Brave browser’s built-in AI assistant Leo began routing conversations through NEAR AI Cloud in the $NEAR ecosystem early this morning Beijing time—and even Brave itself can’t see what you ask.
NEAR is the native token of the NEAR Protocol blockchain, used to pay transaction fees and stake. NEAR AI is the ecosystem’s cloud service dedicated to private AI computing.
The process works like this: the text you type is encrypted in your browser, and can only be decrypted inside a hardware-isolated secure area (TEE).
Brave’s relay also strips out your IP address first, so NEAR AI doesn’t know who’s asking, and Brave doesn’t know what you asked. According to the announcement, even the hosting provider, graphics card vendors, and NEAR AI itself are kept outside the hardware boundary.
The real difference is that it’s “verifiable.” Brave uses its own open-source verification software to check that the machine and the code running on it are as expected. If they don’t pass, it won’t release the key.
Brave says that many AI assistants still protect privacy with nothing more than a promise—one users have no way to verify themselves.
Brave has more than 128 million monthly active users. Last year, this system was only being tested in beta; this time, it’s going straight to the stable release, though for now it’s available only with one of the open-source models.
NEAR is the native token of the NEAR Protocol blockchain, used to pay transaction fees and stake. NEAR AI is the ecosystem’s cloud service dedicated to private AI computing.
The process works like this: the text you type is encrypted in your browser, and can only be decrypted inside a hardware-isolated secure area (TEE).
Brave’s relay also strips out your IP address first, so NEAR AI doesn’t know who’s asking, and Brave doesn’t know what you asked. According to the announcement, even the hosting provider, graphics card vendors, and NEAR AI itself are kept outside the hardware boundary.
The real difference is that it’s “verifiable.” Brave uses its own open-source verification software to check that the machine and the code running on it are as expected. If they don’t pass, it won’t release the key.
Brave says that many AI assistants still protect privacy with nothing more than a promise—one users have no way to verify themselves.
Brave has more than 128 million monthly active users. Last year, this system was only being tested in beta; this time, it’s going straight to the stable release, though for now it’s available only with one of the open-source models.