Microsoft is busy trying to bring AI to a wider range of products, and the latest move is with its default browser for Windows 11, Edge, which looks like it’s getting better site suggestion abilities 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 the browser looks like it’s 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 IDs that suggest an advanced AI-involved approach to generating website recommendations, and they include:
- msAIPredictedSitesTopSitesAvailableInMostVisited
- msAIPredictedSitesTopSitesVisible
- msAIPredictedSitesTopSitesVisibleDhp
- msAIPredictedSitesTopSitesVisibleNtp
- msShowAIPredictedSiteSuggestionsOnNormalStartupTrigger
- msShowAIPredictedSiteSuggestionsOnNormalStartupWithGivenUrlsTrigger
You might notice that the term ‘AI’ is used multiple times, and this seems a clear enough indication that Microsoft is looking to provide site suggestions that go beyond existing ones.
What will these AI-powered site suggestions look like?
As these AI suggestions haven’t yet been realized, even in test builds, we don’t know how they’ll pan out yet – or even if they’ll be implemented. Although given Microsoft’s focus on AI, it seems a pretty good bet they will – and if so, we’ll just have to see how they improve site suggestions down the line.
This isn’t the first AI-assisted personalization-related change that’s been observed making its way into Edge. Last month, Edge received new AI capabilities to generate a large, high-quality image to use as the browser’s background in new tabs.
If these new AI-driven features aren’t overly resource-intensive, they could be amusing to try and may even help improve the user experience. Many users might not feel that updates like these are especially necessary, mind you, and may not want AI creeping in all over the place with the browser – but this is the direction Microsoft seems intent on taking, it seems and not just with Edge.
