O’Reilly Joins Forces with Microsoft to Launch Open Source NLWeb, Enabling Simplified Creation of AI Apps Across the Internet

NLWeb Opens New Possibilities for Both Human and AI Users to Access Content Across the Internet

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--O’Reilly, the premier learning platform for technology professionals, today announced a strategic collaboration with Microsoft to become one of the pioneers integrating Natural Language Web (NLWeb) into their websites. NLWeb’s decentralized search understands context and intent, allowing both human users and AIs to ask complex, conversational questions and get relevant results without going to a centralized AI chat or search site.

O’Reilly’s integration will initially enable conversational search across 59,000 books, using Schema.org metadata to ensure accurate results without web crawling. This naturally extends the O'Reilly learning platform's core mission of connecting diverse audiences, from individual practitioners to enterprise teams, with precisely the knowledge they need.

“We see NLWeb as a crucial component of an open ecosystem of protocols and tools that will shape the next evolution of the internet,” said Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly. “By implementing this technology early, we're reminding our technically savvy audience that the original promise of the decentralized World Wide Web does not need to be abandoned to get the benefits of conversational AI.”

"That original promise, in which anyone could provide content and services on the terms they set (free, paywalled, ad-supported or subscription, or something in between) has gradually been replaced with one in which large centralized gatekeepers control and profit from access. Content is hoovered up into giant models and provided directly to users, with less and less traffic returned to the originating sites. NLWeb is a bold attempt to reverse that trend. This means that any site can easily offer the kind of conversational search queries that might now largely be accessed via sites like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google."

“Tim and the O’Reilly team have always been one of the bedrocks of the open internet—protocols, formats, code, " said Ramanathan Guha, Technical Fellow and CVP, Microsoft. “It is wonderful to be able to work with them (again) on the first step towards bringing AI to the web.”

To learn more about how O'Reilly is using NLWeb, please visit: https://www.oreilly.com/radar/an-architecture-of-participation-for-ai/.

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