Opera Aria reviews: The hidden power behind Opera’s AI browser

It feels like every app and browser has its own built-in AI assistant these days, and they all promise to make our lives easier. Opera's version, Aria, is a front-runner in this space because it's free and baked right into the browser's sidebar. But the big question is, does it actually work well?

We decided to find out. We spent a ton of time digging through user comments, forum posts, and hands-on tests to get the real story. This is a straightforward look at what Opera Aria reviews tell us about its features, its performance, and, more importantly, where it just doesn't cut it for anyone who needs more than a casual browsing buddy.

What is Opera Aria?

Aria is Opera's free, built-in browser AI. Think of it as a chat companion that lives in your browser, ready to help you with research, write some text for you, or answer a random question. Under the hood, it uses a mix of AI models, including tech from OpenAI, and has live access to the web. That’s a pretty big deal compared to some of the earlier chatbots that were stuck with old data.

The main idea is to give you up-to-date answers, summarize articles, and help with creative tasks without you having to jump over to another tab. It’s available on all of Opera's browsers, from desktop to mobile, hoping to be the only assistant you need while you're online.

Opera Aria reviews: A breakdown of its main features

Looking at what Opera says and what users are talking about, Aria's features are all about being a seamless part of your browsing.

Built-in browser integration

Aria isn’t just some chatbot floating in another window; it's genuinely part of the Opera browser itself.

• Sidebar & Command Line: You can pop open Aria from an icon in the sidebar or just hit "Ctrl+/". It’s nice for asking a quick question without totally derailing what you were doing.

• Page Context Mode: This is one of its smarter tricks. You can ask Aria questions about the specific webpage you're on, like "give me the short version of this article" or "what are the main points being made here?"

• AI Tab Commands: Opera is starting to experiment with letting you manage your browser by talking to it. You can give commands like, "group all my shopping tabs together." It’s a cool look at a future where we manage our browsers with conversation instead of a million clicks.

Text tools

Aria also has some handy tools for messing with text, both on webpages and in its own replies.

• Highlight to Act: If you highlight any text on a webpage, a little Aria prompt pops up. It's a quick way to get an explanation, a summary, or a translation without any extra steps.

• The Refiner Tool: A lot of reviews mention the "Reuse" and "Rephrase" tools as being genuinely useful. "Reuse" lets you grab a piece of Aria's answer to ask a follow-up question. And if you don't like a sentence it wrote, "Rephrase" lets you fix just that part instead of making it start all over.

Content creation capabilities

Like pretty much every AI out there, Aria can also generate content.

• Compose Mode: This feature gives you a template for generating text. You can tell it you need an email, an article, or a social media post, and then pick a tone (like formal, funny, or sarcastic) and a length.

• Image Generation: Aria can also create images from text prompts. But, to be honest, user reviews are pretty brutal here. Many say the quality is nowhere near dedicated AI art tools, with some describing the results as "catastrophically bad."

The real-world verdict: What people are saying in Opera Aria reviews

So, how does Aria actually hold up when people use it day-to-day? The feedback is a real mixed bag. It definitely has its fans, but a lot of users are bumping up against some pretty serious limitations.

The good stuff: A handy tool for research and writing

• A Solid Alternative to Google Search: For straight-up research, some people have completely switched from traditional search to Aria. One ZDNet reviewer mentioned it's a great way to get answers without having to wade through websites cluttered with ads and paywalls.

• Helpful for Summaries and Drafts: Students and writers seem to like its ability to summarize long articles, draft emails, and help with assignments. You'll see comments calling it "super helpful & useful."

• Clever, Practical Features: Those "Reuse" and "Rephrase" functions get a lot of love. People consistently point them out as smart additions that make refining an answer way less frustrating than with other chatbots.

The not-so-good stuff: Where it stumbles

• Accuracy Can Be Spotty: This is the number one complaint. Users on Opera's own forums and on Reddit report that Aria just gets things wrong, sometimes doing worse than ChatGPT with the exact same question. One user even posted a screenshot of it failing at basic math.

• It Has a Bad Memory: A lot of users get frustrated that Aria can't seem to remember what was said earlier in the conversation. One person said they had to "manually reintroduce previous context by copying and pasting relevant text" just to keep it from getting confused.

• It Can Be Biased or Refuse to Answer: Several reviews bring up that Aria seems to have a strong political slant on certain topics and won't provide a balanced view. Others say it’s overly cautious and will refuse to answer harmless questions with a generic "As a language AI model..." excuse.

