As a Product Marketing Director at Azure, I’ve had a front-row seat to the evolution of generative AI—from early text-based bots to today’s intelligent systems that reason across images, documents, and real-world context. But some of the most exciting shifts aren’t just about models—they’re about the web itself.
Enter NLWeb, Microsoft’s newly announced open initiative to make websites conversational and AI-native. Imagine asking a recipe site like Delish, “What’s a quick, vegan dinner I can make with mushrooms and pasta?”—and getting a smart, tailored response that pulls directly from your structured content, without relying on rigid keyword search.
Built on familiar tools like Schema.org and vector search, NLWeb is designed to be easy for developers and impactful for users. It’s led by R.V. Guha—the mind behind Schema.org, RSS, and RDF—who recently joined Microsoft to help reimagine the open web for the AI era. The new GitHub repo is now live for developers to explore and build upon.
Here’s how NLWeb pioneer Delish is thinking about this shift:
Q1: What inspired your team to try NLWeb?
We saw an opportunity to improve discovery for consumers by delivering more relevant results through faceted, natural language queries.
Q2: How did the setup process go? Any surprises?
Collaborating with the Microsoft engineers was valuable during the test planning, and the initial prototype results were promising as we explored the potential.
Q3: What query or interaction made NLWeb click for you?
Users can ask naturally phrased questions—based on cultural moments or food types—and get accurate (and delicious) results.
Q4: How are you blending NLWeb with your current experience?
We will actively be testing NLWeb embedded as part of the discovery experience on the Delish site.
Q5: If NLWeb reaches its full potential, what could it unlock for your users or the web?
We’re excited about the potential to better serve our customers, drive deeper engagement, increase time spent and grow higher LTV audiences.
Microsoft