Mozilla Upgrades Firefox Smart Window With New AI Models

Mozilla has rolled out a major update to its opt-in beta feature, Smart Window, formerly known as AI Window. Through a new partnership with Exa, the browser's integrated AI chat can now pull real-time information from the web and provide direct source citations. Additionally, the tool uses natural language processing to search browsing history, allowing users to retrieve visual previews of previously visited pages and automatically organize tabs into suggested groups while closing duplicate pages.

A key differentiator for this update is the flexibility in model selection. Users can configure Smart Window to run on Google's Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite, OpenAI's oss-gpt-120b, or Alibaba's Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507. Alternatively, users can connect their own local AI models. To address privacy concerns, Firefox AI senior staff product manager Steve Truong noted that these integrations operate under zero-data-retention contracts. This ensures third-party providers process prompts in memory without saving data for training, advertising, or human review, while Mozilla itself does not retain chats without explicit permission.

For developers and privacy-conscious practitioners, this agnostic approach provides a unique sandbox. Instead of being locked into a single proprietary ecosystem, developers can test how different large language models handle contextual browsing tasks. The ability to run local models directly within the browser interface offers a secure environment for processing sensitive data without exposing intellectual property to external APIs. Furthermore, the upcoming additions of AI-powered form autofill and structured browsing journeys will streamline testing workflows.

While Ajit Varma, the head of Firefox, stated there is no precise release date for the feature to exit beta, the update signals Mozilla's broader strategy to prioritize user sovereignty. Users can fully customize their experience via a dedicated AI Controls section in the browser settings, choosing to disable all AI features or toggle specific ones. This positions Firefox as a neutral platform focused on enhancing user experience rather than driving search queries for a specific LLM provider.