Microsoft is opening its on-device AI models up to web apps in Edge
May 23, 2025
Web developers will be able to start leveraging on-device AI in Microsoft’s Edge browser soon, using new APIs that can give their web apps access to Microsoft’s Phi-4-mini model, the company announced at its Build conference today. And Microsoft says the API will be cross-platform, so it sounds like these APIs will work with the Edge browser in macOS, as well.
Source: Microsoft is opening its on-device AI models up to web apps in Edge | The Verge
When we think of using LLMs, we’ll likely be thinking of using a hosted model via API. But smaller on device models are increasingly capable, and address two significant concerns about LLMs-their energy use and worries about privacy.
We’ve covered how Chrome and Firefox have brought language model inference to the browser (Google had more announcements at I/O about this), but at their Build conference, Microsoft announced support for their Phi-4-mini model in the browser, giving JavaScript developers access to this model on Mac OS and Windows.
