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) @christianliebel
3. »It’s all about the new possibilities.« (Matthieu Riegler) What’s New in Web AI? Why should you care about AI? @christianliebel
4. Examples What’s New in Web AI? Generative AI Cloud Providers @christianliebel
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 @christianliebel
6. 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! What’s New in Web AI? Web AI Landscape @christianliebel
7. https://webllm.mlc.ai/ What’s New in Web AI? WebLLM @christianliebel DEMO
8. On NPM What’s New in Web AI? WebLLM @christianliebel
9. Chat with your data What’s New in Web AI? @christianliebel WebLLM DEMO
10. 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. @christianliebel
11. Model Size Comparison Model:Parameters Size qwen3:4b 2.5 GB mistral:7b 4.4 GB deepseek-r1:8b 5.2 GB gemma3n:e4b 7.5 GB gpt-oss:20b 14 GB llama4:16x17b 67 GB What’s New in Web AI? WebLLM @christianliebel
12. https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers.js/index What’s New in Web AI? Transformers.js DEMO @christianliebel
13. What’s New in Web AI? @christianliebel 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
14. – 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/ @christianliebel
15. Drawbacks What’s New in Web AI? Bring Your Own AI Models can’t be shared across origins Inference is fast, but doesn’t reach full native speed @christianliebel
16. https://github.com/explainers-by-googlers/cross-origin-storage What’s New in Web AI? Cross-Origin Storage @christianliebel DEMO
17. Cloud only… What’s New in Web AI? Realtime Models DEMO @christianliebel
18. …or is it? NEW! What’s New in Web AI? Realtime Models DEMO @christianliebel
19. On-device pipeline What’s New in Web AI? @christianliebel Realtime Models Whisper (STT) Silero (VAD) SmolLM2- 1.7B (LLM) Kokoro (TTS)
20. 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! What’s New in Web AI? Web AI Landscape @christianliebel
21. What’s New in Web AI? Built-in AI Operating System Website HTML/JS Browser Internet Apple Intelligence Gemini Nano @christianliebel
22. – 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 @christianliebel
23. Incubated by the WebML CG What’s New in Web AI? Built-in AI APIs https://webmachinelearning.github.io/incubations/ DEMO @christianliebel
24. What’s New in Web AI? Multimodal Models @christianliebel
25. What’s New in Web AI? Multimodal Models @christianliebel DEMO
26. What’s New in Web AI? Structured Output @christianliebel DEMO https://bandarra.me/apps/flyby/
27. 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 @christianliebel
28. TypeScript Definitions What’s New in Web AI? Built-in AI APIs @christianliebel
29. Structured Output & Signal Forms What’s New in Web AI? @christianliebel Built-in AI APIs DEMO
30. What’s New in Web AI? @christianliebel Agentic Browsers
31. What’s New in Web AI? @christianliebel WebMCP – Allows websites to expose tools to the browser or external agents – Joint effort by Microsoft and Google https://github.com/webmachinelearning/webmcp
32. What’s New in Web AI? @christianliebel WebMCP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbu9kyY2B60
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 What’s New in Web AI? Web AI @christianliebel
34. Thank you for your kind attention! Christian Liebel @christianliebel christian.liebel@thinktecture.com