LibreOffice Makes 'No AI' a Feature, and Says It Won't Change Anytime Soon

The Document Foundation says LibreOffice will not ship generative AI in its default configuration, calling the absence a deliberate design position: no document leaves the machine, nothing requires a network connection, and extensions remain the way to add local models. An audit-friendly stance in a year when AI features arrived by default almost everywhere else.

Key Takeaways

The Document Foundation says LibreOffice will not ship generative AI in its default configuration, calling the absence a deliberate design position: no document leaves the machine, nothing requires a network connection, and extensions remain the way to add local models.
An audit-friendly stance in a year when AI features arrived by default almost everywhere else.

AI synthesis3 sources0

LibreOffice has spent the year shipping releases whose notes carry one unusual line: the software 'contains no generative AI features'. This week the Document Foundation, the nonprofit behind it, made that explicit policy. In a blog post it said it 'will not add' AI to the software for the foreseeable future — not out of hostility to the technology, it stressed, but because none of the current integrations meet its bar.

The bar is concrete. Any AI feature must keep user data on the device, must not depend on a single AI provider, and must not require a network connection for the editor to work. 'Any organisation handling confidential, legally privileged or personal data needs to know where that data goes, and the only assurance that survives an audit is that it does not leave the machine,' the organisation wrote.

That framing is the interesting part. LibreOffice is describing the absence of AI as a feature — a property a buyer can verify — rather than a gap. With tens of millions of users, including public bodies and law firms that treat document confidentiality as a legal obligation, 'your data never leaves the laptop' is easier to defend than any data-processing agreement. Users who want AI can still install extensions that connect to local models.

The decision runs against the industry grain. Assistants and chat panels are now default fixtures in document editors, and the resulting bloat has spawned a small counter-movement: command-line tools that strip AI features out of operating systems, and apps that advertise their absence. LibreOffice's statement is careful to leave the door open — it calls the position an assessment of the technology today, not a verdict on the sector, and promises to 'closely monitor where the technology is actually heading'.