- Brave has taken its privacy-first approach to internet browsing and created the Leo chatbot.
- The bot features a free and Premium subscription tier offering enhanced capabilities.
- Brave says that it won’t store your chats with Leo.
This year has really been the year of the AI assistant what with ChatGPT-powered Bing finding its way from Microsoft Edge into Microsoft Windows. Now Brave, makers of the privacy-focused browser of the same name, have launched their own AI bot.
Leo, as the bot is known, has been tested by tens of thousands of users as part of Brave’s Nightly channel and it is now being rolled out to all users as part of update 1.60.
The firm claims that Leo won’t be trained on past conversations and will have a focus on privacy. Brave assures users that their conversations are private and anonymous. Leo can be used for a number of tasks including summarising web pages and videos, re-writing content and more.
“It is increasingly common today to use AI to ask questions and get assistance. AI can be a powerful tool but it can also present growing concerns for data privacy and there’s a need for a privacy-first solution,” explains Brian Bondy, chief technology officer and co-founder of Brave. “Brave is committed to pairing AI with user privacy, and will provide our users with secure and personalized AI assistance where they already spend their time online. We’re also thrilled to work with Anthropic to bring Claude’s exceptional conversational abilities to the millions of Brave users worldwide.”
There is no need to create an account to use Leo and it will be freely accessible once the update arrives on your machine.
However, Brave also has a Premium version of the bot that will cost $15 per month.
For this fee users get access to Claude Instant, Anthropic’s faster and lighter model that excels at logical reasoning and coding. In addition paying for Premium will get you better responses, higher rate limits, priority during peak times and early access to new features.
While one might assume that paying for Leo Premium would erode your privacy, the browser maker says this isn’t the case.
“If you sign up for Leo Premium, you’re issued unlinkable tokens that validate your subscription when using Leo. This means that Brave can never connect your purchase details with your usage of the product, an extra step that ensures your activity is private to you and only you. The email you used to create your account is unlinkable to your day-to-day use of Leo, making this a uniquely private credentialing experience,” explains Brave.
The differences between the Free and Premium versions of Leo are outlined below.
| Feature | Free Leo | Leo premium |
|---|---|---|
| Models | Llama 2 13B Code Llama 13B | Llama 2 13B Llama 2 70B Code Llama 13B Code Llama 70B Anthropic Claude Instant |
| Rate limits | Reasonable rate limits | Higher rate limits |
| Quality of conversations | Limited by models | Very high |
| Privacy | Inputs are always submitted anonymously through a reverse-proxy and are not retained. | Inputs are always submitted anonymously through a reverse-proxy and are not retained. |
Leo is available now to desktop users and will be available for Android and iOS in the coming months. If like us, you can’t find Leo, check your browser later.
To access Leo simply open the Brave sidebar or simply type a question into the address bar and click the Leo icon (an asterisk is a speech bubble).
