Intent to Ship: Summarizer API
Daseul Lee
Contact emails
dom...@chromium.org, kenji...@chromium.org, m...@chromium.org, btr...@chromium.org, ds...@chromium.org, ay...@chromium.org
Explainer
https://github.com/webmachinelearning/writing-assistance-apis/blob/main/README.md
Specification
https://webmachinelearning.github.io/writing-assistance-apis/#summarizer-api
Summary
The Summarizer API can convert long input text to more concise text, or recapitulate input text with various requested options, such as text length, format and/or type. Developers may use this API to provide a summary of news articles, reviews or blog posts.
Blink component
TAG review
https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/991
TAG review status
Pending
Origin Trial Name
Summarization API
Chromium Trial Name
AISummarizationAPI
Origin Trial documentation link
https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/summarizer-api
WebFeature UseCounter name
kSummarizer_Summarize
Risks
Interoperability and Compatibility
This feature, like all built-in AI features, has inherent interoperability risks due to the use of AI models whose behavior is not fully specified. See some general discussion in https://www.w3.org/reports/ai-web-impact/#interop.
By providing a high-level API with clear output formats, as well as a capabilities API for detecting what a given browser supports, we believe we can guide web developers toward using the API in an interoperable way that does not depend on the specific models that a given browser or browser version uses.
Gecko: Defer (https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1067)
WebKit: No signal (https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/393)
Web developers: Positive (https://github.com/WICG/proposals/issues/163)
Origin Trial signups have been 5x higher than what we see from typical Origin Trials, suggesting a lot of developer and partner interest. The survey conducted during the Origin Trial, in February 2025, shows positive quantitative feedback [1], and third-party partners have utilized the API for various use cases [2] [3].
[2] https://developer.chrome.com/blog/summarizer-terra-brightsites
[3] http://developer.chrome.com/blog/summarizer-redbus-miravia
Other signals:
Activation
This feature would definitely benefit from having polyfills, backed by any of: cloud services, lazily-loaded client-side models using WebGPU, or the web developer's own server. We anticipate seeing an ecosystem of such polyfills grow as more developers adopt this API.
WebView application risks
Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such that it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?
None
Debuggability
It is possible that giving DevTools more insight into the nondeterministic states of the model, e.g. random seeds, could help with debugging. See related discussion at https://github.com/webmachinelearning/prompt-api/issues/9.
Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?
No
Not all platforms will come with a language model. In particular, the initial launch focuses on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?
No
We have added some web platform test coverage for this feature (https://wpt.fyi/results/ai/summarizer?label=experimental&label=master&aligned). How much we are able to test beyond the surface API is unclear, given the nondeterministic nature of the output. The explainer discusses this in https://github.com/WICG/writing-assistance-apis/blob/main/README.md#specifications-and-tests.
Flag name on about://flags
summarization-api-for-gemini-nano
Finch feature name
AISummarizationAPI
Rollout plan
Will ship enabled for all users
Requires code in //chrome?
True
Tracking bug
https://issues.chromium.org/issues/351744634
Sample links
https://chrome.dev/web-ai-demos/summarization-api-playground
https://ai.etiennenoel.com/summarizer-api
Estimated milestones
Anticipated spec changes
None
Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status
https://chromestatus.com/feature/5193953788559360?gate=5089800596750336
Links to previous Intent discussions
Intent to Prototype: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/rCpcU0ZTgTk
Intent to Experiment: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/X-VxVeiJgtM
Intent to Extend Experiment 1: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/u2MRIDCBZQg
This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status.
Mike Taylor
There was a request to comment when these features were moving to the I2S stage - can we do to see if Mozilla is ready to give a position?
WebKit: No signal (https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/393)
Web developers: Positive (https://github.com/WICG/proposals/issues/163)
Origin Trial signups have been 5x higher than what we see from typical Origin Trials, suggesting a lot of developer and partner interest. The survey conducted during the Origin Trial, in February 2025, shows positive quantitative feedback [1], and third-party partners have utilized the API for various use cases [2] [3].
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Daseul Lee
Do you have any qualitative feedback from the OT to share, in particular around the API shape or platform availability limitations (i.e., has anyone given any feedback on the desktop-only nature of these APIs)?
WebKit: No signal (https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/393)
Web developers: Positive (https://github.com/WICG/proposals/issues/163)
Origin Trial signups have been 5x higher than what we see from typical Origin Trials, suggesting a lot of developer and partner interest. The survey conducted during the Origin Trial, in February 2025, shows positive quantitative feedback [1], and third-party partners have utilized the API for various use cases [2] [3].
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/597a7785-ae00-4932-8aff-6b1c109ccfbe%40chromium.org.
Daseul Lee
Mike Taylor
Thanks - I don't have any further concerns, but it seems useful
to give Mozilla a few days to respond to the standards position
ping before approving.