The browser that fills forms for you
Mozilla announced last Tuesday, October 27, two new features for Smart Window, Firefox's AI-powered browsing experience: smart form filling based on open tabs and webpage monitoring to detect specific changes. Both features are currently in beta and available only to users in the United States and Canada in English, but they represent a significant step forward in how a browser can act as an active assistant — and not just a passive tool.
What differentiates Smart Window from Firefox's traditional autofill is its ability to generate contextual responses. When the user clicks on a form field that has at least four or five text fields for automated filling, a "Fill from sources" option appears automatically in the dropdown menu. Firefox then analyzes the open tabs the user has selected and extracts relevant information to fill the fields — from an online portfolio to a professional profile. The feature uses Google's Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite model to detect fields and generate suggestions.
The philosophy behind Smart Window
Smart Window grew from a concept called "AI Window", introduced in November 2025 as an optional experience that allowed users to interact with an AI assistant while browsing. The idea was to give users a controlled space where they could chat with an assistant for help without leaving the browser. After months of beta testing and community feedback, the feature was renamed Smart Window and gradually expanded with new capabilities.
In August 2026, Firefox Smart Window gained AI-powered web search, automatic tab grouping, duplicate tab detection, and browsing history search using natural language. In September, the feature was expanded to France, marking its first expansion beyond North America. The October update now adds form filling and webpage monitoring.
What makes Smart Window distinct from competing solutions, such as ChatGPT Canvas or Google's Gemini, is Mozilla's commitment to privacy and explicit user consent. All features are opt-in — Firefox AI Controls offers a central location to manage the experience, including turning it off entirely. Saved autofill data, such as name, address, passwords, and payment information, remain on the user's device and are never sent to AI models.
How it works in practice
For form filling, the experience begins when the user clicks on a text field. If the form has at least four or five text fields that Smart Window can help fill, the "Fill from sources" option appears automatically in the dropdown menu, along with a recommended source page. The user can select or deselect tabs that they want Firefox to use, and the browser generates suggestions based on information contained in those pages. Once sources are chosen, Smart Window presents suggestions for review before filling the fields — but the browser does not submit the form automatically.
When the contextual filling option is activated, information from the selected pages is shared with Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite, the AI model that detects fields and extracts relevant information. Mozilla chose this model because it currently offers the best performance and reliability for this specific task. The Smart Window chat model selection remains unchanged, and saved autofill values continue to stay on the device.
The second feature, webpage monitoring, works similarly to Safari's "Notify Me" feature, introduced with iOS 27 and macOS 27. The user types `/watch` in the Smart Window chat to tell Firefox to monitor webpages for specific changes — such as a price drop, product availability, or a new job posting. Firefox then notifies the user when those changes are detected.
Users can choose between daily and weekly checks, with up to five webpages per task. Monitoring only runs while Firefox is open. When there is a match, the user sees an update through the "Tasks" button in the toolbar. With desktop notifications enabled, Firefox can notify directly; clicking the notification opens the monitored pages. Users can keep up to 15 active tasks simultaneously, and can edit, pause, or delete tasks at any time.
Limitations and what to expect in the coming months
Currently, the form filling feature supports only text fields on web forms and does not save any generated fill data. Mozilla is exploring support for more field types, including dropdown menus, PDF forms, and ways to save and manage generated information for future forms.
Webpage monitoring has its own limitations: daily or weekly checks only run while the browser is open, and tasks are automatically paused after 60 days without a matching change or are terminated after 90 days. The use of the Qwen model to identify changes occurs even if the user has selected a different model in Smart Window settings.
What makes this update interesting is not just what it does today, but what it signals about the future of browsers. With Chrome offering Gemini-powered autofill based on Gmail, Safari offering webpage monitoring, and Edge increasingly integrating Copilot deeply, Firefox Smart Window is becoming a central piece in a silent war: who controls the intelligence layer between the user and the web. Firefox's difference is that it tries to do this without turning the browser into an AI sales platform — at least for now.
As more AI features are incorporated into browsing, the question that remains is: how far are users willing to delegate digital tasks to language models, and where do we draw the line between convenience and dependency?
Sources: The Verge, Unite.AI, 9to5Mac
✓ Independent sources cross-checked and verified before publishing
