TechFirst podcast<\/a>. Opera, the 30-year-old browser company that pioneered tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, and ad blockers, has about 300 million active users globally. This year, Opera was the first to bring AI agents right into our browsers in a project called Opera Neon.<\/p>\n\u201cThe agentic browser \u2026 is that sort of the new operating system?\u201d Lexow asked during the podcast. \u201cIt\u2019s a big question.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of where the browser goes, Opera\u2019s pretty sure about the future of the internet itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next iteration of the internet will be agentic,\u201d Lexow says. \u201cThat\u2019s pretty much obvious at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a huge shift, by the way. An agentic internet would be a massive and fundamental change from a user-driven internet to an agent-driven version. In a user-driven internet, you search, you see results, you make selections, you click links, you fill out forms, you book flights, and you buy products.<\/p>\n
In a sense, you are the agent.<\/p>\n
In an agentic internet, you tell something \u2013 maybe your agentic browser \u2013 to do those things for you. Except you don\u2019t say search, look, select, and buy; you say buy me more of the underwear I got six months ago. The agent then consults its memory, forms a plan, takes multiple steps, and handles it all: from which underwear you bought, and where you bought them, to finding the same ones online (and maybe checking around for better prices), to adding them to cart, to checking out \u2026 and reporting back to you with the results.<\/p>\n
The agent \u2013 in this case potentially an agentic browser \u2013 is therefore essentially a personal assistant, a force multiplier.<\/p>\n
But will an agentic browser be the main way we engage with agents?<\/p>\n
Perplexity seems to think it\u2019s pretty important, given the company\u2019s persistent and repeated but so far unfruitful attempt to buy a browser. Opera certainly thinks so, if only because Opera has a browser, and a very innovative one at that.<\/p>\n
Opera launched AI in a browser back in 2023 in a project called ARIA. ARIA enabled contextual interactions within web pages in a GPT-based chat interface. Over time, that\u2019s evolved to a tripartite strategy under the Opera Neon brand:<\/p>\n
Neon Chat is a contextual AI chat layer within the browser, similar to ChatGPT but integrated into your browsing.
\n Neon Do is an active agent that performs actions on your behalf, like searching for and adding socks to an Amazon cart, all within your local browser environment.
\n Neon Make is a generative space where users can create web apps, games, or comparison tools using AI-powered agents that operate in the cloud.<\/p>\n
The reality is that for many of us, most of our work happens in a browser. I\u2019m writing this story in a browser. I recorded the interview in a browser. I\u2019ve researched Opera and Perplexity in a browser. I made episode art for the podcast in a browser (thanks, Canva).<\/p>\n
Opera\u2019s thesis is that having agents embedded where you work makes them vastly more useful: they have access to your history, to your work, to your sites and apps.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re logged into services, your tabs are open, your history\u2019s available. All that becomes context,\u201d Lexow says. \u201cThat\u2019s the starting point for your agent to act on your behalf.\u201d<\/p>\n
Important note: the Neon agentic browser\u2019s AI lives locally on your hardware, making it your agent, not Opera\u2019s, and not your employer\u2019s. This should boost your privacy, which is critical if you\u2019re going to give an agent access to very personal information including, likely, your credit card.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI memory plus browser context becomes incredibly powerful,” says Lexow. “It lets the agent understand not just what you want\u2014but how you want it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, this is just one vision of the future.<\/p>\n
Apple with Siri, as justly maligned as it is, would have another vision. Google, with Gemini and its own vast fleet of Android-enabled phones, would have another. Microsoft\u2019s Copilot is another. And OpenAI, which has ChatGPT apps for mobile devices as well as full computers, might have yet another vision of how we\u2019ll integrate AI into our lives and work.<\/p>\n
So whether the browser will be the locus of our agentic AI future or not is yet to be determined. Remember the old proverb: every problem looks like a nail to the person who only has a hammer.<\/p>\n
But it seems like a fairly good bet to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opera Neon is a new agentic browser, with AI built in. Opera AI-powered conversational search engine Perplexity is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[57173,256,64,63,57174,5045,105],"class_list":["post-73498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-agentic-browser","tag-ai","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-opera","tag-perplexity","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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