AI will make browsers obsolete, so don't sweat the "death of the cookie" thing too much.
ChatGPT is a preview of how much LESS we'll need all kinds of apps. In a few years' time, clicking around a web browser will seem prehistoric.
Filed under: AI and consumer behaviorWeb browsers are a really old technology.
It’s 2023 and web browsers are around 30 years old as a technology. This age is apparent when you look at the level of manual effort required to use one. It takes an awful lot of typing and moving cursors around and clicking in order to get a browser to do anything useful.
We have even built new features allowing us to invest more manual effort into browsers. Want to multi-task beyond the limits of human ability? You can do that! Just open a hundred new browser tabs on top of the hundred tabs you already have open!
When web browsers debuted in the mid 90s, there wasn’t as much information on the web for people to process, and all of that information was in static form. But now, in 2023, none of us can get anything accomplished online without manually flipping back and forth between dozens and dozens of browser tabs, logins, and web applications (some of which may be synched to entirely separate devices).
A web browser helps you shop the aisles for ingredients, but it doesn’t get you what you ultimately want, which is an amazing meal.
Cookies are a really old technology.
Browser cookies are also close to 30 years old. And why do they exist? To aid we humans in all this manual cross-referencing we’re always doing inside web browsers!
Think about it: a browser cookie doesn’t move the ball forward for you. If I’m logged into Hotels.com, all a cookie does is maintain my login state and remember where I left off. A cookie simply reduces the effort required to get me, the human, back to where I can do more heavy mental lifting: searching for travel dates, comparing rates and properties, cross-referencing with airline sites, etc.
In this way web publishers are more like supermarkets than restaurants. A web browser helps you shop the aisles for ingredients, but it doesn’t get you what you ultimately want, which is an amazing meal.
ChatGPT is showing us a new way of interacting with the web.
Forget using prompts to write little essays. That’s really, truly impressive stuff, but why are we really all so amazed? Why has ChatGPT captured people’s imaginations?
For once we’re being served an amazing meal online without having to shop for all the ingredients and do the cooking ourselves. We’ve never actually seen the internet do this before and we’re delighted.
If a chef is making my meal, why do I need a pencil and paper for a shopping list?
The advent of AI-based interaction will transform what a web browser is. How many of your daily points, clicks, and keystrokes could be eliminated by AI? If ChatGPT is any indication, I would venture north of 99%. The next logical question is: why would you still need an app you basically no longer interact with?
I have no idea exactly what will replace browsers, but I don’t see the web browser of today surviving into the next decade. Or maybe its “survival” means moving into secular decline with an aging and shrinking user base of die-hards who insist on doing things the hard way (think cable TV).
The advent of ChatGPT shows us that browsers need Google more than Google needs browsers.
The death of the cookie may not matter very much in the end.
One thing very few have bothered exploring in the last few years as third-party cookies’ final demise looms: what if browsers themselves give way to a different and better technology? Why assume browsers themselves will remain perpetually relevant? It feels like we’re in the 1980s debating how inkless typewriters might work. It doesn’t matter!
And remember: the three most popular web browsers are made by Apple, Google, and Microsoft. These also happen to be three companies which will surely be launching all manner of AI-powered apps in the coming years (more on that in another post). How convenient for them!
Apple, Google, and Microsoft can deliberately sunset browser technology at a time and in a way that’s advantageous to them. So don’t think these companies aren’t in control. As the rules of the game change, they can simply change the game; this is a key truth that’s being overlooked.
Google, for example, may not fully control the death of third-party cookies, and many aspects of its business will be disrupted, but Google is in a great position to stage manage the decline of Chrome alongside the concurrent emergence of new forms of interaction that are higher-value and stickier.
The advent of ChatGPT shows us that browsers need Google more than Google needs browsers.
AI will likely replace all other interfaces for applications. One frontend interface that you chat or speak to which distributes to backend AI's and other applications or services.
After all these years of attempting decentralization, AI will likely be the era of centralize everything again.
Reading this brought me true joy - it's SO true that we have been living in the stone age of technology...
To me, it seems like the change will come from the combination of (1) consumer empowerment driven by newfound agency to set individual data preferences and demand transparency to see how their data is being used --> elevating brand trust and devoted, earned loyalty (2) companies advancing data hub migration and configuration systems to adapt to these consumer preference selections --> working collaboratively, in a knowledge-sharing and problem-solving mindset to navigate the biases that come with training artificial intelligence and LLM models --> leading to continuous improvement and delivery of highly personalized, contextual marketing promotions (3) expansion of a globalized market of win-win-win situations due to zero, first, and second party data opening the door to understand user behavior through a data-driven lens that has not been explored before; example: a brand retailer can form a partnership with Amazon to better understand how its customers behave on Amazons website to create strategic plans that deliver the most value-add benefits to its end-consumer -- this would NOT infringe customer privacy, the insights would be generated using mock customer groups (cluster groups) based on the selections of the real customer base (using PII, UUIDs, fuzzy control logic, and other mechanisms to anatomize the specific consumer and create a generalized comparison group that is statistically relevant and reflective of the real-life customer group) --> result is an new era of personalization, one-to-one marketing, accountability & transparency + how our data, if shared in a secure way, could create a path towards global peace, given all foundational regulations and protocols in place, sharing data that is not tied to a direct individual serves the company, the customer, merchants/vendors & suppliers, and other market participants and awakens the potential for economic growth and prosperity, not limited few, but built to be accessible by many.