Ramanathan V. Guha, a pioneering software engineer known for co-creating RSS and founding Schema.org, has unveiled a bold new initiative to reshape the web once again—this time, with artificial intelligence at its core.
Presented at Microsoft Build, the project is called NLWeb (Natural Language Web), a protocol designed to make it easy for website owners to embed intelligent chatbots on their pages using just a few lines of code. The idea is simple yet powerful: site administrators provide relevant content or data, choose an AI model (even basic ones running on their own servers), and NLWeb turns their websites into interactive experiences where visitors can ask questions in natural language—and get helpful, context-aware answers instantly.
For example, an e-commerce site could help users find the perfect clothing item based on a conversation, or a recipe website could suggest meal ideas tailored to the user’s dietary preferences and ingredients on hand.
But NLWeb goes beyond traditional search. Guha, who also helped develop Google Custom Search, envisions a web where AI understands not only keywords, but the actual context of a page. And because NLWeb is based on an open protocol, it doesn't rely on proprietary or cloud-only solutions. It allows integration with any language model and supports interconnectivity with external tools and agent frameworks, such as those compatible with the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
Microsoft called NLWeb "the new HTML", highlighting its potential to become a foundational technology for the next evolution of the internet—an internet where agents collaborate, assist, and enhance the way users interact with content.
