The New New AI App Store Land Rush
I've been blogging lately about AI first, both as a concept and as a business imperative.
In https://strategic-thinking-and-execution.ghost.io/ai-is-the-new-mobile-first/ I made a simple argument that we are now in the middle of a strategic shift as important as the transition from Web 2.0 to Mobile devices as the default interaction paradigm.
In https://strategic-thinking-and-execution.ghost.io/buttons-to-chat-not-as-straightforward-as-you-might-think/ I noted that in the same way that mobile interaction forced a wholesale re-think of offered value and how to deliver it, AI-first is similarly already stress-testing all of our assumptions about how to package and deliver value as a company.
In that context, for any company that has not yet really dug into their value proposition in this next Internet era, this video dropped by OpenAI yesterday should be terrifying:
The next big thing
This video crystallizes the concepts that have been emerging as AI thinking has quickly developed:
- Chat is the primary interface
- No, not your chat, in your app: the AI Chat interface, in the AI App
- Everything you offer has to be available in that interface, natively
- Anything you offer that is not natively in that interface is something you no longer offer.
As if that is not stressful enough, now there is a time limit:
The deadline is a little soft, but make no mistake, there is no time to waste. Your competitor is already 3 coffees deep into how to use this new app store opportunity to become the default provider of whatever value it is you provide. To try to compete in this still evolving world you now need to learn all about the extended MCP standard which OpenAI is basing this next opportunity on, and implement everything you do within it.
That this is an extension of MCP means all of the technical requirements are a fast moving target. You are being forced to make an ongoing Engineering investment decision against an evolving technical standard, which will drive a re-write of your entire company playbook.
At the time of this writing there are 86 days left in 2025: 'later this year' is a nice way of saying 'any day now'. You can no longer afford to wait and see how AI will evolve. The ultimatum has been delivered.