Opera releases beta of Opera One browser with AI features and tab groups

Opera has released an early version of its new Opera One browser. The early access beta has a UI designed with generative AI in mind, such as white areas on the sides. Tabs can also be grouped.

Opera writes in a blog post that it is working on a new version of its browser. The company calls it Opera One. It runs on the same Chromium engine as other browsers, but the UI has been overhauled with a modular design. This is done through the multithreaded composer, a way of dividing the browser engine renderer into several blocks. Now a browser renders all elements at once, but Opera says it breaks that down to make the browser’s UI faster.

There are some new elements in the browser, including Tab Islands. That is a feature to group tabs in the tab bar. Users can do this themselves, but the browser also divides the tabs based on context. Opera cites as an example a restaurant search that brings together several restaurant websites, or several Google Doc tabs for work.

Opera also adds several features to implement generative AI in the browser. One is an integration for ChatGPT and ChatSonic that can be called up from the sidebar. The UI also seems to have made room for that particular sidebar so that there is a place to display texts from those AIs.

For the time being, the function can be used as a beta. It is not known when a final version will be released. Opera also says it will work on its own AI engine in the coming months, but the company does not provide any further details.