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Let’s be honest. The likes of OpenAI Operator and the Rabbit R1’s LAM Playground are fascinating glimpses into the future of agentic AI web browsing. But their precision is like a drunk guy trying to throw a dart — technically aimed, but who knows where it’ll land.
On top of that, they’re based on virtual machines that could raise security concerns, and it makes them very slow. Well, I can exclusively reveal that Opera has an answer to this with Browser Operator.
Simply put, instead of having to run the browsing session virtually in its own desktop space, this operator can just take control for you directly in the browser — the world’s first agentic AI in a web browser just arrived at MWC 2025.
How it works
Browser Operator forms a part of the Aria AI overlay you’re probably already familiar with in Opera One R2 and Opera Air. Just flip over to the Operator, enter your prompt and watch it get to work.
For example, you can see the Operator jump in and buy a pack of 10 pairs of Nike tennis socks in a size 12 — freeing up time for you to go get other things done. You can watch the Browser Operator go through each interaction step-by-step, and give you transparency of all its thinking and doing.
Of course, you can give it more detailed and natural prompts too — giving it multiple steps and considerations to make in its decision process. You can see this happening in the request to buy Newcastle Premier League soccer tickets, as the Operator keeps the price in mind, the location of seating and availability of tickets.
Plus, given the fact it’s all happening within the browser, this agentic navigation is a cinch to interrupt and get involved in yourself too.
Speed boost
I can say with some experience that Opera's rivals will give you an interaction every 8-10 seconds — analyzing a screenshot for interactive elements, feeding that data into the LLM and taking action. With Browser Operator, you’re looking at that speed being cut nearly in half.
Based on looking at how the company fast-forwards the footage every now and again to x4 and x10, and timing each step being clearly shown in the AI chatbot window, it’s looking like you could get an action every 4-6 seconds on average. Given the complexities of the tasks being thrown at it in these examples, that’s crazy good!
However, you could entertain going even faster by working in tandem with the Browser Operator. Maybe instead of starting afresh from your home page, you opt to interact directly and navigate to the website, and then activate the Operator.
Thanks to all of this happening in the browser in front of you, that eliminates any need for a virtual machine that is usually quite a slouch to interact with.
Opera’s AI agency here is more to be something that works with you rather than completely replacing you.
The next step
So far, agentic AI has felt like something that’s a fun side project that you can play around with — smile at it taking its first steps into the world like a toddler, but realize it’s going to take a while for it to make sense.
Putting it directly into a browser like Opera doesn’t just make it faster, more secure and easier to work with alongside, it makes agentic make sense. This is a true transformative moment for web browsers in general, and the Norwegian browser company knows this.
This is a true transformative moment for web browsers in general, and the Norwegian browser company knows this.
“For more than 30 years, the browser gave you access to the web, but it has never been able to get stuff done for you. Now it can. This is different from anything we’ve seen or shipped so far,” Krystian Kolondra, Opera’s EVP, commented.
“The Browser Operator we’re presenting today marks the first step towards shifting the role of the browser from a display engine to an application that is agentic and performs tasks for its users.”
Browser Operator is currently available as a preview, but expect it to appear as part of an AI feature drop in the near future.
More from Tom's Guide
- Forget OpenAI Operator — here's an open source AI agent system that works brilliantly for free
- Google Sheets just got an AI upgrade that analyzes your data and visualizes it
- I just tested ChatGPT-4.5 with 5 prompts — the good, the bad and the weird
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