Opera Mini, Opera’s light-weight cellular browser that’s change into a digital lifeline throughout Africa—particularly for customers on reasonably priced, low-spec smartphones—is entering into the AI race with a major improve, the corporate instructed TechCabal. The corporate is integrating its browser AI, Aria, into Opera Mini, bringing superior AI-powered capabilities to greater than 100 million customers worldwide—many in data-conscious markets like Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.
This transfer marks Opera’s most formidable try but to problem tech giants Google and Microsoft within the AI-enabled cellular browser area. As of Q1 2025, Opera ranks because the sixth-largest browser globally with a 2.2% market share, and serves 380 million month-to-month energetic customers (MAUs), trailing Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, and Samsung Web, in line with StatCounter. Africa stays a stronghold for Opera Mini, with Kenya rising as its greatest market—boasting 13 million customers, or 12% of the cellular browser’s 100 million international base.
With the introduction of Aria, Opera Mini is promising an AI expertise that doesn’t demand excessive bandwidth or massive gadget storage Aria enhances the net expertise by providing real-time info retrieval, article summarization, textual content and code era, picture creation, and clever help for studying and analysis—all inside a light-weight chat-based interface. Importantly for Opera Mini’s core person base, these options don’t improve the app’s dimension or information utilization.
“AI is quickly turning into an integral a part of the each day web expertise,” stated Jørgen Arnesen, EVP Cellular at Opera. “Bringing Aria to Opera Mini is a pure subsequent step for our most-downloaded browser. We’re excited to discover how AI can additional improve the characteristic set our customers depend on day by day.”
Aria is powered by Opera’s proprietary Composer AI engine, which mixes fashions from OpenAI and Google to generate quick and contextually related responses. It additionally consists of assist for picture era through Google’s newest Imagen3 mannequin. With this rollout, Aria is now accessible throughout Opera’s complete lineup of browsers on each desktop and cellular.
The Aria integration is designed to suit seamlessly into the Opera Mini surroundings. Customers can entry it from the principle menu or immediately from the beginning web page. As soon as activated, they will chat with Aria to ask questions, generate content material, search the net, and carry out AI-assisted duties with out leaving the browser. This frictionless expertise aligns with Opera Mini’s longstanding mission to make the web extra accessible, quicker, and cheaper for customers in rising markets.
In areas the place cellular information stays prohibitively costly, Opera Mini has lengthy provided a data-conscious different. Its data-compression expertise has helped stage the enjoying subject in markets the place web affordability is a barrier. In Nigeria, for instance, 59% of customers in a yet-to-be-published Opera survey performed in March 2025 stated that cellular information is just too pricey, and greater than half reported working out of knowledge earlier than the tip of the month. Opera Mini addresses this by compressing content material and providing promotional information bundles by means of native telecom partnerships, with some customers receiving as much as 1.5GB of free information monthly. The corporate instructed TechCabal it has saved Nigerians an equal of $27 million in information by means of its information compression expertise.
Whereas firms like Google and Microsoft dominate the AI narrative with instruments like Gemini and Copilot, Opera’s Aria may make AI extra accessible to low-end smartphone customers in elements of the world the place entry is restricted. Opera Mini already consists of options that cater to native pursuits, corresponding to reside soccer scores and MiniPay, its built-in digital pockets.
Now, with Aria embedded into its platform, Opera desires to be the AI for everybody. Whether or not customers are creating college tasks, looking for info, or producing digital content material, Opera Mini’s Aria places superior AI instruments of their pockets with out breaking their information budgets.
