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It goes to the core of the mission for Firefox, which is create a healthy and open internet. Hello and welcome to Outside the Fox, where we explore what's happening online and why it matters. I'm Kim Horcher. And I'm Steve Flavin. And in case you missed it, a new version of Firefox just dropped. Today, we're going to unpack one of the headline features, which we're calling AI controls. It's basically a master control switch for AI functionality in Firefox for users who would rather turn it off, because we believe that your browser should put you in control. So, here to chat with us today is the head of Firefox, Ajit Varma.
Ajit, welcome to the podcast. We've had you on before, but for those who might be new to the show, could you give us a little intro? Yeah, thanks for having me. It's always great to talk to you. So, my background is I, as Steve mentioned, the head of Firefox. I've been at Firefox for about a year now, and it's been a great year as we've really launched new features and I feel like really gotten back to basics of creating the best browser. So, let's get to it. Can you give us a quick overview of the new AI controls that will be in Firefox 148? So, AI controls is a simple one-stop destination where users who
have preferences in how they use AI can easily make their choices. This could be to completely turn off AI, turn off all notifications about AI features, any future features, or have more fine-grained fine-grained control if there's specific AI features that you might want. And then it's really trying to make it easy for users to create the browser experience that they prefer. Awesome. Thank you for breaking that down. What I want to know is why is Firefox launching this now? What problem is Firefox trying to solve?
Over the last year, we've started to introduce a few AI features into Firefox. And when we build features, we really listen to our community on how we can build a better product. And as we launch a few of these features, it was clear that for some users, they did not want to use AI now or in the future. And the reasons vary a lot between people, but some are societal concerns, some are just they just don't feel like the feature is the right feature for them. And so, as we heard this feedback, it became clear to us that we could do a better job of helping these users turn things off if that's what they wanted. And so, that was kind of the reason behind us prioritizing this work.
We love that. Uh I know that we've been working on these features for some time, and I got to say, the implementation is super simple and straightforward. I also really appreciate how customizable it is. Can you elaborate a little bit on the specific features you can control in this new hub and how you develop the UI? Yeah, so this was a question that we spent a lot of time on because there isn't one definition for AI. Um it means different things to different people. There are features that have existed in Firefox for a long time that people didn't really consider AI that just the world evolves. And so, um we spent time talking to our users, we spent time looking at just
like the technology behind the features that we launched, and we came up with a set of features that we think best align with people's concerns around AI. So, these are features like um translations, um which allow you to go to website and translate the content into a native language uh if you're choosing. Um we had a feature in our PDF editor that allowed creation of alternative text to help people with accessibility needs understand what the image was about. When you hovered over a link, we would provide summarizations of the content on that page as an optional feature. And then there's also features that we launched in the last year like tab groups that we wanted to make more intelligent by helping users
automatically organize tab groups with less clicks and then looking at the content of tabs and titles in order to suggest those titles. And so with all these features, there is now ability to turn all these off, but it'll also apply to future features as well. And so in November we talked about smart windows which is a new mode that allows even more AI innovation. But if you decide that you want to use this AI control feature, then future features we build will also be turned off by this toggle and we wouldn't notify user about any of those upcoming features or existing features as well. But again, this was very informed by the feedback that we heard and we want to and we encourage feedback from our user
base and anyone who uses Firefox. And if you feel like there are other features that you expected or other ways that we can make this feature easier, please send us that feedback and we'll continue to improve the feature based upon your feedback. Out of curiosity, what happens if a user chooses to block all features inside AI controls and is it reversible if I happen to change my mind? Yeah, so if you go to the page, there's a toggle at the top that you can flip on or off. If you choose to flip it off, then all the features that would be in this like AI kind of bucket would then be toggled off. And so that means if you tried
something in the past and you decide you don't want it, this is a single spot that would remove all those features. But, if you decide to use this feature, and there's one feature that you wanted to turn back on, like say translation, say you're traveling and you go to another country, and you're like, I really want translations, you can come back and just turn on a specific feature. Um or if you decide that AI is something that you want, you can flip everything back on, and you'll get notifications of upcoming features. Um and so, we've tried to make it a choose-your-own-adventure, where it's not you know, paywalling things or regarding things if user doesn't want it by putting them through all these hoops or
