Google’s Web AI Playbook: The Paved Road vs. the Open Field

At this month’s Google Web AI summit, the primary focus was client-side AI in the browser — but we also heard a lot about Model Context Protocol (MCP) and its web variant, WebMCP, agents, and how “compute abstractions” like WebGPU and WebNN are enabling web developers to access device hardware.

After an introduction by Google’s Web AI lead, Jason Mayes, the event kicked off with a keynote from Parisa Tabriz, vice president and general manager for Chrome and the web ecosystem at Google. Tabriz described this moment in time as a…