TipOpera runs AI directly on your computer: free, no account and your text is not sent away
Norway’s Opera has started building AI that runs on your own computer into the Opera One browser. The feature is called WebAI, it is free and stays off until you turn it on yourself. Whatever you let the local AI process does not have to be sent to a cloud AI service. Here is how to try it, and what to know first.
On 27 October 2026 Opera, which is headquartered in Oslo, started shipping AI models directly in its browsers. The feature is called WebAI and is available as an early preview in Opera One. Opera GX and Opera Neon will get it later. Local AI means the AI runs on your own computer instead of on an AI company’s servers.
With WebAI, websites and browser extensions can use an AI that lives in the browser, for example to write text, sort content or find connections between texts. Opera gives examples such as an extension that sorts your tabs, flags clickbait or finds relevant job ads. From the start you can use Google’s open model Gemma and, on a Mac, Apple’s own AI model that is already on the computer. No account, no fee and no API key are needed.
WebAI is opt-in. Nothing is downloaded until you turn it on in settings, and each website must get your permission before it can use the local AI. It works on Windows PCs with a 64-bit Intel or AMD processor and on Macs with Apple silicon (M1 or later). It does not work on older Intel Macs, on Linux or on Windows PCs with an Arm processor. Because the AI uses your computer’s own power, speed depends on how powerful the computer is.
Good to know: this is an early version, mostly made for developers and the curious. A small local model is not as smart as ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude, but it suits simple tasks with text you do not want to send away, such as summarising or sorting. Only give permission to websites you trust, and only install extensions from known sources. Use our prompt Local AI or cloud AI? in Promptverkstan to decide what fits where.
How to get started
- Download or update Opera One at opera.com.
- Go to Settings and Opera AI and turn on Enable Web AI API. The model is downloaded, which can take a few minutes.
- Install one of Opera’s example extensions and open it from the extensions menu.
- Only allow local AI for websites you trust, and turn the feature off in settings if you do not use it.
More on TipAI
Sources
- Opera Newsroom: Opera doubles down on local AI, shipping models directly in its browsers (27 okt 2026) (retrieved 2026-10-29)
- Opera Blog: WebAI: Local AI for the web, now in Opera (27 okt 2026) (retrieved 2026-10-29)
- TechCrunch: Opera introduces a new web standard to let users deploy AI locally in their browser (27 okt 2026) (retrieved 2026-10-29)
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