Mozilla's Firefox once helped shape the web as we know it. Now, the veteran browser is setting its sights on tech's next frontier.
When Anthony Enzor-DeMeo became CEO of the organization in December 2025, he made clear his intention to integrate AI into the browser. However, he is taking a unique approach: giving users the ability to choose which model they want in the browser's AI chatbot sidebar. Model choice is also a primary feature of its upcoming launch of Smart Window, AI built into Firefox that aims to prioritize privacy.
In a conversation with The Deep View, Enzor-DeMeo explained how Mozilla is “late to the party” on AI by design, using that delay to understand consumer sentiment, and differentiate on model choice rather than building its own frontier models. He also explained how open-source and open-weight models can repeat what open source did for the web by standardizing the infrastructure, fostering competition, and preventing a future where just a few dominant players control the entire AI landscape.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Sabrina Ortiz: Why was now the right time for Mozilla to pivot toward AI?
Anthony Enzor-DeMeo: We are developing Smart Window, and that's been in development almost a year, so it's probably more accurate to say we're late to the party. But for a few reasons: One I think it's been interesting to see what other players have done; and two, I think it takes time to understand consumer sentiment.
When I took over as CEO, I did obviously say externally we're going to put AI in the browser, and there was rightfully some level of backlash. What that really meant was needing to understand the bell curve of users and who wanted what with AI. So I don't want to say today is the right time, but it's been the right time because, number one, what I don't want to see is what happened with search, and so we are obviously a huge advocate of open source. We're also a huge advocate of trying to spearhead the choice.
Ortiz: You have decided to give people the choice to use their own models. Was that because you saw demand from your audience, or did you just feel that was the best approach?
Enzor-DeMeo: It's a mixture of the two. The interesting thing about a browser is that almost everyone on the planet uses it, so you're appealing to many different audiences. The more technical audience will understand what the plan is [and] what the community [wants], those types of things. A more general audience might say, "I want something that's fast. I want something that's secure." So we've had to do a lot of testing to find the right word choices that would incentivize people to choose X or Y or Z.
Ortiz: If you’re not building frontier models, is there any interest there? If not, what gives Mozilla its unique value?
Enzor-DeMeo: I have no plans to develop a frontier model. We are owned by a nonprofit. I don't think it's the best use of our capital. We obviously have capital, but I think it could be deployed elsewhere. We're going to be focused much more on promoting the ecosystem, and so we want to obviously promote open source, open weight. We want to promote different models in different countries. We want to give users access to different things they wouldn't normally have access to when they're kind of confined and locked in by some of these bigger tech players. I think that's our lane. We also want to be able to see more local and private cloud-hosted [models]. That's something we're going to be promoting as well because I think that's where Mozilla can shine. I think trying to get to a frontier model would not be in our best interest and not feasible, in my opinion.
Ortiz: How do you take responsibility for the AI models' hallucinations from the frontier models?
Enzor-DeMeo: So there is a pretty stark difference between a user logging in with their Anthropic credentials versus a local model that I put in the browser. When it is the login, it's between them and the third party, and that's largely for all the reasons that people criticize those models because I can't see it, so I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to what's happening behind the scenes, and that's where some of the critiques of the OpenAIs and the other frontier models are.
When it's more localized, our code will be open source, so it can be inspected, and we'll always tell people what it is. And nobody can ever guarantee the AI is going to be perfect to work, but we're going to be doing much more kind of finite use cases, like, does this actually solve a problem?
Ortiz: We are seeing a huge emphasis on open-weight and open-source. Why is this a priority for you?
Enzor-DeMeo: You can learn a lot from looking at the past. What open source did for the internet, 20-plus years ago, was create like $8 trillion worth of value, according to an HBS study that came out. That's largely because once you standardize and get people all working on the same infrastructure, the same code, it becomes easier to innovate. What I want to see is more innovation fostered. I want to see more competition, and one way to do that is to give access.
And the interesting thing about those who choose to give access is if you're giving something away, it's obviously easier to gain adoption, and then more people will conform to those standards, and thus those people will be in more control, and we saw that with the web. I think it's important that the US and globally everyone's supporting more open-source and open-weight models because we want to foster that innovation. We don't just want one or two players doing it because then you'll run into a very similar situation: if they're just doing it and everyone uses the same free ones, then suddenly there are no standards.
Ortiz: Some people see Mozilla.ai as a layer or on top of existing models. What are they missing?
**Enzor-DeMeo: **I think the interesting thing about software encoding is all these things are layers on layers on layers, right? So there's ground-level infrastructure, there's APIs, there's web applications, and generally those are not always originally developed by all the same people, and so I think AI is just the new stack on top of that. I think where we can show value is, number one, being picky about what we actually put in the browser, two making sure that it actually solves problems, and three making sure that our incentives are aligned to our user base.
We don't necessarily need to do something or put something in a browser because I don't have a constituent that's forcing me to do so. Now, if I was just wrapping Claude, you could probably throw some stones, but our value is still the browser.
I still think the browser is here to stay. Many people have tried to build browsers. We saw that last year, but I think the one thing people get wrong is that the web is not static, and so I think there's this assumption that you could just go and build a browser, but the security concerns change all the time, and the innovations require an immense amount of dedication and persistence to keep up. And so, our focus is going to be the browser, and then adding in AI where it's valuable.
Ortiz: Every AI company says it cares about safety and privacy. What does Mozilla do differently that users can actually experience?
Enzor-DeMeo: Safety, privacy, trust, transparency are obviously the core to us. But I think the question you're asking is, how does that relate to AI and Mozilla? And I think the truth with AI is that it requires more contextual data about the person to be more accurate. I think where Mozilla can shine is we'll let you choose if you want the AI to have access to that information. So it's pretty important to me that when we do launch Smart Window in the fall, that it's more of a very obvious consent rather than the black box.
Meaning, you can use AI Mode. It's going to be better with your data. Do you want it to use your data? Yes or no. And I think that if you give that empowerment back to the user, I think that's key, and I think that's where we will shine.