🤖Microsoft Wants Websites to Get Chatty

Today we will discuss:

• Microsoft brings chatbots to every website—NLWeb lets sites build conversational AI tools quickly using preferred models and data

• Don’t miss this week’s Workflow Wednesday—AI security and privacy with PrivacyPolicies.com, Writer.com, and OpenAI + Gmail + Make for safer automation; now available at only $20/month! 

• Edge gets developer-friendly AI APIs—With Phi-4 Mini and writing tools, Microsoft aims to rival Chrome’s built-in AI capabilities

• In other AI news—Trump signs the Take It Down Act targeting deepfakes, Google launches standalone NotebookLM apps ahead of I/O, GitHub unveils an AI coding agent that auto-fixes bugs, and Apple plans to open its AI models to developers to boost app innovation

• Saved the best for last—10 must-try AI tools

Microsoft launches NLWeb to bring AI chatbots to every website

Key Points 

• NLWeb helps websites create chatbots using a few lines of code, custom AI models, and their own data.

• It also supports Anthropic’s MCP standard, making site content accessible to AI agents for real-time interaction.

• Microsoft says NLWeb could be for the agentic web what HTML was for the early internet.

🤓News - Microsoft has announced NLWeb, a new open project that helps websites add conversational interfaces using just a few lines of code. 

With NLWeb, any site can plug in its own data and AI model of choice to build a chatbot that fits its needs. For example, a travel retailer could create a shopping assistant, or a recipe site could offer real-time meal suggestions. The idea is to make it much easier for developers to create AI-powered chat experiences directly on the web. 

Websites using NLWeb can also choose to make their content accessible to AI platforms that support MCP, a standard developed by Anthropic to connect models to real-time web data. This gives chatbots the ability to understand and respond using fresh, relevant information.

While Microsoft hasn’t officially confirmed it, NLWeb appears to build on earlier work by OpenAI. Last year, OpenAI partnered with companies like Condé Nast and Redfin to test a similar system. That version faced delays, but now the technology is re-emerging in a more polished form through Microsoft.

👨‍💻Why this matters - Microsoft sees NLWeb as a foundation for the agentic web, offering a shared way for users and AI systems to interact with content, much like how HTML helped structure the early internet.

Read the full story here.

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Microsoft gives Edge a built-in AI upgrade

Key Points 

• Microsoft is rolling out new AI APIs in Edge that allow developers to build AI features into web apps.

• Phi-4 Mini, a lightweight model optimized for math, is now accessible through Edge.

• Edge will soon offer APIs for writing assistance and translation, all processed locally to prioritize privacy and security.

🌐News - Microsoft is launching a new set of AI APIs for Edge that let developers add built-in AI features to their web apps. These APIs are designed to work directly within the browser using models that come packaged with Edge, offering an alternative to what Chrome currently provides.

One of the key models available through these APIs is Phi-4 Mini, a lightweight AI model with 3.8 billion parameters. Microsoft says it’s especially strong in solving math problems, thanks to its training mix of human-written and AI-generated data. Developers can now use it in both websites and Edge extensions without relying on external cloud services.

🤹‍♂️What’s more? Edge is also getting writing-focused APIs that can help with generating, summarizing, and editing text. Microsoft plans to launch a translation API in the coming months, aimed at enabling language translation directly within the browser.

Notably, these APIs are still experimental but Microsoft hopes they can become future web standards. Since the processing happens on the user’s device, they’re a strong option for developers working with sensitive data or in regulated industries.

The APIs are now live in Edge’s Canary and Dev channels for developers to explore.

Read the full story here.