With the launch of a new, open-source project called NLWeb, Microsoft Corp. says it can transform any existing website into an artificial intelligence-powered application by integrating natural language capabilities.

The project, announced at Microsoft Build 2025 today, is meant to simplify the creation of natural language interfaces that can be embedded into any website.

NLWeb, or Natural Language Web, is a new project that aims to provide developers with the fastest and easiest way to turn any website into an AI app powered by the large language model of their choice. Once integrated, people will be able to query the contents of any website using their voice, just as they do with AI assistants such as ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot.

The company said that each NLWeb instance is a Model Context Protocol server, which enables sites to make their content discoverable and accessible for AI agents. Ultimately, it envisions NLWeb becoming agentic AI’s equivalent of the HTML protocol that’s used to access the internet via web browsers.

Microsoft explained that NLWeb uses the semistructured data already published by websites, such as Schema.org and RSS information. It combines these with LLMs to create a natural language interface that will be accessible to both humans and AI agents.

The semistructured data will be enhanced by external knowledge from the underlying LLM that powers the natural language interface. For instance, it will be able to layer on geographic insights when someone enters a query asking about restaurants, the company said.

Because the project is entirely open, it’s technology-agnostic, meaning it supports major operating systems besides Windows, such as Android, iOS and Linux. Developers can select the most suitable components for their needs, including the underlying LLM and vector databases to enhance the search experience.

Microsoft said the goal of NLWeb is to bring the benefits of generative AI search directly to every website. Just as HTML made it simple for almost anyone to create and access websites using a browser, NLWeb aims to make it easy for publishers to create intelligent, natural language experiences to help users better navigate their websites. It’s also building NLWeb with an eye toward future AI agents, which it believes will soon make up a significant amount of internet traffic.

NLWeb was conceived and developed by Microsoft Technical Fellow R.V. Guha, who is the creator of widely used web standards such as RSS, RDF and Schema.org. Already it has an extensive list of contributors who are aiding in its development.

The company said much of the focus has been on making NLWeb as easy as possible to implement with any website. It’s based on a lightweight codebase that controls the core services for handling natural language queries, as well as documentation on how this can be extended and customized.

Elsewhere, there are dozens of connectors for popular AI models and vector databases, plus documentation that explains how to add other models not on the official list. There’s also a range of tools for adding data in Schema.org, RSS and other formats directly to any vector database, and a web server frontend and user interface that can be directly integrated into any site.

A number of websites have already deployed NLWeb, including Tripadvisor, Shopify and Eventbrite. Contributors include organizations such as Chicago Public Media, Common Sense Media, Inception Labs, O’Reilly Media and Snowflake Inc.

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