Opera Mini adds
browser AI

A free browser AI, Aria, has been added to Opera Mini. The update features AI capabilities, such as up-to-date information from the web, research assistance, content summarisation, and image generation, directly into the browser at no additional cost.

Opera says the Android-based browser, with more than 100-million users, is known and appreciated for its many unique features – from live football scores to the built-in digital wallet MiniPay, and now also Aria.

“AI is rapidly becoming an integral part of the daily internet experience, and we’re seeing a great interest in AI solutions among South Africans, so bringing Aria to Opera Mini is a natural addition to our most-downloaded browser,” says Jørgen Arnesen, EVP Mobile of Opera.

“With the integration of our built-in AI, Aria, we’re excited to explore how AI can further enhance the feature set our South African users rely on every day.”

Addressing data costs

While internet access is becoming increasingly more available in SA, the cost of the internet is unproportionally high compared to the income or GDP per capita. This is according to an Opera survey from March 2025. The research revealed 80% of South Africans say data is too expensive, and over two thirds (69%) reported regularly running out of data before the end of the month.

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Opera says its browser has played a key role in improving internet accessibility across SA. According to the company, Mini’s turbo data-saving mode can reduce data usage by up to 90% compared to other major browsers. For the past three years, Opera says it has saved SA’s an equivalent of $10-million in data (6-million GB) through its data compression technology.

Opera’s free data campaigns, running since 2020, give SA users on the MTN network 3GB of free data each month, which can be used for any activity, including accessing Aria. Since 2022, the company has invested millions of dollars into these campaigns in SA.

With Aria integrated into Opera Mini, users get the benefits of an advanced AI tool without sacrificing data. Aria is optimised for minimal data consumption and is included within Opera’s free daily data bundles in SA.

Aria browser AI integrates into Opera’s browsers on both desktop and mobile to enable an accessible chat-based interface to AI. It enhances user interaction through information retrieval, text or code generation, image generation and understanding.

Aria is powered by Opera’s own Composer AI engine, which uses both OpenAI and Google AI technologies to provide the most relevant answers, and it integrates image generation through Google’s Imagen3 fast model.

For the 24% of South Africans surveyed who use AI tools several times a day, and the 59% who rely on AI for academic purposes, Opera says Aria provides an accessible way to support these activities.

* Download Opera Mini on the Google Play Store here.