LibreOffice 26.8, released on August 26, recorded 1,031,162 downloads in its first week, the highest first-week download volume in the project’s history, The Document Foundation (TDF) confirmed on its official blog. The surge followed a clear announcement that the release contains no generative AI features and that documents will not be sent to remote services for AI processing.
LibreOffice 26.8: features and the “no AI” decision
The August 26 update delivers several functional improvements while making an explicit privacy-focused stance part of the release. Technical changes include a Paragraph Composer to balance paragraph spacing, strengthened support for right-to-left languages and complex scripts such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean, native support for OpenType variable fonts, calculated fields in Calc pivot tables, compatibility improvements for Microsoft Office chart types, and the ability for Impress and Draw to support multiple page sizes within a single document.
Alongside those enhancements, TDF deliberately chose not to include any generative AI in LibreOffice 26.8. The foundation states that no component requires internet access to work, documents are not routed to remote services for AI processing, and all data remains on the user’s device. That explicit “no AI” position attracted wide attention and commentary; one user joked they “almost missed the word ‘no’ when I skimmed through it for the first time,” noting how unusual a default absence of AI has become.
TDF: “Yes, no AI is now a feature”
In a September 3 article titled “Yes, no AI is now a feature,” TDF clarified that it does not wholly reject AI but insists on a set of entry thresholds before integrating AI by default into an office suite used by tens of millions daily. Those principles are:
– AI must be controlled by users, who should choose whether inference runs locally, on infrastructure they control, or on a service of their choice; silent default redirection to a single provider is not acceptable.
– Document content must not leave the user’s computer without explicit authorization, given that many documents are sensitive and protected by law.
– No telemetry of any kind is allowed; AI features must comply with LibreOffice’s no-telemetry principle.
– There must be no binding to a single AI vendor; AI interfaces should allow multiple backends to avoid vendor lock-in.
– File formats must not be compromised; AI-generated content should follow the Open Document Format (ODF) and preserve structure, styles and semantics.
– AI must be completely optional for end users and administratively removable or disableable in enterprise deployments.
TDF says it has not yet found an AI solution that meets all these requirements to be included by default and maintained long-term.
Options for users and TDF’s rationale
TDF points out that users can still add AI via third-party extensions. Community plugins already exist that can connect LibreOffice to locally running models—examples named by TDF include Ollama and LM Studio—or to local endpoints compatible with the OpenAI API. The foundation stresses that such extensions are not official components, vary in maturity, and require users and administrators to assess risks themselves.
TDF attributes its position partly to its non-profit status: unlike commercial office vendors that may use AI to add subscription tiers, raise prices or tie users to cloud services, LibreOffice has no subscription packages, no “AI Pro” edition, no ads, no telemetry, no required registration and no paywalls for core features. Its development relies on donations and support from enterprises in the LibreOffice ecosystem, which TDF says allows it more time to judge whether an AI feature truly benefits users.
TDF also acknowledges that local inference is becoming easier and that open-source models are advancing quickly; if a solution emerges that satisfies privacy, openness, user control and optionality, it will be carefully evaluated. For now, LibreOffice’s approach is to give users the initiative: AI can be added by choice, but the software will not impose it by default.
Note: TDF’s reported 1,031,162 downloads covers official website downloads; TDF notes many Linux users receive updates through distribution package repositories, so actual reach is larger than this figure suggests.
