'Moment of Resurgence' for Web Browsers, Says Mozilla CEO

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00:00You might know the company from its Firefox web browser, and that's really where I want to start

00:04and sort of understanding this layer of technology that we're talking about so much that so many of

00:09us are using. And I wonder how you look at it as a way as a way that it's part of the ecosystem.

00:16Now, Laura, is this like is it a web browser? Is it like Internet access was in the 1990s?

00:23Are there going to be no such thing as like, you know, AI companies because everything is going to

00:27be an AI company? How should we be thinking about it? Yeah, it's a moment of tremendous change.

00:34One of the big shifts we're seeing is a really renewed interest in browsers as a category.

00:39Perplexity just launched their Comet browser. OpenAI just launched their Atlas browser.

00:44And it makes sense. The browser has been around for decades, and it's a product we use all the time,

00:51but we don't think about it very often. And it's not surprising that AI companies are getting into

00:56this space. The browser has incredible access into credentials, your tabs, where you're browsing,

01:02how you're spending your time. And as you know, AI companies are very hungry for that information.

01:07So it is it is sort of a moment of resurgence for the browser right now.

01:10Is the browser the gateway to all of this, or is it not because we're using apps like Claude or ChatGPT?

01:19What we're finding is that the folks that created those apps are feeling that the interface is a little

01:26clunky right now, that you might be in a browser, and then you have to go to another tab and back

01:32and forth a little bit. And so I think that there will be a role to play for apps. But what we're

01:36certainly seeing from OpenAI and others is that they're really interested in getting into the browser

01:41space. But I think the browser is changing. The browser has traditionally been a container.

01:47You have a URL and a search bar, you have some tabs, and the browser renders content on the web

01:53for you. The shift that we're expecting to see is that the browser will become more of an agent to

01:59actually do work on your behalf in that browser interface. But with that shift becomes a big shift

02:05in power of data as well. The AIs now have more information about your credentials, where you're

02:10spending your time, where you're spending your money. And we know that people are worried about that.

02:1460% of people in the US are really worried about privacy with AI. And the other 40% probably should

02:21be as well. And so I think to be successful in this space, people are going to have to go back

02:25to those values that Mozilla and Firefox are really built on, which is around privacy and choice and

02:30control over your experience and your data.

02:32Do you feel like it's difficult to compete against the behemoths that are out there?

02:40It's always challenging to be a smaller company. The big tech companies consolidate a lot of power,

02:45they lock you in, they have vertical integration. But it's something that is incredibly important to do.

02:50The internet, if left to its own devices, would always trend to being closed, to being expensive,

02:56and to just have a few players. And that's why it's important to have open source solutions. It's

03:03important for alternatives for Firefox, like Firefox to be there. You know, we have our own browser

03:09engine called Gecko. There are only three browser engines left, Microsoft and Opera, everyone else moved

03:15over to Chromium. It's expensive to run a browser engine. I know why they did it. But we think it's

03:21incredibly important to invest in options like that. Because very quickly, otherwise, you end up in a

03:27very, very sort of monopolistic world, which is bad for the health of the internet. And it's bad for

03:32the users of the internet.

03:34So is, are you creating a web browser? Are you changing Firefox in order to be an AI first browser

03:41so it can compete with whatever browser open AI ultimately has, whatever browser perplexity

03:46ultimately offers in the way Chrome changes from Alphabet's Google?

03:51Yeah, at Firefox, we always adapt to where users are going and what they need. And not all of our

03:58users want AI. About 12% of users in the US actually don't want AI. So there'll always be an experience

04:04for them. But we are actually, we just launched smart windows. We have signups for those available

04:09right now, which will be our version of AI. But it's going to be centered on privacy, on trust,

04:14and on transparency. So it will be you'll be able to have a great AI experience in the Firefox

04:20browser. But it's going to be one that is really oriented around what users really need.

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