I tried the only agentic browser that runs local AI - and found only one downside

"Agentic browsers are storming the castle gates, and it looks like things are heating up for yet another browser war; only this time with 'smarter' tools. From my perspective, that conflict's going to cause a major problem. Imagine if everyone around the globe is using agentic web browsers. Those agentic tasks can take serious power, which could equate to electricity prices skyrocketing and a profoundly negative impact on the climate."

"There's a solution for this challenge: local AI. Also: Opera agentic browser Neon starts rolling out to users - how to join the waitlist On rare occasions that I need to use AI, I always do so at the local level, specifically using Ollama. Unfortunately, all but one of the agentic browsers on the market use cloud-based AI. For me, that approach makes using those agentic browsers a no-go."

"BrowserOS is available for Linux, MacOS, and Windows. To use it with locally installed AI, you need to have Ollama installed and have downloaded a model that supports agentic browsing, such as qwen2.5:7b. Also: I've been testing the top AI browsers - here's which ones actually impressed me I've been testing BrowserOS and have found it to be a solid entry in the agentic browser market. In fact, I've found that it can stand toe-to-toe with browsers that rely on cloud-based AI, without the negative impacts or privacy issues."

Agentic browsers are increasing in capability and use, and their agentic tasks consume significant power that could raise electricity prices and worsen climate impact. Local AI offers a solution by running models on-device, reducing grid strain and keeping queries private to prevent third-party training or profiling. Most agentic browsers currently use cloud-based AI, but BrowserOS and Opera Neon can work with local AI; only BrowserOS is publicly available. BrowserOS supports Linux, macOS, and Windows, requires Ollama and an agentic-capable model such as qwen2.5:7b, and can perform comparably to cloud-based alternatives without the same privacy or environmental downsides.

Read at ZDNET