How much does Brave Leo AI Browsing cost?

Leo is free in the Brave browser with no account. Leo Premium is $14.99 a month or $149.99 a year, with more models, higher daily limits and early access to features.

Does Brave Leo AI Browsing require human approval before an agent acts?

Full under the Agentic Index verification standard. Brave Leo AI Browsing publishes public evidence of human approval steps and guardrails, so an agent action can be held for review before it executes. Evidence basis: A second model checks each action against the user's intent, and actions it flags as misaligned trigger a warning and require the user's explicit permission before they run. Users can inspect and pause sessions, and browsing happens in an o. Graded from public evidence only against the Agentic Index 14 point capability taxonomy. No vendor pays for placement.

Can Brave Leo AI Browsing be self hosted or run in a private VPC?

Partial under the Agentic Index verification standard. Brave Leo AI Browsing publishes some public evidence on deployment and data residency, but narrower than a documented self hosted or private VPC option. Evidence basis: Bring Your Own Model runs Leo on the user's own local or remote models, keeping inference on hardware the user controls, and the browser itself is a client on macOS, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS. Brave's own service offers no region or r. Graded from public evidence only against the Agentic Index 14 point capability taxonomy. No vendor pays for placement.

Back to vendors

Brave Leo AI Browsing

Q: Who is Brave Leo AI Browsing for?

privacy conscious users, researchers and journalists, regulated industry professionals, consumers

Q: What are the best alternatives to Brave Leo AI Browsing?

Based on documented capability coverage across the Agentic Index 14 point taxonomy, the closest alternatives to Brave Leo AI Browsing among browser and computer-use agents are Opera Neon, Sigma Browser, AGI, Inc., Island. Each is graded on the same public evidence, and no vendor pays for placement.

Also known as: Brave Leo, Leo AI, Brave AI Browsing

Visit site

Browser / computer-use agentfirst party productVerified 2026-09-27

Entry priceFree in the Brave browser, no account; Leo Premium $14.99 a month or $149.99 a yearFull pricing detail

Brave's privacy first assistant Leo offers opt in AI browsing, an agent that drives the browser in an isolated profile, with a second model checking each action and asking permission for risky ones. Leo supports local or remote bring your own model and on device memories, and AI browsing is in early testing.

Brave Leo is the AI assistant built into the Brave browser on desktop and mobile. It summarizes and answers questions about webpages, PDFs, Google Docs and Sheets, grounds answers in Brave Search, and lets users pick models from Mixtral, Anthropic's Claude and Meta's Llama or bring their own local or remote model. Memories keep facts and preferences the user enters on the device, Skills turn favorite prompts into shortcuts, and chats are not retained or used for training, with no account needed for the free tier.

AI browsing, Leo's agentic mode, is in early testing across all release channels behind an opt in flag and must be invoked manually. The agent works in an isolated browser profile with no access to the user's regular logins, in an open tab the user can inspect and pause. A second alignment checker model compares each action with the user's intent, and actions it flags require the user's explicit permission. Brave pays double bug bounties for agentic findings during early testing and has published research on prompt injection across the agentic browser category.

Vendor details

Canonical URL

https://brave.com/leo/

Funding status

Leo is a product of Brave Software, Inc. It launched in 2023, and AI browsing entered early testing across all release channels on 5 May 2026.

Company status

first party product

Use cases & customers

Primary use cases

autonomous web researchproduct comparison and cart fillingpromo code discoverypage and document analysisprivate local model AI via BYOM

Target customers

privacy conscious usersresearchers and journalistsregulated industry professionalsconsumers

Deployment options

desktop (Windows/macOS/Linux)mobile (Android/iOS)BYOM local models

Integrations

Leo is built into the Brave browser with page awareness across webpages, PDFs, Google Docs, Google Sheets and YouTube, and is grounded by Brave Search. Bring Your Own Model connects local or remote models, including OpenAI compatible endpoints. There are no connectors or developer API for the agent.

In practice

A shopper wants the best price on a pair of headphones across several stores. With AI browsing turned on, Leo visits the sites in an open tab, compares the products and checks promo codes, in a profile kept apart from the shopper's own logins.

A researcher wants a quick read of a long PDF and two Google Docs. Leo summarizes and analyzes the documents in view, pulling in Brave Search results where they help, without retaining the chat.

A developer runs a model on their own machine. Bring Your Own Model points Leo at that local model, so prompts never leave hardware the developer controls.

Sources & related URLs

Research sources

https://brave.com/blog/ai-browsing/ https://support.brave.app/hc/en-us/articles/41240379376909-How-do-I-use-AI-Browsing-in-Brave https://www.techradar.com/pro/brave-leo-ai-review https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/artificial-intelligence/brave-browser-starts-testing-agentic-ai-mode-for-automated-tasks/

