Microsoft's Chromium Edge is getting Pinterest suggestions, sidebar search, and business features like Windows Information Protection support
At its Build 2020 developers conference today, Microsoft announced a slew of new features coming to Chromium Edge. Consumers can expect Pinterest suggestions and sidebar search.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the feature-cadence phase of Microsoft's browser reset. After its commitment to putting Edge on Chromium in late 2018 and shipping the relaunch with IE mode, privacy tools, and Collections last May, Microsoft is now iterating monthly — the March batch of Vertical Tabs, Smart Copy, and Password Monitor was followed within weeks by this larger Build 2020 slate.
What distinguishes today's announcement is the split audience: Pinterest suggestions and sidebar search target consumer engagement, while Windows Information Protection support targets enterprise deployments. Microsoft is signaling that Chromium Edge must serve both the desk worker and the discovery-driven consumer at once.
First-order effects
- Enterprises evaluating Chromium Edge lose a key blocker: with Windows Information Protection support, corporate data separation works natively, making the browser deployable where only Chrome or legacy Edge could go.
- Consumers get two new discovery surfaces — Pinterest suggestions and sidebar search — changing what Edge shows around the page, not just within it.
Second-order effects
- Pinterest gains a browser-level distribution channel beyond search engines and apps, as Microsoft routes consumer intent toward its service instead of leaving discovery to Google's default properties.
- With both browsers sharing Chromium, differentiation moves entirely to the layer above the engine — extensions parity removed the last technical moat, so feature velocity like this becomes how Microsoft competes with Chrome.
Third-order effects
- If the cadence holds, the browser market reorganizes around one rendering engine with competing service layers on top — Microsoft bundling Bing, Office, and partner content like Pinterest, Google bundling its own stack — making the browser an enterprise services gateway rather than a standalone product.
The trend: Browsers are becoming differentiated service platforms layered on a shared Chromium engine, with Microsoft using feature drops at Build to court consumers and IT departments simultaneously.