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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