How AI Assistants Threaten to Disrupt Aggregator Platforms

The tech industry is on the cusp of a significant shift as AI-driven personal assistants like Siri threaten to disrupt the dominance of aggregator platforms such as Amazon, booking.com, and Uber.

The rise of aggregators: Over the past decade, aggregator platforms have come to dominate various sectors by providing the most convenient access to services and maintaining a direct relationship with users:

• Amazon has become the go-to platform for product searches and purchases, with half of all users starting their product searches directly on the site.
• Aggregators in other sectors, such as booking.com for holidays, Netflix for entertainment, and Uber for taxis, have similarly established their dominance by offering the most streamlined user experience.

AI personal assistants as the new interface: The emergence of AI-powered personal assistants like Siri presents a significant challenge to the dominance of aggregators:

• Device manufacturers like Apple, Google, and Samsung are uniquely positioned to create effective AI assistants due to their ability to deeply integrate with the operating system and interact with other apps.
• As users become accustomed to relying on AI assistants for tasks like booking rides or making reservations, the customer relationship may shift from individual apps to the AI assistant itself.

Implications for the tech ecosystem: The rise of AI assistants has far-reaching consequences for users, app developers, and tech giants:

• Users stand to benefit from unprecedented convenience, with AI assistants anticipating their needs and seamlessly integrating various services.
• App developers and service providers face both opportunities, such as access to a broader user base, and challenges, like the risk of commoditization and weakened brand loyalty.
• Tech giants developing AI assistants could gain valuable insights into user behavior and preferences, further entrenching their position as gatekeepers of user interaction.

The aggregator’s dilemma: Aggregators are likely to resist this shift, but may ultimately struggle to maintain their dominance in the face of AI assistants:

• Aggregators will likely attempt to integrate with AI assistants and innovate to maintain their relevance, but this may only delay the inevitable.
• As users become more reliant on AI assistants as a universal interface for accessing services, the direct relationship between aggregators and users – the linchpin of their dominance – may be severed.

The Sherlock parallels: The rise of AI assistants echoes the story of Sherlock, a once-popular universal search tool for Mac OS that was eventually “sherlocked” by Apple:

• Like Sherlock, which allowed users to search the internet and make purchases without using a browser, AI assistants are poised to become the primary interface for accessing third-party services on our devices.
• Just as Sherlock’s features were eventually integrated into Apple’s own software, leading to the app’s demise, AI assistants may subsume the functionality of individual apps, disrupting the current app-centric paradigm.

Analyzing deeper: While the convenience promised by AI assistants is undeniable, it is essential to consider the potential drawbacks of this shift:

• The concentration of user data and interactions within a few powerful AI assistants raises concerns about privacy, data security, and the potential for misuse.
• As individual apps and services become more interchangeable, there may be less incentive for innovation and differentiation, potentially leading to a homogenization of the tech landscape.
• The increasing reliance on AI assistants could create a new form of technological dependency, with users becoming less self-sufficient and more vulnerable to the decisions and biases of the companies controlling these assistants.