LibreOffice says no AI now a feature

LibreOffice's position follows weeks after the release of its latest version in late August, when it reiterated that the software "contains no generative AI features." The nonprofit framed that as a "deliberate design position" rather than an accident, and tied it directly to how documents are processed: users' documents are not uploaded to a server, and no part of the software requires a network connection to function.

The blog post also pushes back against the broader pattern in software of packing in as much AI as possible, which the organization links to bloated features like chatbots and AI assistants. Its stated bar for any future AI integration is concrete: data must stay on the user's device and there must be no reliance on a single AI provider, among other considerations. Because no current integration meets all of those requirements, LibreOffice says the default installation will have no AI of any kind, while extensions remain available for those who want AI features.

The stakes appear to hinge on whether an integration can eventually satisfy those data-location and provider-independence conditions without compromising the audit-friendly guarantee that documents never leave the machine. For the nonprofit, the decision is framed as an assessment of the technology today rather than a judgment on the value of the AI sector, leaving room to revisit it as the technology evolves.