Opera is adding its free browser AI, Aria, to its popular Android-based browser, Opera Mini, which boasts more than 100-million users across the world.
The update brings powerful AI capabilities, such as up-to-date information from the web, research assistance, content summarisation, and image generation, directly into the browser at no additional cost.
“AI is rapidly becoming an integral part of the daily internet experience, and we’re seeing a great interest in AI solutions among South Africans, so bringing Aria to Opera Mini is a natural addition to our most-downloaded browser. With the integration of our built-in AI, Aria, we’re excited to explore how AI can further enhance the feature set our South African users rely on every day,” says Jørgen Arnesen, executive vice-president: mobile at Opera.
While internet access is becoming increasingly more available for South Africans, the cost is disproportionally high compared to income or GDP per capita.
According to an Opera survey from March 2025, 80% of South Africans said data is too expensive, and over two thirds (69%) reported regularly running out of data before the end of the month, data costs remain a key concern in the country.
Opera Mini plays a key role in improving internet accessibility across South Africa. Its turbo data-saving mode can reduce data usage by up to 90% compared to other major browsers.
For the past three years, Opera has saved South Africans an equivalent of $10-million in data (6-million GB) through its data compression technology.
The free data campaigns, active since 2020, allow South Africans using Opera Mini and being on the MTN network to benefit from 3GB each month for free, which can be used for anything, including interacting with Aria. Since 2022, Opera has invested millions of dollars on free data campaigns in South Africa, bridging the digital divide and ensuring information access.
With Aria integrated into Opera Mini, users get the benefits of an advanced AI tool without sacrificing precious data. Aria is optimised for minimal data consumption and is included within Opera’s free daily data bundles in South Africa — making it an ideal solution for the 69% of South Africans who would use AI tools only if they didn’t add to data usage.
Aria browser AI integrates into Opera’s browsers on both desktop and mobile to enable an accessible chat-based interface to AI. It enhances user interaction through information retrieval, text or code generation, image generation and understanding.
Aria is powered by Opera’s own Composer AI engine, which utilizes both OpenAI and Google AI technologies to provide the most relevant answers, and it integrates image generation through Google’s Imagen3 fast model.
With the latest update, Aria is now available across all Opera browsers. For the 24%* South Africans surveyed who already use AI tools several times a day, and for the 59% who rely on AI for academic purposes, Aria within Opera Mini offers a way to make those experiences even more accessible and fully affordable, as it’s free.
Opera Mini can be downloaded or updated via the Google Play Store, with Aria available in the browser.