New local AI integration into Firefox spurs complaints of 'CPU going nuts' - Tom's Hardware

Mozilla Firefox's latest update 141 has introduced a concerning bug where its new AI-enhanced tab groups feature is causing excessive CPU usage and power drain. The issue was first reported by Reddit users who noticed their systems experiencing unexpected performance spikes and rapid battery depletion. While the AI feature runs locally for privacy, it appears to be consuming far more processing power than intended, with some users reporting CPU usage jumping to an astronomical 130%.

• Firefox's new "Inference" process responsible for AI tab grouping fluctuates between 0.05% and 130% CPU usage
• The feature is part of a gradual rollout, meaning only select users are experiencing these performance issues currently
• Users report browser instability when attempting to manually terminate the problematic inference process
• Mozilla has not yet released an official fix despite the issue being present since the July 22 update release