According to MacRumors, Opera today opened general access to its agentic Neon browser, removing the waitlist that had been in place since its initial launch on October 2. The subscription now costs $19.90 per month and grants users immediate access to top-tier AI models including Gemini 3 Pro, GPT-5.1, Veo 3.1, and Nano Banana Pro. The browser features AI agents like Neon Chat, Do, and Make that can autonomously handle complex tasks from booking travel to building websites. A key new addition is the ODRA deep research agent, designed for sustained investigation with a rapid “1-minute research” mode. The browser directly competes with similar AI offerings from Perplexity’s Comet and The Browser Company’s Dia, and is available for download from the Opera website.
The $20 Browser Question
Here’s the thing: asking people to pay a monthly fee for a browser is a huge ask. We’re used to browsers being free, with companies making money from search deals or, in Opera’s case, its built-in VPN. So the $19.90 price tag for Neon is a bold statement. It’s basically saying, “This isn’t a browser with some AI sprinkled in; this is an AI agent that happens to use a browser as its interface.” The value proposition has to be that the AI saves you more than $20 worth of time and hassle every single month. For power users and professionals who live in their browser, that math might work. For the average person just checking email and social media? Probably not.
Agentic Ambition vs. User Trust
The capabilities Opera is touting are incredibly ambitious. An AI that can not only compare information across tabs but actually complete transactions on your behalf? That’s a massive leap from a chatbot that summarizes articles. It implies a level of trust and autonomy we haven’t really granted to software before. Letting an AI book a full travel itinerary means giving it access to your payment details, your preferences, your calendar. The convenience is enormous, but so is the potential for costly errors. Opera’s success here hinges less on the raw power of GPT-5.1 and more on its ability to build a system that is reliably, unshakably competent and secure. That’s a much harder problem to solve.
The New AI Browser Wars
This move firmly plants Opera in the emerging arena of “AI-native” browsers, going head-to-head with Perplexity and The Browser Company. It’s interesting to see the different approaches. Perplexity’s Comet is deeply focused on search and research. The Browser Company’s Arc (and its Dia agent) is all about spatial organization and workflow. Now Opera Neon is charging in with a focus on full task automation. We’re seeing the early fragmentation of what an “AI browser” even means. Is it a research assistant? A workflow maestro? An autonomous digital employee? The market is trying to figure that out right now, and Neon’s subscription model is a clear bet that task automation is the premium feature worth paying for.
What It Means For Everyone Else
For users, it’s another option in a suddenly crowded field of AI helpers. The barrier is the cost, but the promise is a truly integrated, proactive assistant. For developers and the wider tech market, Opera’s move validates the idea that AI can be a primary product, not just an add-on. It pushes the entire industry toward more agentic, “do-it-for-me” functionality. And for the big players like Google and Microsoft? It’s a shot across the bow. Their browsers are free and have AI features, but they’re not built from the ground up as autonomous agents. If a niche of users flocks to and loves these paid agent browsers, the giants will have to respond. The boring old browser is getting a seriously expensive, and potentially revolutionary, upgrade.
