Chrome is adding `window.ai` – a Gemini Nano AI model right inside the browser

This doesn't seem useful unless it's something standardized across browsers. Otherwise I'd still need to use a plugin to support safari, etc.

It seems like it could be nice for something like a bookmarklet or a one-off script, but I don't think it'll really reduce friction in engaging with Gemini for serious web apps.

I don't think so. Chrome is already the most popular browser. If a website decides to use this they are just going to tell users to use Chrome. And then Chrome sustains its dominant position. It's the right strategy for them to further their dominance.

And the right way to think about it isn't other browsers. It's Google seeing what Apple is doing in iOS 18 and imitating that.

> It's the right strategy for them.

That's what people said about Internet Explorer

Browser extensions should be able to shim or even overwrite the `.ai` object in the window, so it should be possible to add ollama etc to all browsers through extensions with the same API, making it a defacto standard

It should be simple enough to do that I believe at least 3-5 people are going to be doing this if it's not done already

Hell, if nobody does it I will do it

I'm sure you realize that Google's strategy has long been the opposite: that users will continue to abandon other engines when theirs is the only one that supports capabilities, until standards no longer matter at all and the entire browser ecosystem is theirs.

Chrome may have been a darling thing when it was young, but is now just a fresh take on Microsoft's Internet Explorer strategy. MS lost it's hold on the web because of regulatory action, and Google's just been trying to find a permissible road to that same opportunity.

Of course. The right strategy for them is emphatically not the same as the right thing for users.

Further notes:

I had been thinking and speaking in public about how to make a "Metamask but for AI instead of crypto" but I thought it would be impossible for websites to adopt it

Now thanks to Google it's possible to piggy back onto the API

I'm very happy about this

By default, the W3C process actually requires multiple implementations before something is supposed to be standardised. So it is actually necessary that browser vendors ship vendor-specific implementations before the standards process can properly consider things like this.

If Mozilla jumps on board and makes a compatible implementation that back ends to eg: local llama then you would have the preconditions necessary for it to become standardised. As long as Google hasn't booby trapped it by making it somehow highly specific to chrome / google / Gemini etc.

"WebNN: Web Neural Network API" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36158663 :

> - Src: https://github.com/webmachinelearning/webnn

W3C Candidate Recommendation Draft:

> - Spec: https://www.w3.org/TR/webnn/

> WebNN API: https://www.w3.org/TR/webnn/#api :

>> 7.1. The `navigator.ml` interface

>> webnn-polyfill

E.g. Promptfoo, ChainForge, and LocalAI all have abstractions over many models; also re: Google Desktop and GNU Tracker and NVIDIA's pdfgpt: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39363115

promptfoo: https://github.com/promptfoo/promptfoo

ChainForge: https://github.com/ianarawjo/ChainForge

LocalAI: https://github.com/go-skynet/LocalAI

Which was only stopped by regulatory action which at the moment does not seem forthcoming. Would love to be wrong about that..

It's already done: https://windowai.io

> users will continue to abandon other engines when theirs is the only one that supports capabilities

That’s why people chose chrome? Citation needed. I’ve very rarely seen websites rely on new browser specific capabilities, except for demos/showcases.

Didn’t Chrome slowly become popular using Google's own marketing channel, search? That’s what I thought.

> MS lost it's hold on the web because of regulatory action

Well, not only. They objectively made a worse product for decades and used their platform to push it, much more effectively than Google too. They are still pushing Edge hard, with darker patterns than Google imo.

In either case, the decision to adopt Chromium wasn’t forced. Microsoft clearly must have been aligned enough on the capability model to not deem it a large risk, and continued to push for Edge just as they did with IE.

There you go.