Microsoft could bring more AI to the Edge browser – this time with website suggestions
Microsoft is busy bringing AI to a wider range of products, and the latest move is with the default browser for Windows 11, Edge, which looks like it’s getting better site suggestion capabilities thanks to an infusion of AI.
Edge has already seen the addition of Microsoft’s AI assistant, Copilot, along with a dedicated sidebar, and now it looks like the browser is going to get better website suggestions based on references spotted by Windows Latest in the new Canary preview build of Edge.
These suggestion-related changes are referred to using identifiers that suggest an advanced AI-based approach to generating website recommendations, and include:
- msAIPredictedSitesTopSitesAvailableInMostVisited
- msAIPredictedSitesTopSitesVisible
- msAIPredictedSitesTopSitesVisibleDhp
- msAIPredictedSitesTopSitesVisibleNtp
- msShowAIPredictedSiteSuggestionsOnNormalStartupTrigger
- msShowAIPredictedSiteSuggestionsOnNormalStartupWithGivenUrlsTrigger
You may notice that the term “AI” is used several times, and this seems like a clear indication that Microsoft wants to provide site suggestions that go beyond the existing ones.
What will these AI-powered site suggestions look like?
Because these AI suggestions have not yet been realized, even in test versions, we don’t yet know how they will turn out – or even if they will be implemented. Although, given Microsoft’s focus on AI, it seems pretty good that they will – and if so, we’ll have to see how they improve the site suggestions over time.
This isn’t the first AI-powered personalization-related change to make its way to Edge. Last month, Edge received new AI capabilities to generate a large, high-quality image that can be used as the browser’s background in new tabs.
If these new AI-driven features don’t require too many resources, they can be fun to try and can even help improve the user experience. Many users may not feel that these types of updates are particularly necessary, mind you, and may not want AI creeping into the browser everywhere – but this is the direction Microsoft seems to want to take, it seems, and not just with Edge.