The AI browser war is coming
The browser wars are about to start again.
30 years after Netscape and Microsoft faced off, and before Google took the prize with Chrome, OpenAI and Perplexity are getting ready to duke it out with their own AI-supercharged versions of the browser.
Why is this a momentous occasion? Time for a history lesson!
Back in 1995, Microsoft released Internet Explorer, one year after Netscape Navigator made "browsing" the internet a thing. Netscape was the upstart innovator, and Microsoft the behemoth that thought a browser would be the perfect partner to its Windows 95.
Netscape dominated the market for a few years, but then Microsoft used its dominance in software to help Explorer get ahead. Netscape sold to AOL for billions of dollars and then faded away. Explorer existed for many more years, but when Google released Chrome, the market dynamics changed again and Chrome became the leader.
Why am I sharing this ancient history?
Because in 2025, OpenAI = Microsoft, Perplexity = Netscape. And Google, well ... Google = Google.
One of these companies will fundamentally change our experience of the internet. I am confident of that. And with that will come a fundamental change in how digital advertising is created, targeted and displayed.
I'm not here to declare a winner. I don't think anyone can predict that yet. But whoa, the next few years are going to be reeeeeaallly interesting.
