Mozilla is mobilising the open source community to counter Big Tech’s grip on AI with opt-in Firefox features, shared tools, and ecosystem funding designed to keep control with users, not platforms.
Mozilla is positioning itself as an open source counterweight to Big Tech’s growing control over artificial intelligence, outlining plans to build what it calls a “rebel alliance” to reshape how AI is developed and governed.
The organisation wants AI to be trustworthy, human-centred, decentralised, and open rather than locked inside proprietary ecosystems.
“What if a rebel alliance of sorts—developers, activists, researchers, founders, investors—joined forces to build something different?” Mozilla asks, adding the coalition would “push AI in a direction that is trustworthy, human-centered and shaped by all of us.”
Firefox sits at the centre of that strategy. The browser will integrate AI strictly on an opt-in basis. Planned for 2026 are an AI Window and a centralised AI Controls dashboard that “give users one central place to manage AI features, even disable them completely. Don’t want AI? Turn it off.”
Beyond the browser, Mozilla’s roadmap commits to investing in Firefox and Thunderbird, backing community initiatives and responsible startups, building open-source AI developer tools, and improving the open-source AI stack.
“Of course, big tech has bigger assets. But that doesn’t mean we can’t challenge them. Our assets are aimed at helping a whole ecosystem grow—and at creating an alliance that can transform tech.”
The approach echoes Mozilla’s earlier disruption of Microsoft’s browser dominance. “Twenty-five years ago, the global open source community rewrote the rules of the internet… We can do it again for AI.”
A new paid ‘Pioneers’ programme will further support builders creating open technology, reinforcing Mozilla’s mission-driven, double-bottom-line model that balances markets with public benefit.