• It's a Generalist, Not a Specialist: While Aria can do a little bit of everything, it’s not a master of any of it. Users find its image generation weak, and its ability to have a deep conversation or troubleshoot a problem just can't hang with more powerful, specialized AI platforms.

Why a personal AI won't work for business

Reading through all the Opera Aria reviews makes one thing crystal clear: a free, general-purpose browser AI is a completely different beast from what a business needs to automate real work, like customer support.

Gaps in browser AI for customer support

A personal assistant like Aria is built for one-off questions and simple tasks. It completely breaks down when you try to apply it to a business setting.

• It Can't Connect to Your Business Tools: Aria has no way of talking to the software you use to run your company. It can't access your helpdesk like Zendesk or Freshdesk, pull info from your internal wiki in Confluence or Google Docs, or communicate with your team in Slack. That means it's useless for answering specific customer questions or automating any part of your support process.

• You Can't Train It on Your Own Knowledge: Aria learns from the public internet. Businesses need an AI that can securely learn from their private data, like thousands of past support tickets and internal guides. Without that, you get generic answers that don't match your brand and can't solve real customer issues.

• No Controls, No Testing, No Reports: With Aria, you get what you get. There's no way to shape its personality, limit what it can talk about, or test how well it performs before you turn it on. Businesses need serious tools for simulation and analytics to use AI safely and see if it's actually helping.

This infographic shows how a business AI connects to multiple data sources, a key differentiator noted in Opera Aria reviews.

The professional alternative: From a simple helper to a true AI agent

For a business, the goal isn't just answering questions, it's about actually solving problems and making things run more smoothly. That takes a platform built for the job, like eesel AI.

Here’s how a professional platform fills the gaps left by personal AIs:

• Go Live in Minutes, Not Months: While Aria is simple for personal use, eesel AI is designed for a surprisingly easy business setup. You can connect your helpdesk and knowledge bases in just a few clicks, often without ever needing to talk to a salesperson.

• It Learns from Your Stuff: Instead of just scraping the public web, eesel AI securely trains on your company's private knowledge. It learns from your past tickets, your help center docs, and your internal notes to give answers that are accurate and sound like you.

A view of the eesel AI platform connecting to private business data, which Opera Aria reviews identify as a major gap in personal AIs.

• Test with Confidence: Before you let an AI talk to a single customer, eesel AI's simulation mode lets you test it on thousands of your past support tickets. You get a clear forecast of its resolution rate and can see exactly how it will behave, which takes a lot of the risk out of the equation.

The simulation mode in eesel AI allows businesses to test performance, a feature missing in personal AIs according to Opera Aria reviews.

• You're in Complete Control: A real AI agent does more than just chat. With eesel AI, you can build custom workflows that let your AI do things like tag tickets, look up live order info, and know when to pass a conversation to the right human on your team.

A screenshot showing the customization and control features in a business AI platform, which Opera Aria reviews note is essential for professional use.

Opera Aria reviews on pricing: A free personal tool vs. a professional business platform

The massive difference in what they can do is also reflected in how they're priced.

• Opera Aria: It's totally free to use inside the Opera browser. You might just need an Opera account to unlock all its features.

• eesel AI: eesel AI has clear, predictable plans made for businesses. The best part? There are no per-resolution fees, so your bill won't give you a heart attack after a busy month.

Plan	Effective /mo (Annual)	Who It's For
Team	$239	Smaller teams starting out with an AI Copilot and basic automation.
Business	$639	Growing teams that need to train the AI on past tickets and use custom actions.
Custom	Contact Sales	Large companies that need advanced security, controls, and integrations.

The eesel AI pricing page shows a clear, business-focused pricing model, contrasting with the free model discussed in Opera Aria reviews.

Picking the right AI for the right job

So, what's the final takeaway? The collection of Opera Aria reviews shows it’s a decent and convenient free personal AI assistant. It's handy for a quick search, summarizing an article, or getting a hand with drafting an email. But its inconsistent answers, lack of deep knowledge, and inability to connect with other tools mean it's not the right choice for anything business-critical.

For complex, high-stakes work like customer support, you need a tool that's dedicated, secure, and gives you control. A personal AI just doesn't have the training capabilities or safety features that a professional environment demands. It’s not about which AI is "better" overall, but which one was built for the task you have in mind. For casual browsing, Aria is a nice little perk. For actually automating and scaling your business, a purpose-built platform is the only way to go.

Ready to see what a business-grade AI can do?

If you're looking for an AI solution that actually plugs into your tools, learns from your company's brain, and gives you full control over automation, give eesel AI a try. You can get set up in a few minutes and start seeing how it could handle your support workflows today.