Mozilla built an AI kill switch into Firefox after its users demanded one. Only 1% have used it. Another 3% turned off some AI features selectively. The rest left everything on. CEO Anthony Enzor-DeMeo says the point is not the percentage but the choice.

“Our community was pretty vocal, especially during the CEO announcement, that not everyone wanted AI,” Enzor-DeMeo told CNET. “At its core, we want to listen to our users. It was honestly on the roadmap, but I expedited it, given the community feedback.”

The low usage rate suggests that most people who said they wanted an AI kill switch either did not follow through or found specific features, like AI-powered translation, useful enough to keep. Enzor-DeMeo pointed to this as validation that Firefox’s approach works. The differentiator is not removing AI but offering control, something he contrasted with Microsoft defaulting to Copilot on Windows desktops and Google silently downloading a 4 GB AI model onto users’ machines.

Firefox’s newest feature is Smart Window, now available in beta. It lets users choose which AI model to run inside the browser, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or privately hosted open-source models. “They all excel at different things. Why do I need to be forced into one of them?” Enzor-DeMeo said. Mozilla says it does not use chat data to train models and automatically filters out sensitive information.

The browser also launched a free built-in VPN last month. It has 1.5 million signups and roughly 800,000 active users. Enzor-DeMeo said building VPN directly into the browser was a top priority because clicking a button is easier than opening a separate app. The VPN only encrypts browser traffic, not activity in other apps.

A full redesign, codenamed Project Nova, is coming in September or October. It includes faster page loads (up to 9% improvement), compact mode, rounded UI elements, AI-powered tab grouping, and accessibility features. Firefox has around 200 million monthly users and just over 2% of the browser market, compared to Chrome’s 70% and Safari’s 16%.

Enzor-DeMeo framed the stakes in global terms. He cited data showing 83% of the world’s population has not used AI, and only about 3% of Americans pay for it. He called AI “largely non-profitable” and predicted more ads in AI services soon. “If we actually go the route that AI becomes more centred in the browser, and that’s how people access the internet, you run the risk of the internet becoming more closed off.”

Mozilla’s position is that the browser should be the user’s agent, not the AI company’s distribution channel. Whether 200 million users and 2% market share are enough to make that argument matter is the open question for Firefox. But the 1% kill switch stat tells a more nuanced story than the backlash suggested. People wanted the option. They did not want to use it. That is a distinction the broader AI debate has struggled to make.