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—W3C TAG Associate and member of the 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, emerging developer tools, and the real-world challenges that browser vendors and standards authors are navigating to bring AI to the web.

Transcript

1. What’s New in Web AI? Christian Liebel @christianliebel Consultant
2. Hello, it’s me. What’s New in Web AI? Christian Liebel W3C WebML WG & CG TAG Associate christian.liebel @thinktecture.com Angular, PWA & Generative AI Microsoft MVP & Google GDE (Angular, Web)
3. It’s all about the new possibilities. What’s New in Web AI? Why should you care about AI? Stolen from Matthieu’s keynote
4. Examples What’s New in Web AI? Generative AI Cloud Providers
5. Drawbacks What’s New in Web AI? 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
6. Bring Your Own AI (BYOAI) – Libraries – WebLLM – Transfomers.js – Frameworks – 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 – WebMCP NEW! What’s New in Web AI? Web AI Landscape
7. https://webllm.mlc.ai/ What’s New in Web AI? WebLLM DEMO
8. On NPM What’s New in Web AI? WebLLM
9. Storing model files locally What’s New in Web AI? WebLLM Internet Website HTML/JS Cache with model files Hugging Face Note: Due to the Same-Origin Policy, models cannot be shared across origins.
10. Model Size Comparison Model:Parameters Size phi3:3.8b 2.2 GB mistral:7b 4.1 GB deepseek-r1:8b 5.2 GB gemma3n:e4b 7.5 GB gemma3:12b 8.1 GB llama4:16x17b 67 GB What’s New in Web AI? WebLLM
11. Drawbacks What’s New in Web AI? WebNN Models can’t be shared across origins Inference is fast, but doesn’t reach full native speed
12. https://github.com/explainers-by-googlers/cross-origin-storage What’s New in Web AI? Cross-Origin Storage
13. https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers.js/index What’s New in Web AI? Transformers.js DEMO
14. Cloud only… What’s New in Web AI? Realtime Models DEMO
15. …or is it? NEW! What’s New in Web AI? Realtime Models DEMO
16. – 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 What’s New in Web AI? WebNN Source: https://webmachinelearning.github.io/webnn-intro/
17. about://flags Enables WebNN API à Enabled Enables experimental WebNN API features à Enabled What’s New in Web AI? WebNN
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) What’s New in Web AI? Built-in AI https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/built-in
19. Incubated by the WebML CG What’s New in Web AI? Built-in AI APIs https://webmachinelearning.github.io/incubations/ DEMO
20. What’s New in Web AI? Multimodal Models
21. What’s New in Web AI? Multimodal Models DEMO
22. What’s New in Web AI? Structured Output DEMO https://bandarra.me/apps/flyby/
23. What’s New in Web AI? Built-in AI APIs Operating System Website HTML/JS Browser Internet Apple Intelligence Gemini Nano
24. about://on-device-internals https://www.google.com/chrome/canary/ about://flags Enables optimization guide on device à EnabledBypassPerfRequirement (API) for Gemini Nano à Enabled What’s New in Web AI? Built-in AI APIs
25. TypeScript Definitions What’s New in Web AI? Built-in AI APIs
26. What’s New in Web AI? WebMCP – Allows websites to expose tools to browser or external agents – Joint effort by Microsoft and Google https://github.com/webmachinelearning/webmcp
27. What’s New in Web AI? WebMCP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbu9kyY2B60
28. 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 What’s New in Web AI? Web AI
29. Thank you for your kind attention! Christian Liebel @christianliebel christian.liebel@thinktecture.com