Opera introduces WebAI standard for running AI models locally in the browser

Opera introduced WebAI, a standard designed to run AI models directly in the browser without relying on cloud servers. The technology can work with different open-weight models, including Google’s Gemma; on Macs, it also supports Apple’s on-device foundation model. The feature is available as an early preview in Opera One, with user opt-in, and is expected to come to Opera GX and Opera Neon in the future.

Opera says WebAI can generate text, classify content, and understand relationships between pieces of information without sending data to the company’s servers or requiring an AI subscription. Local processing may give users more control over privacy, but it places greater demands on the computer, and performance depends on the device’s hardware.