Mozilla's new CEO plans to transform Firefox into an AI browser focused on user trust

Mozilla's new CEO is doubling down on an AI future for Firefox

Mozilla is in a tricky position. It contains both a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the internet a better place for everyone, and a for-profit arm dedicated to, you know, making money. In the best of times, these things feed each other: The company makes great products that advance its goals for the web, and the nonprofit gets to both advocate for a better web and show people what it looks like. But these are not the best of times. Mozilla has spent the last couple of years implementing layoffs and restructuring, attempting to explain how it can fight for privacy and openness when Google pays most of its bills, while trying to find its place in an increasingly frothy AI landscape. Fun times to be the new Mozilla CEO, right? But when I put all that to Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, the company's just-announced chief executive, he swears he sees opportunity in all the upheaval. (CEO, in this case, means he'll run the for-profit company; Mark Surman is the president of the Mozilla Foundation.) "I think what's actually needed now is a technology company that people can trust," Enzor-DeMeo says. "What I've seen with AI is an erosion of trust." Mozilla is not going to train its own giant LLM anytime soon. But there's still an AI Mode coming to Firefox next year, which Enzor-DeMeo says will offer users their choice of model and product, all in a browser they can understand and from a company they can trust. "We're not incentivized to push one model or the other," he says. "So we're going to try to go to market with multiple models." Some will be open-source models available to anyone. Others will be private, "Mozilla-hosted cloud options," he says. And, yes, some will be from the big companies in the space -- Enzor-DeMeo didn't name Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT, but it's not hard to guess. Enzor-DeMeo has been at Mozilla for almost exactly a year. Until now, he's been leading the team building Mozilla's Firefox browser, which, in so many ways, is the thing that makes Mozilla go. Firefox is the company's most visible product; it's the biggest moneymaker, thanks mostly to a deal that gives Google default search placement; and it's the place where Mozilla gets to actually put its values to work. Enzor-DeMeo spent 2025 racing to make Firefox a more compelling product, adding things like tab groups, while also trying to figure out how the browser should integrate with AI. As he takes over the top job, Enzor-DeMeo knows that AI is the question at hand. The rise of ChatGPT and its ilk has shaken up product markets everywhere, and the tech industry is betting that as AI takes over, people will be unusually willing to try new products. A lot of companies are even betting that the browser wars are back, after nearly two decades of everybody just using Google Chrome. Enzor-DeMeo buys the theory, and says Firefox's numbers reflect it -- 200 million people use the product every month, he says, and it's actually growing at a decent clip on mobile in particular. That's a far cry from the 4 billion or so that use Chrome, but it still gives Firefox meaningful scale. It's no accident that the Firefox guy is taking over, by the way. "Priority one [for Mozilla] is still building the best browser," he says. "I am very pragmatic that that is our core business, and it would take a lot to prove otherwise." Going forward, when Mozilla launches new products, they're likely to be tied to Firefox - Enzor-DeMeo mentions that Mozilla VPN is coming to Firefox next year, just to name one, and says there are other features in the works. In our conversation, Enzor-DeMeo returns often to two things: that Mozilla cares about and wants to preserve the open web, and that the open web needs new business models. Mozilla's ad business is important and growing, he says, and he worries "about things going behind paywalls, becoming more closed off." He says the internet's content business isn't exactly his fight, but that Mozilla believes in the value of an open and free (and thus ad-supported) web. At some point, though, Enzor-DeMeo will have to tend to Mozilla's own business. "I do think we need revenue diversification away from Google," he says, "but I don't necessarily believe we need revenue diversification away from the browser." It seems he thinks a combination of subscription revenue, advertising, and maybe a few search and AI placement deals can get that done. He's also bullish that things like built-in VPN and a privacy service called Monitor can get more people to pay for their browser. He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that'd bring in another $150 million, but he doesn't want to do that. It feels off-mission. One way to solve many of these problems is to get a lot more people using Firefox. And Enzor-DeMeo is convinced Mozilla can get there, that people want what the company is selling. "There is something to be said about, when I have a Mozilla product, I always know my data is in my control. I can turn the thing off, and they're not going to do anything sketchy. I think that is needed in the market, and that's what I hope to do."

