AI-Centric Opera Neon Formally Launched: Going Against Perplexity's Comet And The Browser Company's Dia

AI is now the next frontier is the browser, the place a lot of people live when they're online.

It has become obvious since ChatGPT's arrival: the war for AI dominance isn’t just about chatbots or large language models (LLMs) anymore. Now, it's also about which product can act as users' digital agent, doing things for them, and not just with them.

And here, 'Opera Neon' is Opera’s bold attempt at taking the underdog role and challenging giants.

Opera has long been viewed as a niche browser, known for being creative and experimental, but never dominant. Yet with Neon, Opera throws down a gauntlet in the "agentic browser" arena, stepping into direct competition with rising stars like Perplexity’s Comet and The Browser Company’s Dia.

Opera Neon was first teased as part of Opera’s vision for the next generation of the web.

It was introduced not just as a browser, but a space where intent becomes action.

The idea, is to allow users to tell the browser what the users want, and it figures out the how. Opera adds that Neon isn’t just a shell with AI tacked on, because the browser is literally built from the ground up with agentic browsing in mind.

In a blog post, Opera describes Neon as having three pillars: Chat, Do, and Make.

Chat is the conversational layer: ask questions, get results, interact with pages. Do is where Neon becomes your agent: it can fill forms, book trips, navigate pages, execute repeated tasks, all within the browser’s context. Make is where Neon stretches: create websites, write code, build reports, or even games, with output that is shareable and tangible.

To manage complexity, Neon introduces Tasks and Cards.

Tasks are like mini workspaces, where users can run distinct contexts or projects simultaneously. By giving each task its own space, the AI won’t jumble their tabs and projects together. As for Cards, they are reusable prompt templates: combine “pull-details,” “comparison-table,” “extract-key” and so on. Users can reuse them across tasks or share with the community.

Since Opera is already known for being focusing on private browsing, Neon places emphasis on the same principal: many actions, including those that require AI, run within the browser itself. What this means, Neon will try to process users' inquiry locally, and not depend entirely in cloud processing.

Opera argues this gives users more control, less exposure, especially as regulators scrutinize browser data handling.

But there’s a catch: Neon is not free.

Access to this sophistication requires a subscription fee that is far from cheap. Initially launched through early invites, the cost for having this AI/agentic features is around $19.90 per month.

While the browser itself does maintain a free baseline, like browsing abilities and traditional navigation, but the “next-gen” tools live behind a paywall.

At this time, Perplexity’s Comet and The Browser Company’s Dia are among Neon’s key rivals.

Opera positions Neon as more privacy-conscious than its rivals.

During the time when Comet faced scrutiny over security risks, where audits found that its AI browser could be vulnerable to malicious input and phishing attacks, the fact is giving Opera an opening.

Being in a saturated market where the competition is harsh, Opera’s gamble is steep.

It needs to persuade users to pay monthly for what existing browsers are beginning to bundle for free (or soon will). Google is already pushing AI into Chrome, Microsoft has Copilot features in Edge, and open tools proliferate.

To do what it needs to do, Neon should be able to prove that it can offer much more than just functionality, but also value and trust.

In short: Opera, the underdog, is stepping boldly into the AI browser war.

Neon is its challenger’s suit, full of promises. It enters the war with risks, by aiming squarely at the future of the web.