Mozilla is making its first official move toward AI-powered search in Firefox. As part of a new experiment, Perplexity AI is now being offered as an optional search engine directly in the browser’s address bar. Here’s how to try it.
A test running on select countries, but with a global workaround
As noted by Windows Report, the integration is still in the early stages. Perplexity won’t appear as your default search engine just yet, but Firefox users in select countries can now select it from the unified search button that shows up when typing a query.
Mozilla describes Perplexity as an engine focused on delivering direct, conversational answers, a pitch that puts it in the same emerging category as Google’s AI Overviews.
One interesting side note: instead of making a formal announcement on its blog, Mozilla quietly confirmed the experiment in a thread on its Connect community forum.
For now, the test is officially limited to users in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, but anyone can manually add Perplexity as a search option using this simple workaround:
Open Firefox and go to perplexity.ai.
Type a search query in the Firefox address bar, but don’t press Return.
When the dropdown suggestions appear, select the “Search with Perplexity” option.
After running a few searches this way, Firefox should prompt you to add Perplexity as a saved search engine.
Once added, you’ll also get a new @perplexity keyword shortcut for faster searching.
Mozilla steps up its AI feature experiments
Mozilla says this is part of an experiment gauging how users feel about AI-based search engines inside Firefox. This means that more AI-powered options could follow depending on feedback, which is something that the company has started moving towards in recent weeks.
Are you a Firefox user? Are you willing to adopt Perplexity as your default search engine? Let us know in the comments.
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