Mozilla's New CEO: It's Time to Evolve Firefox Into an AI Browser

Brace for more AI, Firefox users. Mozilla has a new CEO, and he's focused on evolving Firefox into a "modern AI browser." Anthony Enzor-DeMeo joined Mozilla a year ago and served as SVP of Firefox for eight months before he was named general manager in July. In a blog post, Enzor-DeMeo laid out his strategy, which involves pursuing AI with safeguards in place, including a power-off button. The new CEO's overarching goal is to turn Mozilla into the "world's most trusted software company," citing public dissatisfaction with today's privacy practices and the tech industry's growing appetite for all kinds of data. (In a press release, Mozilla also noted that "consumers around the world increasingly feel over-tracked, under-informed, and unsure how AI systems shape the information they see and the decisions they make.") "I knew this would become a defining issue, especially in the browser, where so many decisions about privacy, data, and transparency now originate," Enzor-DeMeo says. "People want software that is fast, modern, but also honest about what it does. They want to understand what's happening and to have real choices." This also applies to AI. "Controls must be simple," he wrote. "AI should always be a choice -- something people can easily turn off. People should know why a feature works the way it does and what value they get from it." Another priority is to expand Mozilla's products beyond the browser, although Firefox will remain the company's anchor. "It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions," he says. Last month, Mozilla began previewing this approach with "AI Window," an upcoming built-in digital assistant for Firefox browser, which can be turned off. Fifteen years ago, Firefox held a sizable share of the browser market at around 30%. But the product's popularity has steadily declined to a mere 4.25% share of desktop browser market while Google's Chrome dominates at 75%, according to November data from Statcounter. Despite the loss, Mozilla has managed to sail along, thanks to both donations and millions in royalties from Google to be the default search engine in Firefox browser. However, Enzor-DeMeo is hoping to diversify Mozilla's revenue streams with new products, a task the company's previous CEOs have focused on as well. "In the next three years, that means investing in AI that reflects the Mozilla Manifesto. It means diversifying revenue beyond search," he wrote. Still, Firefox is bound to face intensifying competition as Chrome also adds more AI features, and more companies, including OpenAI, expand with their own AI browsers. Meanwhile, some critics have warned that AI browsers are inherently insecure and a possible hacking risk.

