During Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025 in Barcelona last week, the Norwegian browser company Opera unveiled the Browser Operator, a native AI agent that is able to perform browsing tasks for users.
In classic AI industry hype, the company declared that the introduction of agentic browsing marked “a major paradigm shift for browsers”, allowing users “to focus on more exciting parts of their lives instead”. Of course, Microsoft may disagree, considering Copilot is now embedded in its Edge browser.
“For more than 30 years, the browser gave you access to the web, but it has never been able to get stuff done for you,” said Opera EVP Krystian Kolondra. “Now it can. This is different from anything we’ve seen or shipped so far.
“The Browser Operator we’re presenting … marks the first step towards shifting the role of the browser from a display engine to an application that is agentic and performs tasks for its users.”
Even Google’s Gemini would find that claim interesting. It says the following of Edge: “Copilot is considered an AI agent built directly into Microsoft Edge, allowing users to access its capabilities like summarising web pages, answering questions, and researching topics without leaving the current tab or window within the browser itself; essentially acting as a built-in assistant within Edge.”
Gemini claims the same for its role in Google’s Chrome browser: “Gemini within Chrome is considered an AI agent, as it’s designed to not only respond to prompts but also actively perform tasks and take actions based on your requests, utilising advanced reasoning capabilities that go beyond a simple assistant function; this is particularly highlighted with the newer Gemini 2.0 iteration focused on agentic AI.”
That said, Opera is a fast, low-demand, browser with VPN built-in, giving it an important role in global availability of agentic AI.
Opera provided the following information about the new version of its browser:
The Browser Operator, currently being demoed as a feature preview, is designed to give users superpowers when browsing – through AI agentics, while safeguarding their privacy. The concept is simple: Browser Operator allows the browser users to explain what they need it to do in natural language, and the browser sets out to perform tasks for them. They can, for example, ask them to buy them a pack of 10 pairs of white tennis socks from Nike in a size 12. The Browser Operator will then perform this task, freeing the user’s time that would have been otherwise spent on this menial task. This aligns with the broader role of the browser, which is there to make users more powerful while online and to give them tools to use their time more efficiently.
The browser that works the web for you
While working on completing a task, Browser Operator lets users see what’s going on at any point in the process as well as what steps it took to complete it. During this process, the user remains in full control and can take over or cancel the task at any given moment. The best part is that Browser Operator works in the same environment as the user: the browser. It doesn’t require a virtual machine or a server in the cloud.
Faster and private agentic browsing with user in control
Opera’s AI agent differs from the approaches to agentic browsing that are currently being tested by other companies. Opera’s solution utilises native, client-side solutions. It protects user privacy by not relying on screenshots or video capture of the browsing session, nor on a version of the browser running in the cloud or a virtual machine. Instead, the Browser Operator is interacting deep in the core of the browser, keeping user data locally on the device.
Availability
Operas Browser Operator is currently available as a preview of the upcoming functionality. Opera expects to launch the new Browser Operator as part of its AI feature drop program in the near future.
Opera’s path toward agentic browsing
Opera has a track record of pioneering functionalities that then become the new standard in the browsing world: it invented tabs with Opera 4, it was also the first to introduce search in the address bar, as well as the first one to offer a built-in VPN and messengers in the sidebar and the first one to offer native browser AI. In 2023, Opera redesigned its flagship browser to make it AI centric. Since March 2024, the company has been pursuing its AI Feature Drops program, which tests experimental AI features such as local LLMs, Image Generation, and AI Tab Commands in the developer stream of the browser and ships them to users on a regular basis. Today, it’s redefining the role of the browser yet again, by becoming the first browser to perform tasks for its users, thus becoming agentic. Browser Operator is being previewed during MWC in Barcelona today.
