On Tuesday, June 3, 2025 at 12:07:35 AM UTC+2 dbo...@chromium.org wrote:
Contact emails
dom...@chromium.org, kenji...@chromium.org, ay...@chromium.org,
mem...@chromium.org, chris...@chromium.org
Explainer
https://github.com/webmachinelearning/translation-api/blob/main/README.md
Specification
https://webmachinelearning.github.io/translation-api/#translator-api
Summary
A JavaScript API to provide language translation capabilities to
web pages. Browsers are increasingly offering language
translation to their users. Such translation capabilities can
also be useful to web developers. This is especially the case
when browser's built-in translation abilities cannot help. An
enterprise policy (GenAILocalFoundationalModelSettings) is
available to disable the underlying model downloading which would
render this API unavailable.
Blink component
Blink>AI>Translate
<https://issues.chromium.org/issues?q=customfield1222907:%22Blink%3EAI%3ETranslate%22>
TAG review
https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/948
<https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/948>
TAG review status
Issues addressed
TAG’s main feedback was on API naming, which has been addressed.
Origin Trial Name
Translator API
Chromium Trial Name
TranslationAPI
Origin Trial documentation link
https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/translator-api
WebFeature UseCounter name
kTranslator_Translate
Risks
Interoperability and Compatibility
This feature has definite interoperability risks, including which
languages are available across different browsers, how they are
exposed, the quality of translations, and whether developers need
the translations to be on-device or not. We can ameliorate some
of these through API design, by making it clear that various
methods might fail and that a fallback is required. Others, like
translation quality, may end up as quality-of-implementation
issues, similar to other machine learning-based APIs like shape
detection.
Gecko: No signal
(https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1015
<https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1015>)
Mozilla has published an alternate Translation API explainer
<https://github.com/mozilla/explainers/blob/main/translation.md>.
We have had ongoing discussions with Mozilla, both on-off and in
the WebML Community Group about this subject. However the status
of their proposal is unclear, as it hasn’t been presented to any
community group or working group. When previously asking their
WebML CG representative about it, they said they were monitoring
the space and weren’t yet ready to present an alternative. They
haven’t given any negative signals on our proposed Translator API
(nor official positive ones).
It is also worth noting that the mozilla/explainers proposal is
strictly less powerful than the WebML CG one we are developing.
That is, theirs can be polyfilled on top of ours, but not
vice-versa. So if the proposal got traction in the future, we
could add it as well, either natively or via a JavaScript polyfill.
Additionally, some of the use cases that our partners have used
the translator API for during the Origin Trial are not possible
with the mozilla/explainers proposal. Some examples:
*
Translating audio, in conjunction with web speech API for
speech recognition and generation
*
Translating user search terms, including translating them
away from the user’s preferred language (E.g. prompting a
Spanish speaking user on an English e-commerce site with:
“You entered ‘zapatos’. Did you mean to search for ‘shoes’?”)
WebKit: No signal
(https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/339
<https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/339>)
Web developers: Positive
(https://github.com/WICG/proposals/issues/147
<https://github.com/WICG/proposals/issues/147>)Perhaps
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].
[1]
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DhFC2oB4PRrchavxUY3h9U4w4hrX5DAc5LoMqhn5hnk/mobilepresent?slide=id.g349a9ada368_1_6327
<https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DhFC2oB4PRrchavxUY3h9U4w4hrX5DAc5LoMqhn5hnk/mobilepresent?slide=id.g349a9ada368_1_6327>[2]
https://developer.chrome.com/blog/pb-jiohotstar-translation-ai
<https://developer.chrome.com/blog/pb-jiohotstar-translation-ai>
Other signals:
Activation
This feature would definitely benefit from having polyfills,
backed by any of: cloud services, lazily-loaded on-device models
using WebGPU, or the web developer's own server. We anticipate
seeing an ecosystem of such polyfills grow as more developers
experiment with 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
We have internal debugging pages which give web developers detail
on installed language packs, e.g.
chrome://on-device-translation-internals/, which may eventually
be suitable to port to DevTools.
Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms
(Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android
WebView)?
No, the initial launch focuses on desktop. In particular Windows,
Mac and Linux. However we plan to expand support to the rest of
the platforms in the future.
Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests
<https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/testing/web_platform_tests.md>?
We have added some web platform test coverage for this feature
(https://wpt.fyi/results/ai/translator?label=experimental&label=master&aligned
<https://wpt.fyi/results/ai/translator?label=experimental&label=master&aligned>).
How much we are able to test beyond the surface API is unclear,
since no specific languages are guaranteed to be supported.
Flag name on about://flags
translation-api
Finch feature name
TranslationAPI
Rollout plan
Will ship enabled for all users
Requires code in //chrome?
True
Tracking bug
https://issues.chromium.org/issues/322229993
<https://issues.chromium.org/issues/322229993>
Launch bug
https://launch.corp.google.com/launch/4317965
<https://launch.corp.google.com/launch/4317965>
Measurement
kTranslator_Create
Estimated milestones
Shipping on desktop
138
Origin trial desktop first
131
Origin trial desktop last
136
Origin trial extension 1 end milestone
138
Anticipated spec changes
Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web
compat or interop issues. Please list open issues (e.g. links to
known github issues in the project for the feature specification)
whose resolution may introduce web compat/interop risk (e.g.,
changing to naming or structure of the API in a
non-backward-compatible way).
None
Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status
https://chromestatus.com/feature/5172811302961152?gate=5141071125544960
<https://chromestatus.com/feature/5172811302961152?gate=5141071125544960>
Links to previous Intent discussions
Intent to Prototype:
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/2a9d154a-dc97-495b-afda-ba643712116bn%40chromium.org
<https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/2a9d154a-dc97-495b-afda-ba643712116bn%40chromium.org>
Intent to Experiment:
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAM0wra9ArjjD0u%3DpFs1W_5%3DcMk49JXs5ObQ15dNHCHt3TKSW3g%40mail.gmail.com
<https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAM0wra9ArjjD0u%3DpFs1W_5%3DcMk49JXs5ObQ15dNHCHt3TKSW3g%40mail.gmail.com>
Intent to Extend Experiment 1:
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAO4d-SsJ_U1RBpV-sMQEACqVkWnA_R3Y%3Dk19noGCE70sPV2yAA%40mail.gmail.com
<https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CAO4d-SsJ_U1RBpV-sMQEACqVkWnA_R3Y%3Dk19noGCE70sPV2yAA%40mail.gmail.com>
This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status
<https://chromestatus.com/>.
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