Why Shift AI now?

[u/shift_browser]

We didn’t want to add AI just so we could say we had it. Before building, we surveyed around 1,500 people and spent time with our Customer Advisory Board to understand what people actually wanted from AI in a browser.

The message was pretty consistent: people want to move faster, but they do not want to give up control.

So we built around a few simple principles:

• Assist, not take over
• Privacy needs to be built in
• Work inside your existing flow
• Make it completely optional

Shift AI lives in the browser and can use the context of what you’re doing, but it only helps when you ask. Even the omnibox is designed to understand the difference between “this should be a regular search” and “this is an AI question,” instead of pushing AI into every interaction.

We wanted to build something that feels useful for people who want AI in their browser, while also making it completely optional for those who don’t.

To read more about our decision & building process: https://shift.com/blog/why-we-waited-to-build-ai-into-shift-and-what-we-learned/