Microsoft is upgrading its Edge browser with new AI capabilities. At this year’s Build conference, the company unveiled a set of AI APIs allowing developers to seamlessly integrate AI features into their web apps, powered by models built directly into the browser.
This experimental API set includes methods for prompting and generating content. These are being released as developer trials. In addition, there’s a translator API that’ll facilitate text translations. Microsoft plans to make it available in the next “couple of months.” By having these built into Edge, the company claims developers can “streamline the development process and offload high-frequency AI tasks, thereby minimizing costs and effort.”
Currently, Phi-4-mini 3.8B is the only model accessible through these APIs. Microsoft has not specified whether any other models are supported today. Phi-4 is Microsoft’s newest series of lightweight open models, introduced in December 2024. Earlier this month, it released Phi-4-reasoning, Phi-4-reasoning-plus, and Phi-4-mini-reasoning.
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Incorporating AI APIs into Edge could be compelling for developers, as it may lead to better privacy, reduced latency, lower cost, and better personalized experiences without heavy backend dependencies. However, Microsoft only provides specific APIs for general models—custom fine-tuned models cannot be uploaded into the Edge browser, so everyone uses the same Phi-4-mini model.
Nevertheless, the company touts that AI APIs will benefit those who deal with sensitive data or work in regulated industries. It eliminates any potential risk of transmitting data to external cloud services, as everything stays on the local device. It’s the latest step by Microsoft to embrace edge device AI usage, following its launch of the Copilot+ PC era.
Whether these AI APIs remain permanently is unclear. The company acknowledges this is an experiment, but also says it’s intended “as potential web standards” and will work across all platforms and browsers and be compatible with other models.
Developers looking to trial the APIs can find them in Microsoft’s Edge Canary and Dev channels.
Featured Image: Microsoft's Edge Browser. Credit: Ken Yeung/screenshot
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