Agentic Index coverage score

6.0 / 14 capabilities · 43%

Integrations & Tool Calling	Not documented
AI browsing runs in an isolated profile where cookies, logged in state and caches from regular browsing do not carry over, so it acts on websites as a browser rather than through the user's accounts. Leo reads PDFs, Google Docs and Sheets as page context. Brave names no connector, tool calling route or authenticated action framework. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsing and brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06
Workflow Orchestration	Partial
AI browsing carries out one multi step task per session, such as researching across several sites, comparing products or checking promo codes, in an open tab. Brave names no multi agent or composed workflow. The feature sits behind an opt in flag in early testing. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06
Knowledge Grounding & RAG	Partial
Leo grounds answers in Brave Search results and in the page, PDF, Google Doc or Sheet in view, assembled per query, and can summarize, translate and analyze that content. Brave names no maintained index over the user's own knowledge. SourceBrave, brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06
Human Oversight & Guardrails	Full
A second model checks each action against the user's intent, and actions it flags as misaligned trigger a warning and require the user's explicit permission before they run. Users can inspect and pause sessions, and browsing happens in an open tab. The alignment checker sees the system prompt, the user's prompt and the task model's response, and permission requests are kept for specific actions it judges risky rather than asked site by site. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06
Security, Identity & Governance	Not documented
Protections include the isolated agent profile, no retention of chats and no training on them, no collection of identifiers such as IP addresses, and doubled bug bounty rewards for agentic findings. Brave names no access model or attestation for Leo, and no roles or SSO for who can run the agent. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsing and brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06
Observability & Auditability	Partial
Users can inspect AI browsing sessions, the agent cannot delete its own session logs, and all agent browsing happens in a visible open tab rather than a sidebar, which shows what happened. Brave names no audit trail or trace of why the agent acted. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06
Memory & State Persistence	Partial
Leo Memories are facts and preferences the user enters, stored on the device, editable and deletable at any time, which Leo consults across chats, and chat history can also be saved locally and continued. The user maintains the memories, and Brave states no lifetime for them. Sourcebrave.com/whats-new/leo-memoriesread 2026-09-27
Deployment & Data Residency	Partial
Bring Your Own Model runs Leo on the user's own local or remote models, keeping inference on hardware the user controls, and the browser itself is a client on macOS, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS. Brave's own service offers no region or residency choice, and the free version needs no account. SourceBrave, brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06
Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs	Partial
Leo ships a handful of pre configured Skills, prompt shortcuts such as explaining a topic simply, beside Skills users write themselves. Skills are prompt templates, and Brave names no prebuilt agents. Sourcebrave.com/blog/leo-skillsread 2026-09-27
Triggers & Channel Coverage	Not documented
AI browsing has to be manually invoked by the user, a design choice Brave states, and it stays off until the user turns it on. Brave names no schedule, event or background trigger. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06
Model Flexibility & Routing	Full
The user chooses among models from Mixtral, Anthropic's Claude and Meta's Llama, with more on Premium, and Bring Your Own Model connects local or remote models, including third party APIs. Premium also raises usage limits, while free access can vary with traffic. SourceBrave, brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06
APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility	Not documented
Bring Your Own Model points Leo at other models. It does not let other software call Leo, and the Brave Search API is a separate product. Brave names no API, SDK or MCP server that drives Leo or AI browsing. SourceBrave, brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06
Testing, Debugging & Optimization	Not documented
For the agent, Brave names no evaluation harness, test cases or quality gate. Brave has published its own prompt injection research on agentic browsing. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06
Browser & Computer Use	Full
AI browsing drives the Brave browser itself in an isolated profile and open tab, visiting and analyzing sites, comparing products, checking promo codes, summarizing news and completing tasks. It is opt in, off by default and in early testing across all release channels. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06

The Agentic Index coverage score grades every vendor Full, Partial or Not documented against the same 14 buyer facing capabilities, from public evidence only. Each capability links to how all vendors in the index score on it. How this evidence is graded

Product updates

October 15, 2026·Security / enterpriseVerified

Leo conversations with the open weight GLM model are now end to end encrypted. The browser encrypts each prompt on the device so that only a trusted execution environment that has passed hardware attestation can read it, and Brave says the setup keeps prompts and responses from infrastructure operators, including Brave itself. It is available in Brave's Release, Beta and Nightly channels.

Bears on: Deployment / data residency

View source

View all Brave Leo AI Browsing updates →Tracked since Oct 2026 · Verified from public vendor sources

Pricing

Free in the Brave browser, no account; Leo Premium $14.99 a month or $149.99 a year

freemium subscription

Free tierTrial available

What is public

The freemium structure is public: Leo ships free in the Brave browser with open models and no account, and Leo Premium, at $14.99 a month or $149.99 a year, adds frontier models.

Variable cost rationale

Free base tier and flat Premium subscription; BYOM local models remove even model costs for self hosted users, the lowest cost exposure in the consumer agent tier.

Sales call required

No, self serve available

Free / trial

Free Leo with no account; Leo Premium offers a free trial

Lowest paid plan

Leo Premium, $14.99 a month or $149.99 a year

Agentic Index verified 2026-09-27

Official pricing page

Related vendors

Alternatives to Brave Leo AI Browsing

The closest documented capability profiles to Brave Leo AI Browsing among browser and computer-use agents tracked by Agentic Index, ordered by similarity on the same 14 point evidence the rankings use. No vendor pays for placement.

Opera Neon7.5 / 14Adds documented Integrations & Tool Calling and Triggers & Channel Coverage, among othersBrave Leo AI Browsing vs Opera Neon →
Sigma Browser3.5 / 14A lighter documented profile than Brave Leo AI Browsing
AGI, Inc.6.0 / 14Adds documented Triggers & Channel Coverage and APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility
Island9.0 / 14Adds documented Integrations & Tool Calling and Security, Identity & Governance, among others
Stagehand7.0 / 14Adds documented Integrations & Tool Calling and APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility, among others
Microsoft Scout10.5 / 14Adds documented Integrations & Tool Calling and Security, Identity & Governance, among others

Similarity is computed from each vendor's Agentic Index coverage score evidence, axis by axis, not from the totals. How this evidence is graded

Compare Brave Leo AI Browsing with other vendors →Compare all browser and computer-use agents →See where Brave Leo AI Browsing ranks →

Data confidence: high

Head to head

Brave Leo AI Browsing vs Opera Neon