Opera's new 'fully agentic' browser can surf the web for you
Building on Opera's recent preview of Browser Operator, Neon can also complete tasks for you, like filling out a form or doing some online shopping. The more you use Neon to write, the more it will learn your personal style and adapt to it. All of this happens locally, in order to ensure user data remains private. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so.
Additionally, Neon can make things for you, including websites, animations and even game prototypes, according to Opera. If you ask Neon to build something particularly complicated or time-consuming, it can continue the task even when you're offline. This part of the browser's feature set depends on a connection to Opera's servers in Europe where privacy laws are more robust than in North America.
"Opera Neon is the first step towards fundamentally re-imagining what a browser can be in the age of intelligent agents," the company says.
If all of this sounds familiar, it's because other companies, including Google and OpenAI, have been working on similar products. In the case of Google, the search giant began previewing Project Mariner, an extension that adds a web-surfing agent to Chrome, last December. OpenAI, similarly, has been working on its own "Operator" mode since the start of the year.
Neon, therefore, sees Opera attempting to position itself as an innovator in hopes of claiming market share, but the company has a difficult task ahead. According to data from StatCounter, only about 2.09 percent of internet users use Opera to access the web. Chrome, by contrast, commands a dominant 66.45 percent of the market. That's a hard hill to climb when your competitors are working on similar features.
It's also worth asking if an agentic browser is something people really want. Opera suggests Neon is smart enough to book a trip for you. That sounds great in theory, but what if the agent makes an error and books the wrong connecting flight. A certain amount of friction ensures users pay attention and check things on their own.
If you want to try Neon for yourself, you can join the wait list.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Android Authority
25 minutes ago
- Android Authority
Hot water control is the next Nest feature coming to Google Home
Jimmy Westenberg / Android Authority TL;DR Google is preparing to add hot water controls to the Home app, as confirmed by the Google Nest and Home Chief Product Officer. The feature is in final testing and will roll out in the near future. It will let you control hot water from the app if your thermostat supports it. It follows last week's rollout of temperature scheduling for older Nest thermostats, further reducing reliance on the legacy Nest app. Google has been steadily migrating functions from the old Nest app to the Home app, with full temperature scheduling for older Nest thermostats now rolling out. That update, spotted by Android Authority's Mishaal Rahman last week, was a big deal as it was the last major reason many people still needed the old Nest app. Don't want to miss the best from Android Authority? Set us as a preferred source in Google Search to support us and make sure you never miss our latest exclusive reports, expert analysis, and much more. But the migration isn't quite finished. In a reply to Mishaal on X, Anish Kattukaran, the Chief Product Officer for Google Home and Nest, confirmed that hot water control is in 'final testing' and will be included in 'one of our next few releases.' His remarks came after readers of Mishaal's article commented that hot water control was still missing, and that the new schedule interface felt like a downgrade compared to the old Nest app. Hot water control lets you do things like set a schedule for heating water, quickly trigger a boost, or switch it on and off manually. That's if your thermostat is connected to a compatible hot water system. Until now, that functionality has required the older Nest app. The move fits into Google's broader effort to consolidate everything in the Home app, reducing the need for the legacy Nest app and streamlining controls across its smart home ecosystem. Follow
New York Times
26 minutes ago
- New York Times
OpenAI in Deal Talks That Would Value the Company at $500 Billion
OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is in talks to sell $6 billion in shares owned by its current and former employees to investors, in a deal that would value the artificial intelligence company at roughly $500 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. At $500 billion, OpenAI would become the world's most valuable privately held company, according to data from the start-up tracker CB Insights. The San Francisco-based A.I. lab has raised billions of dollars in recent years from investors including Microsoft, SoftBank and venture capital firms, as it has raced to take the lead in the contest over artificial intelligence. OpenAI has seen its valuation repeatedly jump higher, from $157 billion in October to $300 billion in March. That month, the company reached an agreement with SoftBank and other investors for a new funding, which was set to raise $40 billion by the end of the year. In this latest deal, known as a secondary market sale, OpenAI's current and former employees would agree to sell company shares to SoftBank, Thrive Capital and its other investors, the people with knowledge of the discussions said. The talks over the transaction are ongoing and the particulars could change. The discussions over a secondary market sale were earlier reported by Bloomberg. Across Silicon Valley, A.I. companies have been deluged by investor interest amid an escalation in the race over the technology. Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and OpenAI are spending billions to hire A.I. researchers to advance the technology, as well as building out data centers and other infrastructure to power the development of A.I. Investors are eager to get a piece of the action. Venture capital deals for A.I. start-ups reached $129 billion this year through Aug. 18, up from $106 billion for all of 2024, according to data from PitchBook, which tracks start-ups. On Tuesday, Databricks, a San Francisco company that makes software to help businesses store and analyze data using A.I., announced a new funding that it said valued it at more than $100 billion, up from $62 billion previously. Ali Ghodsi, a co-founder and the chief executive of Databricks, said the company had not actively been looking to raise money but had started receiving calls, texts, emails and WhatsApp messages from investors a couple of weeks ago. He said the flood of interest followed the initial public offering of Figma, a design software start-up that exceeded expectations by soaring to a $67.7 billion market capitalization on its first trading day last month. 'Everybody thinks it's a big market opportunity,' Mr. Ghodsi said. 'It wouldn't be smart for me to say let's wait another two years before we do that investment.' He said Databricks has 'no immediate plans' to go public. Before this latest financing, the start-up, which was founded in 2013, had raised $19 billion from investors including Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. The company did not disclose the funding amount it raised on Tuesday because the round has not closed. OpenAI has been raising money as it competes fiercely with rivals like Google. In its March fund-raising for $40 billion, SoftBank is providing 75 percent of the funding, with other investors chipping in the rest. While the other investors have delivered their share, SoftBank has until the end of the year to do so. SoftBank can reduce its share of the round to $20 billion from $30 billion if OpenAI does not change its unorthodox structure by the end of the year. OpenAI is an unusual combination of a nonprofit and for-profit company. For the past 18 months, it has worked to adopt a more traditional corporate structure that would eventually allow it to go public. But Elon Musk, one of OpenAI's founders, who now runs a rival A.I. company called xAI, is trying to block the company's efforts to restructure through a lawsuit in federal court. Others have called on the attorneys general in California, where OpenAI is headquartered, and in Delaware, where the company was registered, to stop the restructuring, saying that OpenAI is abandoning the original mission of the nonprofit. OpenAI's stated mission was to build A.I. for the benefit of humanity, not for financial gain. Both attorneys general have said they are monitoring the situation. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims.)
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Google tweaks Google Play conditions following EU pressure
PARIS (Reuters) -Alphabet unit Google said on Tuesday it will make it easier for app developers to steer customers to channels other than Google after the European Union competition watchdog charged it with breaching EU regulations. In March, Google was hit with two charges of breaching the EU's landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aims to rein in the power of Big Tech. Google has been in the European Commission's crosshairs since early 2024 over whether it restricts app developers from informing users about offers outside its app store Google Play and whether it favours its vertical search services such as Google Flights. Regulators have said Alphabet technically prevents app developers from freely steering consumers to other channels for better offers. They said a service fee charged by the company for facilitating the initial acquisition of a new customer by an app developer via Google Play goes beyond what is justified. In a blog post, Google said that following discussions with the European Commission, developers, and other experts, Google is updating certain terms. "While we still have concerns that these changes could expose Android users to harmful content and make the app experience worse, we're updating our External Offers Program for the EU with revised fees and more options for Android developers, following DMA discussions with the European Commission," EMEA Senior Competition Counsel Clare Kelly said. The company, which has been fined more than 8 billion euros ($9.3 billion) by the EU for various antitrust violations, risks fines of up to 10% of its global annual sales if found guilty of breaching the DMA. ($1 = 0.8580 euros)
