LibreOffice breaks download records after declaring it has no AI features

A record week for LibreOffice 26.8

LibreOffice 26.8, released on August 26th, has become the software's most popular update: in one week the installer was downloaded more than 1 million times, not counting updates delivered through Linux distribution repositories. LibreOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office that has been around for nearly two decades.

One could argue that the improvements to the writing system and typography are the hit — they appeal to NGOs, government agencies and offices. The author at Manual do Usuário bets on a "non-feature" instead: the statement that LibreOffice does not come with generative AI features, because of the technology's privacy problems.

TDF: "Yes, no AI is now a feature"

A day after celebrating the download record and the wide media coverage, The Document Foundation (TDF), which manages the software, spelled out its position in a post titled "Yes, no AI is now a feature". The article, signed by Italo Vignoli, says TDF "does not reject artificial intelligence out of hand", but that the technology does not yet meet a list of principles required for inclusion by default.

Those principles are: user-controlled execution; no content may leave the computer without authorization; no telemetry of any kind; no dependency on a single vendor; no compromises on file format; entirely optional. For now, TDF recommends community plugins to integrate AI into LibreOffice.

A jab at subscription vendors

TDF's stance "has almost nothing to do with the technology", the post continues, before taking a jab at rivals that dove headfirst into AI. For the foundation, "an AI assistant justifies a price increase and strengthens the case for keeping all documents within its own infrastructure" — a reference to companies that rely on selling subscriptions. The detailed explanation may disappoint anyone who read the LibreOffice 26.8 launch announcement as an anti-AI manifesto.

Whatever the reasons, the article concludes that the 26.8 case answers a question the author and others have had since 2023: if the whole market now offers AI baked into software of every kind, is there really no room for AI-free alternatives to stand out? Apparently there is.