Microsoft has introduced a new open project called NLWeb at its BUILD 2025 developer conference. The Redmond giant said that this project allows developers to easily turn websites into natural language AI-powered apps. With this, developers can create chat interfaces like you’d use with ChatGPT, but it would be for querying the content of websites specifically.
It said that every NLWeb instance is also running an Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. This allows websites to become discoverable to agents and other participants in the MCP ecosystems, if they want. Microsoft believes that NLWeb could play a similar role to HTML in the emerging agentic web.
Explaining how NLWeb works, Microsoft writes:
“NLWeb leverages semi-structured formats like Schema.org, RSS and other data that websites already publish, combining them with LLM-powered tools to create natural language interfaces usable by both humans and AI agents. The NLWeb system enhances this structured data by incorporating external knowledge from the underlying LLMs (such as layering on geographic insights to a restaurant query) for richer user experiences.”
One of the nice things about NLWeb is that it’s technology agnostic, meaning that it supports all major operating systems, all major models, and vector databases. This allows developers to choose the components that suit their needs best.
Based on what Microsoft has said, it seems like NLWeb could be a pretty important tool for web publishers who can now convert their website into a natural language experience. As the agentic web continues to grow, NLWeb will allow web publishers to participate on their own terms, according to Microsoft, so that their website can interact, transact, and be discovered by other agents.
Microsoft has been working with a small cohort of websites to test out NLWeb and ensure it meets their needs. Some, but not all, of the websites that were involved include Common Sense Media, Eventbrite, O’Reilly Media, Shopify, and Tripadvisor.
If you’re interested in trying out NLWeb on your website, head over to Microsoft’s NLWeb GitHub repository.
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