
Opera puts privacy front and center: when using AI, you do not have to send personal information to corporate servers, and you do not need a paid subscription to cloud services. The announcement put it plainly: developers can add AI to their products without building their own AI infrastructure or paying per use; users do not have to buy subscriptions, locally processed information stays on their own devices, and the AI on their computer remains under their control. With WebAI, users can generate text, classify content, and understand relationships between pieces of information directly in the browser.
Local models are not risk-free, but they give users more control. The trade-off is that they directly consume the machine’s computing power and may hurt performance, so the actual experience depends on the hardware specs. As AI assistants gain access to more and more personal information, privacy concerns are rising. Keeping all processing on the local machine instead of handing it over to corporate clouds echoes Opera’s long-standing focus on digital privacy.