Brave announces its in-browser AI assistant Leo is now accessible in the Nightly desktop channel

Brave has revealed that its in-browser AI assistant, Leo, is now accessible for testing and feedback in the Nightly desktop channel, starting with version 1.59. The AI assistant is integrated into the browser sidebar, providing an interactive feature for users to engage with web pages. Users can request video transcripts or interactive article summaries without having to navigate away from the page.

Leo also offers follow-up question suggestions, content augmentation, and reading comprehension assistance. The AI assistant can respond to queries akin to other AI-powered chatbots, but it does so directly within a web page, a functionality similar to Bing Chat.

The underlying model for Leo is Llama 2, a large language model that is source-available and was released by Meta a month ago. In terms of privacy, Brave assures that user inputs are submitted anonymously via a reverse-proxy to their inference infrastructure, allowing the browser to deliver an AI experience with “unparalleled privacy”, according to them.