Opera Adds Agentic AI to Its BrowserBy John P. Mello Jr.March 4, 2025 5:00 AM PTImage Credit: Opera ADVERTISEMENTAchieve Financial Clarity with SettleGetting accurate product cost data is crucial for growth. Settle unifies invoices, payments, and inventory to help e-commerce operators uncover true costs and boost margins -- all in one platform. Get Started Today! Agentic AI getting AI to perform tasks rather than just create content from prompts is coming to the Opera browser.On Monday, the Norwegian company announced that its agent, Browser Operator, works inside Opera and will perform tasks on the web for users.Having an AI agent in the browser brings the advantage of letting you outsource the most monotonous tasks to the browser while you focus on the things that really matter to you, Opera Senior Vice President Jan Standal told TechNewsWorld.In a blog posting on its website, Opera explained that Browser Operator understands written instructions in natural language using the browser clients local resources. Operas AI Composer Engine processes that information to complete tasks in the browser.Browser Operator will pause and ask a user to take action whenever it needs them to fill in a form, confirm an order, or perform some other sensitive task. In this entire process, the user is in control and can take over at any moment from Browser Operator. They can also review all the steps the agent took to perform a requested task.Many of the tasks that people perform in their internet browsers are repetitive, like scouring online retailers for the best prices or checking the same feeds for notable activity, explained Max Vermier, senior director of AI strategy at Abbyy, a global intelligent automation company.Instead of spending countless minutes or even hours of your own time on these monotonous searches for information, an AI agent can autonomously gather it and present you with its findings in a fraction of the time, he told TechNewsWorld. AI agents can be your personal productivity assistant, taking on your busy work and allowing you to make consequential decisions.Its like having a personal assistant who automatically helps with all tasks online from planning and booking a vacation to keeping track of property tax deadlines, added Ambuj Kumar, founder of Simbian, a provider of autonomous AI agents for cybersecurity in Mountain View, Calif.Not only is the idea very powerful and completely feasible today, he told TechNewsWorld, but this could be one of those technologies that helps everyone.First Native AI AgentAlthough other browsers have incorporated AI features, Opera is the first to make an AI agent native to a browser. The concept is not new, but the way that Opera is implementing it is new, said Sandi Besen, an applied AI researcher at IBM and Neudesic, a global professional services company.Other companies capture screenshots and screen videos and send them to their AI models in the cloud to follow through on actions. Browser Operator interacts with the elements on a web page through Document Object Model technology.Basically, the DOM is automatically created by the browser, Besen told TechNewsWorld. Its essentially an in-memory representation of the web pages structure.One advantage of using DOM, she noted, is it creates a more seamless user experience because its more native to the browser environment.It improves the agents performance, too. It doesnt need to take a screenshot, send that to the model, wait for what the model wants to do next, and then execute a tool to make something happen in the browser, she explained. Instead, it can just access the web page data.It also enhances privacy because everything is done locally on the device, she continued. Its not being run or sent to a server or a cloud-based hosted model somewhere. So the informations being kept locally, which is better for privacy concerns, especially if youre navigating things like login information or passwords.Komninos Chatzipapas, founder of HeraHaven AI, developer of an AI-based virtual companion app, in St. Petersburg, Fla. added that a significant advantage of doing agentic AI natively and locally on the browser is, unlike the cloud approach of OpenAIs Operator, users will already be logged into all their accounts. You will be using your local IP, so you wont need to solve captchas every other minute like on Operator, he told TechNewsWorld.Can Operas AI Shift Market Share?Operas innovative approach could give it some leverage in a market where it has been only a niche player. This is one potential advantage for Opera, said Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Ore.Others treat browsers as cost centers and thus dont put much development emphasis on them, he told TechNewsWorld. Opera, by focusing advancement on their browser, could move around the more established players if users find this feature compelling, and they may.He argued that Browser Operator could have an impact on Operas market share. It depends on how well Opera can get the word out, get influencers to use the feature, and then get to a critical mass of regular users to drive an adoption wave, he said. In theory, Operas Browser Operator AI could enhance its market position by differentiating it from competitors, noted Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst with SmartTech Research in Las Vegas.By integrating agentic AI for automation, search efficiency, and task execution, Opera may attract tech-savvy users, he told TechNewsWorld. However, market impact depends on execution, adoption rates, and competition from big-hitter AI-enhanced browsers like Edge, Copilot, and Chrome, with Gemini.Ross Rubin, the principal analyst at Reticle Research, a consumer technology advisory firm in New York City, pointed out that AI innovation hasnt been successful in the past in disgorging market share from entrenched players.Microsofts launching of an AI-infused Bing brought more attention to that search engine than we had seen in a long time, but it hasnt meaningfully moved the needle for Bing in terms of search engine share, he told TechNewsWorld.And theres less of a barrier going to Bing instead of Google, as opposed to downloading a whole new browser, he said. So, Browser Operator is probably not going to do much in terms of Operas relative standing.AI Agents EverywhereBrowser Operator is just the first of what will be a proliferation of AI agents, predicted David Johnston, a contributor to Morpheus, an open-source platform for launching smart agents. All browsers will include them, as the productivity increases are amazing, he told TechNewsWorld.AI is in discovery mode, and people are experimenting with where to best access its powers, he said. From websites to dedicated apps, smart agents will be everywhere.Web browsers are there to make you more powerful while youre online, browsing the web and to give you the tools to use your time more effectively, Operas Standal added. Browser Operator showcases that we have the capability of making a useful and smart tool within the browser which aligns with the overall objective of a web browser of being useful.With this feature preview were showing a proof of concept of where AI could take us when we use AI to leverage our work building a web browser and this applies to every industry, he said.John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John.Leave a CommentClick here to cancel reply. Please sign in to post or reply to a comment. New users create a free account.Related StoriesMore by John P. Mello Jr.view allMore in Artificial Intelligence