Vivaldi Stays AI-Free: CEO Rejects Trend of AI-Integrated Browsers

There is also no escape in browsers when it comes to integrating services in the field of artificial intelligence. The browser provider Vivaldi does not want to join the trend. Vivaldi will continue to remain “AI-free” in the future, boss Jon von Tetzchner.

AI everywhere, just not in Vivaldi

Regardless of whether you use Chrome, Edge or Firefox, in practically every “modern” browser there is always some kind of AI assistant or another AI service. Google and Microsoft integrate their in-house AI assistants Gemini and Copilot, while other providers are immediately developing “AI browsers”. Former Opera boss Jon von Tetzchner, who now sells the Vivaldi browser as a co-founder and CEO, wants to offer a AI-free alternative with his product. In a blog entry Von Tetzchner said that Vivaldi wanted to ensure that browsing remains “human”.

We take a position, put people about hype and will not transfet the joy of discovering in passive watching. Without discoveries, the Internet loses interest in a significant interest. Our curiosity loses swing and diverse the variety of the Internet. Vivaldi CEO Jon von Tetzchner

Surfing the Internet is an “active experience”, while AI browser replace the pleasure of “discovering” content with an “inactive watching”, he continued. The Vivaldi boss criticizes Google and Microsoft for accelerating this trend by integrating Gemini into Chrome and now offers Microsoft the so-called copilot mode in Edge, where you can combine chat, web search and navigation.

This approach is a great risk because the users begin to rely on a “middleman” who prepares knowledge for them and no longer offers direct access. The question arises as to who controls the information provided and how this provider monetizes the data. Von Tetzchner also referred to a study, according to which a AI overview displayed in search engines leads to fewer clicks towards the actual search results.

According to Tetzchner, Vivaldi should not get a chat bot based on a voice model, no function to summarize web contents or a feature for automatic filling out web forms as long as no better methods are developed. Basically, AI is not bad per se, after all, this could definitely result in features that are actually useful, according to the Vivaldi boss. In view of the increasing use of generative AI in browsers, Vivaldi takes a position in which one wants to “put people over the hype”.