# Intro to Steel URL: /overview/intro-to-steel --- title: Intro to Steel description: Humans use Chrome, Agents use Steel. sidebarTitle: Intro to Steel llm: true --- import Image from 'next/image' Steel Header ### **Getting LLMs to use the web is _hard_** We want AI products that can book us a flight, find us a sublet, buy us a prom suit, and get us an interview. But if you’ve ever tried to build an AI app that can interact with the web today, you know the headaches: * **Dynamic Content:** Modern sites heavily rely on client-side rendering and lazy loading, requiring scrapers to wait for page hydration and execute JS to access the full content. * **Complex Navigation:** Reaching desired data often involves multi-step flows, simulating user actions like clicks, typing, and handling CAPTCHAs. * **Authentication:** High-value data and functionality frequently sits behind auth walls, necessitating robust identity management and auto-login capabilities. * **Infrastructure Overhead:** Efficiently scaling and managing headless browser fleets is complex, with issues like cold starts, resource contention, and reliability eating up valuable dev cycles. * **Lack of Web APIs:** Many critical sites still lack API access, forcing teams to build and maintain brittle custom scrapers for each target. This is by design. Most of the web is designed to be anti-bot and human friendly. But what if we flipped that? ### **A better way to take your LLMs online** Steel is a headless browser API that lets AI engineers: * Control fleets of browser sessions in the cloud via API or Python/Node SDKs * Easily extract page data as cleaned HTML, markdown, PDFs, or screenshots * Access data behind logins with persistent cookies and automatic sign-in * Render complex client-side content with JavaScript execution * Bypass anti-bot measures with rotating proxies, stealth configs, and CAPTCHA solving * Reduce token usage and costs by up to 80% with optimized page formats * Reuse session and cookie data across multiple runs * Debug with ease using live session viewers, replays, and embeddings All fully managed, and ready to scale, so you can focus on building shipping product, not babysitting browsers. Under the hood, Steel’s cloud-native platform handles all the headaches of browser infrastructure: * Executing JavaScript to load and hydrate pages * Managing credentials, sign-in flows, proxies, CAPTCHAs, and cookies * Horizontal browser scaling and recovering from failures * Optimizing data formats to reduce LLM token usage ### Get started with Sessions API - [Overview](/overview/sessions-api/overview) - [Quickstart](/overview/sessions-api/quickstart) - [Connect with Puppeteer](/cookbook/puppeteer) - [Connect with Playwright](/cookbook/playwright) - [Connect with Selenium](/cookbook/selenium) ### Reference - [API Reference](/api-reference) - [Python SDK Reference](/steel-python-sdk) - [Node SDK Reference](/steel-js-sdk) ### FAQ ### What is Steel and what does it do? Steel is an open-source browser API purpose-built for AI agents. It lets you control fleets of browser sessions in the cloud via API or Python/Node SDKs, handling JavaScript rendering, logins, proxies, CAPTCHAs, and scaling so you can focus on shipping product instead of babysitting browsers. ### Why is it so hard for AI agents to browse the web? Modern sites rely on client-side rendering, multi-step navigation, CAPTCHAs, and auth walls, and many critical sites lack APIs entirely. Most of the web is deliberately anti-bot and human-friendly, which forces teams to build brittle custom scrapers and manage headless browser fleets themselves. ### Can Steel bypass anti-bot measures and CAPTCHAs? Yes. Steel lets you bypass anti-bot measures with rotating proxies, stealth configs, and CAPTCHA solving, and it can access data behind logins using persistent cookies and automatic sign-in. ### Does Steel help reduce LLM token costs? Yes. Steel can reduce token usage and costs by up to 80% with optimized page formats, extracting page data as cleaned HTML, markdown, PDFs, or screenshots instead of raw pages.