Opera Mini, Opera’s lightweight mobile browser that’s become a digital lifeline across Africa—especially for users on affordable, low-spec smartphones—is stepping into the AI race with a significant upgrade, the company told . The company is integrating its browser AI, Aria, into Opera Mini, bringing advanced AI-powered capabilities to more than 100 million users worldwide—many in data-conscious markets like Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.
This move marks Opera’s most ambitious attempt yet to challenge tech giants Google and Microsoft in the AI-enabled mobile browser space. As of Q1 2025, Opera ranks as the sixth-largest browser globally with a 2.2% market share, and serves 380 million monthly active users (MAUs), trailing Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, and Samsung Internet, according to StatCounter. Africa remains a stronghold for Opera Mini, with Kenya emerging as its biggest market—boasting 13 million users, or 12% of the mobile browser’s 100 million global base.
With the introduction of Aria, Opera Mini is promising an AI experience that doesn’t demand high bandwidth or large device storage Aria enhances the web experience by offering real-time information retrieval, article summarization, text and code generation, image creation, and intelligent assistance for learning and research—all within a lightweight chat-based interface. Importantly for Opera Mini’s core user base, these features do not increase the app’s size or data usage.
“AI is rapidly becoming an integral part of the daily internet experience,” said Jørgen Arnesen, EVP Mobile at Opera. “Bringing Aria to Opera Mini is a natural next step for our most-downloaded browser. We’re excited to explore how AI can further enhance the feature set our users rely on every day.”
Aria is powered by Opera’s proprietary Composer AI engine, which combines models from OpenAI and Google to generate fast and contextually relevant responses. It also includes support for image generation via Google’s latest Imagen3 model. With this rollout, Aria is now available across Opera’s entire lineup of browsers on both desktop and mobile.
The Aria integration is designed to fit seamlessly into the Opera Mini environment. Users can access it from the main menu or directly from the start page. Once activated, they can chat with Aria to ask questions, generate content, search the web, and perform AI-assisted tasks without leaving the browser. This frictionless experience aligns with Opera Mini’s longstanding mission to make the internet more accessible, faster, and cheaper for users in emerging markets.
In regions where mobile data remains prohibitively expensive, Opera Mini has long offered a data-conscious alternative. Its data-compression technology has helped level the playing field in markets where internet affordability is a barrier. In Nigeria, for example, 59% of users in a yet-to-be-published Opera survey conducted in March 2025 said that mobile data is too costly, and more than half reported running out of data before the end of the month. Opera Mini addresses this by compressing content and offering promotional data bundles through local telecom partnerships, with some users receiving up to 1.5GB of free data per month. The company told it has saved Nigerians an equivalent of $27 million in data through its data compression technology.
While companies like Google and Microsoft dominate the AI narrative with tools like Gemini and Copilot, Opera’s Aria could make AI more accessible to low-end smartphone users in parts of the world where access is limited. Opera Mini already includes features that cater to local interests, such as live football scores and MiniPay, its built-in digital wallet.
Now, with Aria embedded into its platform, Opera wants to be the AI for everyone. Whether users are creating school projects, seeking information, or generating digital content, Opera Mini’s Aria puts advanced AI tools in their pockets without breaking their data budgets.
