“The browser already has much of the context around what you’re trying to do — the research in your tabs, the pages you’ve visited, the things you’ve found along the way,” said Ajit Varma, Head of Firefox. “With Smart Window, we’re exploring how to make more of that context useful while keeping you in control.”
One of the biggest additions comes through Firefox's new partnership with Exa. Smart Window can retrieve up-to-date information from the web while a user is working on a task and display the sources supporting its response. The approach is intended to let people check an AI-generated answer without opening another search page and abandoning their existing workflow.
Mozilla is also adding AI-assisted tab management. Smart Window can identify open pages that cover related material and recommend grouping those tabs together. It can separately detect duplicate tabs, which users can then close with a single click.
Browsing history is getting a visual component as well. Instead of relying only on page names when searching through previously visited sites, Smart Window can display previews of those pages. The feature is designed for situations where someone remembers what a page looked like or what it contained but cannot recall its title or how they originally reached it.
The additions represent the latest evolution of a project Mozilla initially presented last November as AI Window. The earlier concept centered on creating a dedicated, user-controlled environment where people could interact with an AI assistant while browsing.
Mozilla said testing and feedback over the following months showed people incorporating the feature into broader browsing activities, including search and navigation. Beta users also described using the tool to preserve their “train of thought” and to recover previously viewed material they could no longer easily locate. Those findings led Mozilla to broaden the concept into Smart Window, with greater emphasis on helping people continue tasks across multiple tabs, searches and browsing sessions.
Mozilla says the underlying controls remain centered on user choice. Smart Window is optional, and users can determine when to activate it, which browsing information it can access and which AI model they want to use. Firefox's AI Controls settings also provide a way to disable Smart Window entirely.
The company is already developing additional capabilities around resuming unfinished work. Mozilla says Smart Window will soon be able to identify recent browsing journeys and combine relevant tabs with history, giving users a way to return to an earlier activity without reconstructing it manually.
Another planned feature will use relevant information to assist with completing online forms, reducing the need to repeatedly enter the same details. Mozilla says users will continue to decide what information Smart Window can access, including which open tabs are shared with the feature.
Smart Window remains a beta product and is currently offered in English to users in the U.S. and Canada. Mozilla says it will continue refining the experience based on feedback as the new capabilities develop.
This analysis is based on reporting from Mozilla.
Image courtesy of Mozilla.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
