You open your phone wanting to check what your friends are up to. Instead of tapping Instagram, you ask your AI assistant: “Show me what my friends are doing today.” The AI opens Instagram for you, scans through posts, filters out the noise, and presents a neat summary in its own interface. You never see Instagram itself—just the AI’s interpretation of it.

Convenient? Absolutely. But this seemingly small shift represents one of the most significant changes in computing architecture since the smartphone. AI companies are positioning themselves as the next major platform—not just tools we use, but layers that sit between us and everything else we do online.

Let’s explore what this means, why it matters, and what changes when intelligence becomes infrastructure.

Understanding the Platform Shift

First, let’s clarify what we mean by a “platform” in technology. A platform is a foundational layer that other software builds on top of. Think of Windows as a platform for desktop applications, or iOS as a platform for mobile apps. Platforms are powerful because they control access—if you want to reach Windows users, you need to play by Microsoft’s rules.

The evolution of computing platforms looks like this:

The Past: User → Application You opened apps directly. You went to Instagram, browsed Twitter, ordered from DoorDash. Each app had a direct relationship with you.

The Present (transition phase): User → AI ← Application AI tools augment what you do. ChatGPT helps you draft emails, GitHub Copilot suggests code. AI assists but doesn’t replace your direct use of apps.

The Future: User → AI → Application AI becomes the primary interface. You tell your AI what you want, and it orchestrates multiple apps behind the scenes to fulfill your request. The apps become invisible.

This shift—where AI sits between users and applications—is called disintermediation. It’s not a new concept in business, but its application to personal computing is profound.

The Technical Foundation: How AI Becomes a Platform

The magic behind AI as a platform isn’t actually magic at all—it’s a capability called function calling or tool use. Modern AI models can do more than generate text; they can invoke APIs, access databases, and orchestrate services.

Here’s a simplified example of how it works:

// User request to AI
"Book me a table at an Italian restaurant for tomorrow at 7pm"

// AI's internal reasoning (conceptual)
1. Query location API for user's current city
2. Search restaurant database for "Italian" + "available tomorrow 7pm"
3. Filter by ratings and user preferences
4. Call reservation API for top option
5. Add event to user's calendar API
6. Send confirmation via messaging API

// User sees
"I've booked you a table at Romano's Trattoria for 7pm tomorrow.
Calendar updated. See you there!"

The user never opened a restaurant app, never searched reviews, never manually added a calendar event. The AI handled everything. The restaurant app was reduced to an API call—a backend service invisible to the user.

This is fundamentally different from traditional app usage. When you use the DoorDash app directly, you see the interface DoorDash designed, you notice their branding, you might browse restaurants you didn’t intend to order from. When an AI orders through DoorDash’s API on your behalf, all of that disappears. DoorDash becomes a commodity fulfillment service.

Why Platform Control Matters

Throughout computing history, whoever controls the platform wields enormous power. Let’s look at the pattern:

Microsoft and Windows (1990s-2000s): If you wanted software to reach most computer users, it had to run on Windows. Microsoft could favor its own applications, set rules for developers, and take a cut of commerce flowing through its ecosystem.

Apple and iOS (2007-present): Apple controls what apps can be installed on iPhones, takes 30% of in-app purchases, and can reject apps that compete with Apple services. Developers have little choice—if they want iPhone users, they play by Apple’s rules.

Google and Search (2000-present): Google became the gateway to the internet. Websites optimize for Google’s algorithms, businesses pay for Google ads, and entire industries rose and fell based on Google’s ranking changes.

Now we’re seeing the emergence of AI platform companies (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Apple): If AI assistants become how people interact with technology, these companies will control access to users. They’ll decide which services their AI integrates with, how information is presented, and potentially take a cut of transactions flowing through their platform.

The stakes are enormous. This isn’t just about convenience—it’s about who has power in the digital economy.

The Developer Dilemma: Optimize for AI or Fight It?

If you’re a developer or company building apps, you now face a difficult choice. It’s what some are calling the “platform gravity” problem.

Option 1: Embrace the AI Platform

Make your service AI-accessible. Provide APIs that AI assistants can call. Optimize your content for AI consumption. This path offers reach—if everyone uses AI assistants, you need to be integrated.

But there’s a cost. You lose:

  • Direct user relationships: Users interact with the AI, not your app. You’re invisible.
  • Branding: Your carefully crafted interface and experience disappear.
  • Discovery: Users won’t stumble upon your features by browsing—the AI decides what to use.
  • Monetization control: The AI platform might insert itself into payment flows or demand fees.
  • Differentiation: If the AI treats all restaurant booking apps the same, why would anyone choose yours?

