ChatGPT becoming a 'platform' - so now what?
Spoiler - more brand, more human... the usual things I say
I find it handy to remember that the current paradigm of tech was not predestined in any way. Yes, in October 2025 it does feel like a hyper-connected world with everyone usiong small slabs of glass with all these apps feels like a logical evolution from fire, the printing press and semiconductors.
But tech evolution is not biological evolution. If the Harry Truman government never decided to invest in networked computer in the wake of the cold war, we wouldn’t have had the internet of today (in other words, you can thank the Soviets testing nukes in the 60s for your doomscrolling). If that seems a bit too far-fetched, consider that the modern app economy which birthed hundreds of specialisations, millions of jobs and billions of dollars came about after Steve Jobs unveiled a device that was not universally heralded as game changing.
As someone fascinated by The Butterfly Effect, I like thinking of tech in these ways because it provides some framework for how to think about the future, and acts as a constant reminder that nothing should be taken for granted.1
Nobody could predict all the good and bad that was to come, back in 2007 when the iPhone was unveiled, or when the App Store was announced a few years later. We thought it would have some toys, maybe some useful apps that complemented our lives. We would never have thought it would upend our lives, make us screen addicts, birth several billion-dollar companies, become a career option for many, permanently reshape our spines, cause problems of privacy, and more. Because along the way, technology interacts with the real world - economics, biology & psychology, culture, politics and more.2 And that’s truly when the Butterfly Effect kicks in. Even the most optimistic / future-gleaning / LSD-addled analyst at Apple in 2007 couldn’t have predicted that one day the smartphone would transform how payments are done in developing countries, and provide a source of livelihood to everyone from delivery riders to billionaires. It’s trippy and humbling to think about that.
It’s worth keeping all this in mind when a seemingly seismic change comes in. So…
What happens when an AI chatbot becomes a ‘platform’?
A few days back, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT is now, essentially, an operating system. It connects to apps like Spotify and Canva. Rather than me trying to explain it, just watch this video.
One thing I’ve learnt studying the history of technology is it doesn’t matter what the incumbents, or those who profited from the last wave, or those who stand to lose from a new wave think. If consumers find a new of doing things easier / better - they will shift, and vote with their dollars or minutes.
The current migration of search habits from 10 blue links to AI-generated answers is slow, steady and utterly fascinating.3 I am already seeing “just GPT the answer” in Instagram comments.4
I tried this Apps thing out with my Spotify account, and while it’s not perfect yet, it does a pretty decent job. For example, I have one long-running music recommendation discussion with ChatGPT - and I was able to use this new feature to compile ALL those recommendations into one playlist, without my needing to do so manually.
Already, you can use this tool for Booking, Canva and a few others. No doubt, over time, more will join them - Sam Altman has already mentioned that an App Store is coming.
In this era, I feel the brand becomes more important than ever before. Imagine you are booking a hotel. In the old times you would just type in ‘hotels in Bangalore’ or some such into Google and navigate based on what caught your fancy. If you’re prompting, you have to explictly mention what comes to mind wrt hotels - be it Booking, Airbnb, or whatever else. I’ve always thought of a strong brand as SEO5 for the mind, and this feels like a manifestation of that. Existing services will have to do a lot of brand work so customers recall them while prompting.
I see a lot of companies being ignored to obsolence - and while one can lament that, it’s also worth remembering that these are the companies that probably took advantage of the previous era’s hacks such as SEO. Tech giveth, tech taketh. What remains are those with strong brands.
You may say that this will lead to a new form of SEO - already, terms like GEO are being thrown around - optimising your site to be relevant to AI prompts. I don’t think these will go anywhere - I think brands being plugged into AI results will be more a factor of deals made with LLMs and the existing credibility of brands6. Remember, a Google Search (and hence, the results of SEO) results in many links. An AI result is designed to curate just one or two for you.
But I also feel all these websites, companies, and those who work for them will find other things to do - just like how the app economy destroyed some things, and created some things. If a company has seen their traffic and hence revenue plummet in the chatbot age, it was less a solid business and more one that was optimised for a specific era of technology. I have no doubts such things will emerge in the new age as well, and be swept away when we have something else. Rather than try to band-aid, I feel those companies should look at what they can build with LLMs, or just enhance their brand so more people automatically prefer them, or find other sources of revenue de-risking their reliance on search traffic.
From a consumer point of view, ChatGPT now has the potential to be the first true super-app. Imagine if everything on your phone is connected to it. The evolution of computer-based technology has been about increasingly abstracting steps - I would not be surprised if you could just say “book me an Uber to the airport” and from your past paying history / flight details it would book the optimum one for you rather than you needing to make a choice between Uber’s 10 options. Does that make life easy? Yes, sure. But it also makes me feel that apps that are designed to be entertainment rather than utility will see a possible uptick, as “play NFS on Mobile for me” is unlikely to be something anyone would do.
I feel that whenever I write about how AI will impact things, it all tends to boil down to: brand will be more important (for companies) and the human touch will be more important (for art). I’ve felt that way from my first usage of ChatGPT back in November 2022, and that feeling is reinforced with every update, as we near its 3-year mark. Maybe that’s why we have the most advanced technology humans have ever created - to tell us who we really are. We’ll end on that slightly philosophical note, shall we?
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Nice reads
The end of handwriting (and how AI might save it)
A fascinating example of how specific jobs are ‘created’ - a series of last-floor runners to deliver food from delivery boys to the final destination inside tall Chinese buildings. (possible paywall)
Doordash’s new delivery robot is very cute. But is it ready for the real world?
A new career path - training AI models.
Silicon Valley is in its ‘Hard Tech’ era - basically, shifting from low-hanging fruit and colourful bean bags to, well, difficult stuff like LLMs and chips.
It may seem slightly harsh of me to say, but app developers who thrived in the era of the App and Play Stores and are feeling miffed that AI may take their jobs away, should remember that their own jobs didn’t exist pre-2007. I am not saying people should not have jobs, but it does mean that as a vocation or even society, we should place emphasis on the larger problem being solved, rather than how it is being done. I know that sounds a bit hoohaa so maybe I’ll elaborate on that in another post.
This is a multi-lens theory I am working towards - the interconnectedness of these five things. It was the basis of a course I taught at FLAME University and it increasingly makes more sense to me. More on this in the coming months in these pages.
Seriously, I never thought I would see the day. I always thought someone may come around and usurp Google, but I never thought search habits would change.
Granted, not the most scientific of sources, but terrific for general random ‘vibe’ checks.
Search Engine Optimisation - the technique of ‘optimising’ content on your website so as to rank better in Google Searches. A standard, if frustratingly inconclusive, practice over the last 2 decades in digital marketing.
From OpenAI’s point of view, I think they will be more motivated to give you higher quality trusted results rather than which brand is ‘optimising’ for LLMs. The former is a collection of what people around the internet think.