Mozilla.ai develops 'Octonous,' an AI system that can automate tasks across multiple apps, automating daily repetitive tasks and chores with AI
Mozilla.ai, an AI development company, has announced ' Octonous ,' a system designed to create 'AI that is useful in everyday work.'
Octonous: Making AI useful for everyday work
Mozilla.ai says, 'Most teams don't want to 'use more AI'. They just want to reduce chores and open tabs. This usually means one thing: they want to switch apps less when working on a task and reduce repetitive work. We see the same pattern everywhere: starting in Slack, jumping into email, copying details into Notion or a spreadsheet, tracking updates in Jira or GitHub, and finally making decisions and plans. None of it is complicated; it's just time-consuming, distracting, and frankly, frustrating.' He points out that switching apps and tabs is extremely cumbersome for people who work using a PC.
In fact, when Mozilla.ai spoke to people in operations, customer support, administration, project management, sales, marketing, and human resources, they consistently found the following elements to be required for 'AI that is useful in everyday work.'
Reduce context switching.
- Handling repetitive tasks across multiple apps.
- I want to maintain flow and control.
So Mozilla.ai started developing Octonous.
Mozilla.ai explains about Octonous: 'On a simple platform, you simply describe the operations you need, and the AI assistant performs the task across connected apps, providing full visibility into its behavior. When performing writing actions such as creating an issue or sending a message, the AI assistant asks for your permission and cannot proceed without your explicit approval. It's not a chat interface that just copies and pastes between tools; it's designed to keep you up to date while performing actual actions such as reading emails, posting to Slack, updating spreadsheets, and creating Jira issues. Once you're satisfied with your workflow, you can run it automatically using schedules (for example, every Monday at 9:00) or triggers (for example, every time a new form is submitted to a spreadsheet). '
Regarding the reason for developing Octonous, Mozilla.ai said, 'Large-scale language models (LLMs) have proven extremely useful in coding. However, for many non-technical teams, their potential is not yet fully realized. This is not because the tasks are difficult, but because workflows are distributed. With work spread across too many tools, 'AI assistance' often leads to increased copy and paste, context switching, and double-checking. We started building Octonous to change this situation. It is an assistant that helps complete tasks across connected apps, giving users a clear understanding of how the apps are working while maintaining control.'
Mozilla.ai lists the following seven points as key priorities for Octonous:
・Direct connection to apps and data
While many automation platforms route connections through other services, adding another layer for data to pass through, Octonous connects directly to the app without going through a third-party authentication provider. Chat history, instructions, tool execution, and results are individually encrypted, further protecting your data.
-Transparent by default
It's designed to make it easy for agents to see the actions and instructions they use and what's returned, understand what's happening under the hood, and tweak their workflow as needed.
- Approval of actions that involve changes
An agent needs user approval to send, post, update or create anything, which is important especially for sensitive workflows.
- Logs that can be checked later
For each task performed, a record of what happened is recorded, including the actions taken, the tools used, and the results, which aids in troubleshooting and improved accountability.
・Start with chat and automate
Use chat to understand and refine your workflows, then automate what's proven to work.
-Clear scope and authority
Automations only run within the apps and actions you allow, and are unavailable if they are not allowed.
Optional web access
Once enabled, the agent can browse websites to gather public information or monitor pages you specify, based on a schedule or trigger. This is useful for workflows that require up-to-date data, such as weather, news, and event schedules.
Mozilla.ai explains that Octonous is an AI for people who work across multiple systems. Specifically, it is intended for use by operations teams who keep processes running, product and program managers who coordinate work between tools, customer support teams who handle repetitive, high-volume tasks, and marketing and sales teams who manage campaign, lead, and content workflows.
At the time of writing, Octonous is in the final stages of development, with beta access scheduled to begin in February 2026.
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