WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP: What’s New in Web AI?

Generative AI is becoming a key part of modern software architecture, and its presence in web apps is growing. As demand increases, vendors and specification authors are working to make AI capabilities more accessible and integrated into the web platform. In this session, Christian Liebel—member of the W3C TAG and WebML Working Group—will share what's cooking behind the scenes in Web AI. You'll get an update on the latest advancements in the WebNN API, Chromium's Built-in AI APIs, WebMCP, emerging developer tools, usage statistics, and the real-world challenges that browser vendors and standards authors are navigating to bring AI to the web.

Transcript

1. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP What’s New in Web AI? Christian Liebel @christianliebel Consultant
2. Hello, it’s me. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Christian Liebel W3C WebApps, WebML & TAG christian.liebel @thinktecture.com Angular, PWA & Generative AI Microsoft MVP & Google GDE (Angular, Web) What’s New in Web AI?
3. Rule-based algorithms are limited in their capabilities. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Why should you care about AI? What’s New in Web AI?
4. Use AI to implement use cases that are difficult or impossible to implement using rule-based algorithms. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Why should you care about AI? What’s New in Web AI?
5. Examples WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Generative AI Cloud Providers What’s New in Web AI?
6. Drawbacks WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Generative AI Cloud Providers Require a (stable) internet connection Subject to network latency and server availability Data is transferred to the cloud service Require a subscription What’s New in Web AI?
7. Bring Your Own AI (BYOAI) – Libraries – WebLLM – Frameworks – Transformers.js – ONNX Runtime – TensorFlow.js – APIs – WebGPU, WebNN – Cross-Origin Storage NEW! Built-in AI (BIAI) – Writing Assistance APIs – Summarizer API – Writer API – Rewriter API – Proofreader API NEW! – Translator & Language Detector APIs – Prompt API NEW! Multimodal input & structured output – WebMCP NEW! WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Web AI Landscape What’s New in Web AI?
8. https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers.js/index WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Transformers.js DEMO What’s New in Web AI?
9. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP WebGPU – Grants low-level access to the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) – Near native performance for machine learning applications – Supported by Chromium-based browsers on Windows and macOS from version 113, Safari 26 NEW!, and Firefox 141 on Windows What’s New in Web AI?
10. – Grants web apps access to the device’s CPU, GPU and Neural Processing Unit (NPU) – In specification by the WebML Working Group at W3C – Implementation in progress in Chromium (behind a flag) – Better performance for specific workloads WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP WebNN Source: https://webmachinelearning.github.io/webnn-intro/ What’s New in Web AI?
11. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP WebNN https://huggingface.co/webnn/spaces What’s New in Web AI? DEMO
12. Drawbacks WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Bring Your Own AI Models can’t be shared across origins Inference is fast, but doesn’t reach full native speed What’s New in Web AI?
13. https://github.com/explainers-by-googlers/cross-origin-storage WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Cross-Origin Storage DEMO What’s New in Web AI?
14. Client-side NEW! WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Realtime Models DEMO What’s New in Web AI?
15. On-device pipeline WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Realtime Models Whisper (STT) Silero (VAD) SmolLM2- 1.7B (LLM) Kokoro (TTS) What’s New in Web AI?
16. Bring Your Own AI (BYOAI) – Libraries – WebLLM – Frameworks – Transformers.js – ONNX Runtime – TensorFlow.js – APIs – WebGPU, WebNN – Cross-Origin Storage NEW! Built-in AI (BIAI) – Writing Assistance APIs – Summarizer API – Writer API – Rewriter API – Proofreader API NEW! – Translator & Language Detector APIs – Prompt API NEW! Multimodal input & structured output – WebMCP NEW! WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Web AI Landscape What’s New in Web AI?
17. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Built-in AI Operating System Website HTML/JS Browser Internet Apple Intelligence Gemini Nano What’s New in Web AI?
18. – Initiative by Google Chrome – Exploratory APIs for local experiments and use case determination – Downloads AI models into Google Chrome – Models are shared across origins – Uses native APIs directly (full performance) WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Built-in AI https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/built-in What’s New in Web AI?
19. Incubated by the WebML CG WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Built-in AI APIs https://webmachinelearning.github.io/incubations/ DEMO What’s New in Web AI?
20. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Multimodal Models What’s New in Web AI?
21. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Multimodal Models DEMO What’s New in Web AI?
22. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Structured Output DEMO https://bandarra.me/apps/flyby/ What’s New in Web AI?
23. TypeScript Definitions WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Built-in AI APIs What’s New in Web AI?
24. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Agentic Browsers What’s New in Web AI?
25. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP WebMCP – Allows websites to expose tools to the browser or external agents – Joint effort by Microsoft and Google https://github.com/webmachinelearning/webmcp What’s New in Web AI?
26. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP What’s New in Web AI? WebMCP https://webmachinelearning.github.io/webmcp/
27. API Imperative navigator.modelContext .provideContext({ tools: [{ "name": "start_game", "description": "Start a new game.", "inputSchema": {}, "execute": () => {}, } ]}); Declarative <form id="reservationForm" toolname="book_table_le_petit_bistr o" tooldescription=...> <input name="name" toolparamdescription="Customer's full name (min 2 chars)" /> </form> WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP What’s New in Web AI? WebMCP
28. Imperative WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP What’s New in Web AI? WebMCP Maze https://googlechromelabs.github.io/webmcp-tools/demos/pizza-maker/ DEMO
29. Declarative WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP What’s New in Web AI? WebMCP Maze https://bandarra.me/posts/from-pytorch-to-browser-creating-a-web-friendly-ai-model DEMO
30. Agent-only! WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP What’s New in Web AI? WebMCP Maze https://webmcp-maze.bandarra.me/ DEMO
31. Agent-only! WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP What’s New in Web AI? WebMCP Maze https://nearform.github.io/web-agents/ DEMO
32. WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP WebMCP https://mcp-ui.mcp-b.ai/ What’s New in Web AI? DEMO
33. Pros & Cons + Data does not leave the browser (privacy) + High availability (offline support) + Low latency + Stability (no external API changes) + Low cost – Lower response quality – Less capable – High system (RAM, GPU) and bandwidth requirements – Large model size, models cannot always be shared – Model initialization and inference are relatively slow – APIs are experimental WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP Web AI What’s New in Web AI?
34. Q&A WebNN, Built-in AI, WebMCP What’s New in Web AI?
35. Thank you for your kind attention! Christian Liebel @christianliebel christian.liebel@thinktecture.com