Browser company Opera has unveiled a new AI-driven browser, Neon. Announced on September 30th (local time), Neon features the ability to create apps through AI prompts and create repeatable commands using the "Cards" feature. Opera joins Perplexity and The Browser Company in making a full-fledged entry into the "agentic browser" market.
Opera first announced the development of Neon last May, when it was in a private preview phase. It's now available to a select number of users by invitation, as a subscription for $19.99 per month. "We built Neon for ourselves and for users who use AI every day," said Christian Colóndra, Head of Browser at Opera. "Now, together, users can shape the future of agentic browsing."
Neon's core features are broadly divided into three parts. First, it has standard chatbot functionality, allowing you to answer questions in a conversational manner. Second, there's a feature called "Neon Do," which automatically performs tasks requested by the user. For example, it can automate tasks like summarizing Substack blog posts and posting them to a Slack channel. Because the browser recognizes the user's browsing context, it can also retrieve information from YouTube videos watched last week or articles read yesterday.
Neon also provides the ability to create visual reports in the form of tables or charts by writing code snippets. It's currently unclear whether these mini-apps can be shared with other users.
Just as The Browser Company's Dia enabled repeated command execution through its "Skills" feature, Neon's "Cards" feature applies the same concept. By combining cards like "pull-details" and "comparison-table," users can automate product comparisons between tabs. Users can create their own cards or leverage community-created ones.
We've also introduced a new "Tasks" feature, which groups tabs by topic. Similar to "Spaces" in the Arc browser, this structure manages AI conversations and tabs as a single workspace.
Opera's demo video showed Neon ordering groceries on behalf of a user. However, since AI product demos can differ from real-world environments, real-world performance needs to be proven.
With this launch, Opera now competes directly with Perplexity's Comet and Dia. While Google and Microsoft are also bolstering their browsers with AI features, Opera is positioning Neon as a premium, paid browser for power users.