requirements. Um it is in the very user-friendly in giving people the ability to choose and control how they use AI if at all. Yeah. You know, something I'd love to touch on is just this moment that we find ourselves in the tech industry, and in the browser space in particular. People are talking about browsers again. That's cool. Um they've always been relevant, but in recent years, they've come to be viewed almost as a kind of utility. Um whereas now, there's a lot of experimentation happening, particularly with AI browsers and AI
functionality, um across the industry. It's generating a lot of conversations, some might even say a lot of noise. What would you say is the key differentiator of Firefox's approach to AI? Yeah. First off, uh I'm so happy about the competition and the conversation. I think that goes back to Firefox's roots around we were one of the first browsers that provided competition to an entrenched competitor, and this is what ultimately moved internet forward. And so, so many of the great sites that you use today, so many of the rich interactions were enabled by competition. But, that also means that it's important for us to talk about like what makes Firefox differentiated. And for us, that
is really about choice, control, and privacy. And these are values that we think really differentiates and distinguishes um what matters to us. And it goes to the core of the mission for Firefox, which is to help create a healthy and open internet. When you look at a lot of the other browsers, whether they're newly created emerging browsers or existing browsers that are changing into an AI first browser, um, it's becoming more apparent that the browser is not being created because it there's a desire to create the best browser. It's A lot of companies are looking at it as, "How do you take all users' data? How do you get more adoption for AI? How do you create more entry points into that company's AI?"
But at Firefox, we have a singular mission to create the best browser. So, we don't have billions of dollars that we spent on creating an LLM that we're not like, "Let's force this upon users." We really do believe in user choice. And so, when you look at the AI control stuff, that's like one example of it. But even as we are launching AI features, we are giving users choice. And that can mean using on-device models. It could be choosing the AI that you want and not just the AI of the company who built the browser. Um, and so, for us, these are all, uh, very important things, uh, that are just really important to us.
Yeah, it's exciting to hear. Um, so, as all of us are navigating this new landscape together, as AI reshapes the web as we know it, how do you view Firefox's role and how can Firefox lead by example? Yeah, so, I think that the with any new technology, there are going to be pros and cons. And some we can anticipate and some will, uh, cross a bridge and make adjustments as we see what users want. Um, but with Firefox, like, we are really, again, focused on building the best browser. And we think that there are AI features that can improve upon the browsing experience. So, an example is translations, which it's how do you create more content and create better connection and empathy amongst people.
Um if you are looking at things like our accessibility features, it's how do you use AI to make the internet more accessible to more people like for instance, maybe people who can't see images and they can understand the text and the meaning behind the image. Um and this is where uh we are looking very thoughtfully as we launch AI features to make sure that it is creating better features and better experiences uh for people and not negative ones. Um but with everything like we are looking at user feedback, we are trying to react quickly and just like we did with AI controls where we heard that users wanted a feature like that. Um we're going to look to our community to
help us uh build the right features. And the other thing I want to say is uh there are a lot of features that we are focused on outside of AI as well. And I think some of the feedback that I'd seen is that um this means that we're not working on everything el- anything else, but that's definitely not the case. There's so many great features that we launched over the last year, things like tab groups, vertical tabs, um sidebar. And we have features right now that are coming out like customizable hot keys and split view. And over the next few months, we have a lot of privacy features that we're launching. We have um I'd say probably the most exciting road map uh that I've seen in years as we really get back to the basics of
creating the best browser. And I'm excited to hear from users on what they are looking for. Um and not just, you know, the people who don't want to add, but the people who want AI. And overall, we'll build something that um serves everyone's needs. Well, that is a great note to end on. Though, that is unfortunately all the time we have today. Yeah. Uh but we really appreciate you stopping by Ajeet as always. Uh thanks for joining us today. Thanks, Stephen Kim. And again, the reason I love this forum is because it really gives us a chance to talk to people who love Firefox. And for us, we want to create the best product for you. And so, thanks again for having me, and looking forward to building
amazing features and talking to everyone about those uh in the future as well. In the meantime, for anyone in the audience, what do you think of the new AI controls? Let us know in the comments. Subscribe to the channel, and be sure to download Firefox because you know it's the best. We'll see you next time.