Option 2: Maintain Direct Relationships

Refuse to be just an API backend. Require users to interact with your app directly. Protect your user interface, your brand, your direct relationship with customers.

But you risk:

  • Irrelevance: If most users interact through AI, they won’t seek out your app.
  • Being bypassed: The AI might find alternative providers who are integrated.
  • Missing the shift: Like companies that resisted mobile apps in 2008, you might miss the platform transition.

This dilemma explains why developers are worried. There’s no clear winning strategy. The apps that took years to build user loyalty could become commodity backends overnight.

What This Means for You as a User

You might be thinking: “This sounds great! One AI assistant that handles everything is exactly what I want. No more app switching, no more managing dozens of accounts.”

And you’re right—there are real benefits. But let’s examine what changes when AI becomes your primary interface to technology.

Loss of Choice and Discovery

When you browse a restaurant app, you see options. You might go looking for Italian but discover a new Thai place that looks interesting. You make choices based on photos, reviews, and your gut feeling.

When an AI books restaurants for you, it makes decisions using its algorithms. Which factors does it prioritize? Is it showing you the best option, or the option that pays the AI platform the most? You’re trusting an opaque system to make choices that align with your interests.

This applies to everything. News articles, shopping recommendations, service providers—the AI becomes a filter and gatekeeper. You gain convenience but lose transparency in how options are selected and presented.

Privacy Centralization

Currently, your data is scattered. Amazon knows your shopping habits, Spotify knows your music taste, your health app knows your exercise routine, your email provider sees your correspondence. This distribution provides some privacy through fragmentation.

When one AI assistant handles everything, it sees all of your life. It knows what you buy, read, listen to, where you go, who you talk to, what health issues you have, what you search for at 2am. This creates an unprecedented centralization of personal information.

Yes, your current smartphone operating system already sees a lot. But AI assistants will actively process and reason about your data in ways that create new privacy considerations. They’ll make inferences, build detailed models of your behavior, and potentially share insights with the services they interact with on your behalf.

Economic Implications for Content and Services

Here’s a less obvious impact: If AI answers questions directly, you never visit the websites that created the information.

Someone writes a detailed guide on fixing a leaky faucet. You ask your AI assistant how to fix your leaky faucet. The AI reads that guide and explains it to you. You never see the original website, never see the ads that fund the content creator, never get the chance to explore other articles they wrote or support them.

This pattern applies to news articles, recipes, tutorials, reviews—any information that AI can summarize. The people and companies creating content lose traffic, ad revenue, and the opportunity to build relationships with readers.

Some might be compensated by the AI platforms for their content being used. But will that compensation match what they’d earn from direct traffic? Will smaller creators be compensated at all? These are open questions with significant implications for the information economy.

The Concierge Service Analogy

Let’s make this more concrete with an analogy.

Imagine you currently shop at different stores—a bakery for bread, a bookstore for books, a butcher for meat. You’ve developed relationships with these shops. You know the baker recommends the sourdough on Thursdays. The bookstore owner suggests novels based on what you’ve enjoyed before. You make decisions about where to go and what to buy.

Now a concierge service becomes popular. Instead of visiting shops yourself, you tell the concierge what you want and they fetch it. Incredibly convenient! But notice what changes:

  • Hidden choices: You don’t know which bakery the concierge uses. They might always choose the bakery that pays them the highest commission, not the one with the best sourdough.

  • Lost relationships: The baker doesn’t know you anymore. You’re just order #4291. They can’t recommend anything because they never see you.

  • Controlled discovery: You can’t browse the bookstore anymore. You get what the concierge thinks you’ll like based on their algorithms and incentives.

  • Platform tax: The shops have to pay the concierge service to be included. That cost gets passed to you through higher prices.

  • Ecosystem pressure: Shops that refuse to work with the concierge service lose business as more people use the service. Eventually, they close. The concierge’s recommended shops become the only shops.

This is AI as a platform. The convenience is real. But it fundamentally reshapes who has power, who makes money, and what choices you actually have. The shops (apps and websites) become invisible commodity suppliers, and the concierge (AI platform) controls access to customers.

The Historical Pattern Repeating

This shift has happened before in computing, and the pattern is instructive.

The Browser Wars and Google

In the late 1990s, browsers were just windows to view websites. Then Google made search the primary interface. Instead of typing URLs or using directories, you googled things. Google became the intermediary between users and websites.

