Big move from Opera, ChatGPT and Claude now see open tabs

Opera offers in-browser services to Opera One and Opera GX users with the Browser Connector, which it announced on Thursday. ChatGPT or claude It offers a binding option. The company provides this feature for free and users can adjust the setting. Settings > AI Services Activating it from the section. The new structure allows the artificial intelligence tool to extract real-time context from the contents of open tabs. This move significantly reduces the copy-paste cycle, especially on the research, comparison and long content reading side.

The main message that Opera gives here is quite clear. Rather than locking the user into a single AI ecosystem, the company turns the browser into a kind of collaboration layer. Browser Connector does this MCPthat is, it does it via Model Context Protocol. Thus, ChatGPT or Claude can see the user’s open tabs, read the page content, and interpret graphics or visuals by taking screenshots when necessary. According to Opera’s official statement, the feature is currently Early Bird mode in Opera One and Opera GX It works, so it opens in the test environment first.

There is another important detail here. Opera does not leave this system with completely unlimited access, it also opens a control area to the user. As far as we see in the official blog post, permissions such as reading open tabs, reading tab content and taking screenshots are enabled by default. On the other hand, more sensitive operations such as reading browser history or closing tabs are turned off by default. However, connected artificial intelligence cannot establish fully autonomous interactions such as direct clicking on the page or filling out forms. This framework strikes a more cautious balance between ease of use and security, at least initially.

Structure ported from Neon to mainstream browser

In fact, Opera did not come up with this idea from scratch. The company announced for Opera Neon at the end of March MCP Connector had already demonstrated a more advanced version of the same approach with . On the Neon side, the system is not content with just reading context, it also offers connected clients more advanced actions such as navigating the page, extracting information, opening a new tab, searching and even filling out forms. In its latest announcement, Opera clearly states that Browser Connector is a simplified version of this technology. In other words, the company is now bringing the experimental and more powerful structure in Neon to a wider user base.

We also find this transition meaningful in terms of product strategy. Opera Neon is still positioned as a paid product today and $19.90 carries a price tag. Opera One and Opera GX appeal to a much wider user base. So the company is now expanding its reach by bringing the open AI approach it tested in paid Neon to free desktop browsers. On the other hand, it does not directly carry the more aggressive automation capabilities in Neon to mainstream products, but first progresses with more controlled features such as context sharing and tab reading. This shows that Opera is pursuing both “open ecosystem” and “gradual artificial intelligence integration” lines in the market.

We will see the most concrete impact on the user side in research and comparison scenarios. When you open multiple product tabs, read a long article, or browse through content containing dense tables and graphics, you will no longer have to explain everything to the connected artificial intelligence from scratch. To be honest, among the artificial intelligence integrations that browser companies have tried recently, Opera’s approach seems more flexible, because the company does not confine you to its own chatbot. However, this flexibility also requires users to make more careful decisions about sharing browser context with third-party AI services. So Browser Connector offers serious convenience on the practical side, but conscious use is still critical on the privacy and permission management side.