Mozilla Corporation installs Firefox driver in CEO reboot

Anthony Enzor-DeMeo picked to replace interim boss Laura Chambers Mozilla Corporation on Tuesday said it has appointed Anthony Enzor-DeMeo as Chief Executive Officer, replacing Laura Chambers, who served as interim CEO for the past two years. Enzor-DeMeo has been the general manager of Firefox since August 2025. He joined Mozilla in December 2024 from Roofstock, a platform for real estate investors focused on the single-family rental market. His appointment came with a commitment to expand Mozilla's involvement with AI services. According to the public benefit company, Enzor-DeMeo's browser stewardship has accelerated improvements in Firefox and has shown how Mozilla can responsibly integrate AI with the browsing experience. Firefox, the company claims, has enjoyed double-digit growth on mobile devices each of the past two years, and its market share has stabilized on the desktop. We absolutely hear that some people want AI and some people don't Mozilla cites AI-based features like Shake to Summarize on iOS, and AI Window as examples of Mozilla's approach to building AI in a way that's helpful and transparent. "The browser is AI's next battleground," said Enzor-DeMeo in a statement provided to The Register. "It's where people live their online lives and where the next era's questions of trust, data use, and transparency will be decided." The management transition also includes a new chief marketing officer, John Solomon, and the elevation of Ajit Varma from VP of Firefox Product to head of Firefox. In January 2025, Mozilla Foundation president Mark Surman published a post alongside the release of the Foundation's 2022-2023 Annual Report in which he outlined Mozilla's effort to reinvent itself and remain relevant. Since then, companies like Perplexity and OpenAI have integrated AI automation tools into their browsers, and leading browser makers like Google have taken similar steps. And it has become clear that there's growing competition among browser makers and AI companies to redefine how people engage with the web and to promote automated interaction as an acceptable alternative to human-guided browsing. With the appointment of a new CEO, Surman told The Register in an interview on Monday, "You're gonna see, I think, an even deeper investment in reviving the browser as a really vibrant space." Surman said we're in what some people describe as the third browser war, "a period where, because of AI, people are launching new browsers and looking at what the technology can do," he said. "In general, you'll see more fundamental innovation happening around the browser to give developers more capabilities." The renewed focus on Firefox within Mozilla Corporation, Surman said, has internal and external explanations. "Internally, I think we haven't had the leadership for the last few years to really drive us technically on what's possible with the tech stack we have," he said. "The external reason is really that the market for browsers and the space for innovation over browsers is really in motion again. And people have written browsers off as a commodity. Other people are innovating, and it creates a really good context for us to do the same again and to reinvest there." It's not just Mozilla Corporation and Firefox that are scrambling to reinvent themselves. Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiaries are trying to do that too. Surman explained that this is happening in two different ways. "One is sort of broadening the focus, and the other is diversifying revenue," said Surman. Mozilla's reputation in part rests upon its commitment to privacy, and that hasn't changed, Surman insists. "Our promise forever has been 'We don't touch data,'" he said. "And so a lot of the changes in the last few years are figuring out how do we continue to stand for the manifesto and get into shaping the direction of AI in a way that is more human, still respects privacy, and all those kind of things." What that means on a practical level, he said, can be seen in the formation of Mozilla Ventures and of Mozilla AI. The recruitment of talent to improve Firefox and Thunderbird, is another example of Mozilla's changes, as are efforts to build AI in a way that gives people control and choice. "The big change in the business is at this point fairly internal and structural, to set us up to tackle AI in a way that reflects Mozilla's values," said Surman. As to diversifying revenue, Surman said one of the ways Mozilla is doing so is through privacy-respecting ads in Firefox. "And so over the course of the last couple of years, you started to see a bigger chunk of our revenue come from that," he said. "I think we're now probably down to 85-ish percent search revenue." Previously, he said payments from Google accounted for around 95 percent of revenue. Asked whether the shift toward AI-driven search as an alternative to traditional search has affected Firefox's search revenue, Surman insisted it hasn't had a meaningful impact. Surman said that it's too early to say whether integrating AI into Firefox has impacted browser usage, because the AI Window feature hasn't yet launched. But he emphasized that Mozilla remains committed to user choice. "We absolutely hear that some people want AI and some people don't," he said. "And so one of the things we're doing is looking at how we provide AI in the browser in a way that reflects Mozilla's values to those people who want it, and leave it completely optional so that it's not there for people who don't." Beyond AI controls in Firefox, Surman said the reason Mozilla AI was spun out into a separate company was to push for open source to become the industry standard in AI. "That's a big piece of being in control," he said. "You're not tied into an API. You're not just renting from a cloud AI provider. You can put it on your own machine or your own AWS instance. And I think a huge part of what you'll see us doing more of over the next year or two is really working with developers on open source AI because it's about that kind of choice." ®

Firefox maker Mozilla appoints new CEO to navigate it through its AI era

Subscribe to the Daily newsletter.Fast Company's trending stories delivered to you every day However, while his position may be new, his involvement with Mozilla is not. Enzor-DeMeo was previously the general manager of Firefox, which is Mozilla's most well-known product. Under Enzor-DeMeo's management, the Firefox browser saw double-digit growth on mobile over the past two years, the company revealed in a press release. It also added AI features, including "Shake to Summarize," which lets an iPhone user simply shake their device to get Firefox to summarize a web page. More recently, under Enzor-DeMeo's management, the browser also added "AI window," an opt-in in-browser AI assistant.