Websites started optimizing for Google instead of users. Entire industries (SEO, content farms, link building) emerged around pleasing Google’s algorithm. Google started showing answers directly in search results, keeping users on Google instead of sending them to websites. News publishers complained they were losing traffic. But by then, Google was too essential to fight.

Social Media as the Internet

In the 2010s, many people stopped visiting websites directly. They saw news, articles, and content through Facebook and Twitter. These platforms became intermediaries between publishers and audiences.

Publishers became dependent on social media algorithms for traffic. When Facebook changed its algorithm to show less news, many media outlets saw massive traffic drops. The platforms had power; publishers had dependence.

The Coming AI Intermediation

Now we’re seeing the pattern again, but more comprehensive. AI assistants won’t just intermediate web content—they’ll intermediate everything. Apps, services, purchases, communication, productivity tools.

The companies controlling these AI platforms will have more power than any previous platform because they’ll touch more aspects of digital life. And like previous platforms, once the shift happens, it’s very hard to reverse.

Competing Visions of AI’s Future

Not everyone agrees AI should become a platform in this way. There are alternative visions worth considering.

Open Source AI as Infrastructure

Some argue that AI should be like the internet itself—open infrastructure that anyone can build on without a single company controlling access. Open source AI models (like Llama, Mistral, or Stable Diffusion) move in this direction.

In this vision, you might run AI locally on your devices, or choose from many AI providers, preventing any single company from becoming a chokepoint. The AI assists you, but apps and services maintain direct relationships with users.

AI as Tool, Not Intermediary

Another view holds that AI should remain a tool—something that helps you use apps better, not replaces the apps. Think AI-powered search within apps, smart suggestions, better interfaces. The AI augments your experience but doesn’t disintermediate your relationship with services.

This preserves user choice, keeps competition among apps healthy, and prevents the concentration of power in AI platform companies.

Hybrid Models

Perhaps the future is somewhere in between. For routine tasks, AI handles everything: “Order my usual lunch,” “Pay my utility bills,” “Schedule my oil change.” For important decisions, you engage directly: choosing where to go on vacation, picking a doctor, making a major purchase.

The question is: who decides which tasks get delegated to AI and which require your direct attention? You, or the AI platform’s defaults?

What Comes Next

We’re in the early stages of this shift. AI assistants exist but aren’t yet dominant. Most people still use apps directly most of the time. But the trajectory is clear, and the pieces are in place.

Major tech companies are investing billions in making AI the primary interface. Apple is integrating AI throughout iOS. Google is combining AI with search and Android. OpenAI is building partnerships to integrate ChatGPT with services. The race is on to become the AI platform that users default to.

For developers and businesses, the strategic decisions made now will matter. Do you build for AI accessibility? How do you maintain brand value when users don’t see your interface? Can you offer something that AI can’t commoditize?

For users, the decisions are subtler but equally important. As AI assistants become more capable, will you delegate more of your digital life to them? What are you comfortable having an AI decide for you? Which services do you want direct relationships with?

And for society, there are questions about regulation and market power. If a few AI companies become gatekeepers to digital services, what rules should govern them? How do we ensure competition, privacy, and user choice in an AI-mediated world?

Conclusion: Convenience and Power

AI as a platform promises remarkable convenience—a single interface to handle the complexity of modern digital life. Just tell your AI what you want, and it happens. No more juggling apps, remembering passwords, or navigating cluttered interfaces.

But convenience often comes with trade-offs. The companies providing that convenient AI layer will have unprecedented power over digital commerce, information access, and user behavior. Apps and websites that spent years building direct user relationships might become invisible APIs. And users—you and me—will trust AI systems to make thousands of small decisions on our behalf, decisions that collectively shape our experiences, choices, and access to information.

This isn’t a prediction about some distant future. It’s happening now. Every time you ask ChatGPT to draft an email instead of opening your email client, every time you use an AI shopping assistant instead of browsing Amazon, every time an AI answers your question instead of you visiting a website—you’re participating in this shift.

The platform transition is in motion. The question isn’t whether AI will become a major platform, but what kind of platform it will be. Will it be open or controlled? Competitive or monopolistic? Transparent or opaque? These questions will be answered not by technology alone, but by the choices companies make, the regulations governments enact, and the boundaries users set for how much of their digital lives they’re willing to delegate.

Understanding this shift—what’s being gained and what’s at stake—is the first step to navigating it thoughtfully. Because when intelligence becomes infrastructure, the architecture of that infrastructure shapes the society built on top of it.