Vivaldi slams Google and Microsoft for cramming AI into browsers, says it won't follow

One trend you must have noticed lately is companies shoving generative AI into every product imaginable. We saw this just yesterday with Samsung and Microsoft bringing Copilot to new TVs and smart monitors.

But not everyone is a fan of this direction. Take Procreate, for example. Last year, the digital art app's CEO, James Cuda, said, "I f---ing hate generative AI" and promised that generative AI won't be coming to the app. Ever.

Like it or not, generative AI is coming to browsers thanks to companies like Opera, Google, The Browser Company with its new Dia project, Microsoft, Mozilla, and more. But Vivaldi is pushing back. The company is taking a stand against the AI browsing trend, with the clear message: "keep browsing human".

In a company blog post, Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder and CEO of Vivaldi, claimed that browsing is an "active" experience. He argued that AI browsers turn the joy of "exploring" into "inactive spectatorship".

The promise of AI browsers is to automate tasks that some might find boring, like making a dinner reservation or creating a shopping list. Tetzchner specifically called out Google for pushing Gemini into Chrome and Microsoft Edge with its recently introduced "Copilot Mode".

Copilot Mode completely overhauls the browser with a redesigned new tab page and a Copilot composer that combines chat, web search, and navigation. According to Tetzchner, there are risks with this model, since users will rely on an intermediary to parse knowledge for them. That raises questions about who controls that info and how that company monetizes it.

As for AI-generated summaries, Tetzchner referenced this Pew Research study that claims that users do not click traditional search results as often when an AI overview is present.

If you are experiencing "AI fatigue," Vivaldi promises that it would never do so much as add an LLM chatbot, webpage summarization, or an AI form filler, at least until better methods are developed.

We're taking a stand, choosing humans over hype, and we will not turn the joy of exploring into inactive spectatorship. Without exploration, the web becomes far less interesting. Our curiosity loses oxygen and the diversity of the web dies.

Despite the negatives of generative AI, such as misinformation and the potential for prompt injection as seen with AI browsers like Comet, Vivaldi does point out that not all AI is bad because "the field of machine learning in general remains an exciting one and may lead to features that are actually useful."