Brave has introduced an AI chatbot, Leo.Brave, for its browser, with a key advantage being its focus on privacy. Leo will come in both a free and premium version for users to select from.
In a market already crowded with AI chatbots like Bing Chat, ChatGPT, and Google Bard, Brave is adding its own in-browser chatbot called Leo. Known for its emphasis on privacy, Brave announced that it is rolling out Leo for all desktop users running version 1.60 of the browser. The release will happen in phases over the next few days.
Initially launched for testing and feedback in late August through the Nightly channel, Leo will be made available to all users in the coming months. Although currently only accessible to desktop users, Brave assures that Leo will be extended to Android and iOS devices in the near future.
Leo will offer similar capabilities to its main competitors, such as translating, answering questions, summarizing web pages, and generating new content. However, its standout feature will be privacy. Brave claims that user requests will be proxied through an anonymized server, no account creation is required, and responses will be discarded after generation.
Users will have the choice between two versions of Leo: the default free version powered by Meta’s Llama 2 large language model (LLM), and the premium version called Leo Premium, which utilizes Anthropic’s Claude Instant and carries a $15 monthly cost. Brave plans to introduce additional models, higher rate limits, higher-quality conversations, priority queuing, and early access features for Leo Premium users.
The question remains whether privacy will be a strong enough selling point to lure users away from competitors like ChatGPT or Bing Chat. Additionally, it is uncertain whether Brave will have the necessary resources to train Llama 2 to match the capabilities of larger players in the market.