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When Apple launched the App Store in 2008, it was impossibly influential to the future of the internet. The all-powerful world wide web was sliced and diced into bite-sized apps oft-dubbed Web 2.0. What followed was not just software that fit in your pocket. From TikTok to Uber, these camera-wielding, GPS-integrated, cloud-connected platforms changed the way we lived. Now, in the wake of AI, the app store is arising anew. But instead of being built as tappable icons inside a mobile OS, they are plugging directly into the conversations of LLMs like Microsoft CoPilot and Anthropics Claude. Today, OpenAIthe largest AI platform with 800 million weekly usersis opening ChatGPT for any developer to integrate their app right into the flow of conversation (pending review and approval). Following a pilot earlier this year, now any developer can plug in their own apps to be suggested contextually during any chat, or summoned by a user by @ing their specific name. [Image: Adobe] Early partners like Adobe will let you edit images right in the flow of conversation (complete with sliders to tweak them), while Target will pull up any manner of product to buy. No matter your feelings on AI, the tools seemed destined to change the way we think about apps and even multitasking, by shifting us from software based upon nouns (Canva, Figma) to verbs (build a slide deck). Its not going to feel like you’re entering through a front door anymore. You’re kind of meeting these [users] at a very specific moment in time, says Bryant Jow, a designer at OpenAI overseeing app integration. I really think one of the most important things is that it should not feel like there’s a learning curve or that you have to re-anchor yourself. It should just kind of feel like immediately and instantly intuitive. [Image: Canva] Indeed, the promise from all the partner companies I spoke to is to fulfill what LLMs generally only tease. We brainstorm all sorts of ideas inside AI chats, but when its time to bring them to life, we can hit a wall. This is where integrated apps can show up, offering their finer tuned services. But the devil is in the details. And very few of the details have been fully worked out. If you remember the first apps that people made on the App Store, like the beer drinking app [iBeer], they were like, whatever, right? A lot of people took a moment to figure out how do we behave in this ecosystem? What do we build? How do we provide utility? And how do we optimize for that? says Gui Seiz, who leads product design on the AI team at Figma. I think we’re still at that stage. [Image: Figma] What ChatGPT apps can actually do, and how they do it To be entirely frank, the AI model providers are creating something of an ouroboros with connected apps. You talk to ChatGPT. It recommends you connect with an app. That app, however, is likely powered by AI models that could be from OpenAI. And so its part-OpenAI-powered agent, filled with specialized knowledge, then shows back up on OpenAIs platform ChatGPT. Its our agents-talking-to-agents future, happening now. However, the secret sauce to these connections isnt merely your typical pile of APIs that have been used to connect apps for years. Its a rapidly growing new standard called MCP (Model Context Protocol). Originally developed by Anthropic in 2024, its now open source under Linux. When a company runs an MCP server, its essentially opening a door to make everything it wants grockable by AIsharing data, tools, and memoryall in one consolidated, automated process. While model companies originally brute forced their way across the internet, smashing and grabbing the data sets needed to build their systems, MCP is the equivalent of a butler asking them to wipe their feet and welcoming the AI in. For Target, MCP meant that its initial launch on ChatGPT happened fasta mere four weeks from when discussions with OpenAI kicked off and Target was selling on its platform. [Image: Target] But whats it like to shop Target on an LLM? At the moment, you can type @target, and ask to shop, in my case, lego deals for xmas. It generates a thumbnail grid of options, all with prices. Tap one, and youre ushered to a new page with more info, just like youre on its website. There, you can add it to your cart. Target, like all of the partners I spoke to, promised more features will arrive fastmore at the scale of weeks than months. Canva and Figma have both offered tools to create slide decks, turning a brainstorm or pretty much anything you want to paste into ChatGPT into a presentation. Both services are dipping into their own templates to build visual assets previewed as thumbnails. From there, you can tap into any preview to see the whole slideshow. The catch is that, in either case, you cant really edit these slides further through conversationthe app integration kind of kicks you back to stock ChatGPT following the query. Instead, the preview, like Target, refers you back to their respective apps. [Image: Figma] Its why the most ambitious integration seems to be that of Adobe, which integrated tools from Adobe Express, Photoshop, and Acrobat. Adobe actually built out its own, lightweight front end experience into ChatGPT, so if you ask it to brighten a photo, a few sliders will appear on the screen that only control exposure and black and white levels. That way you can get the image xactly as bright as you like, rather then telling the AI, “a little brighter, wait, no, a little darker.” This UI is intentionally granular, built to surface only what you need for a task and nothing more. Thats what makes this incredibly exciting, argues Govind Balakrishan, SVP and GM on Adobe Express. You’re no longer dealing with the the entirety of the Photoshop interface. You’re just dealing with those sliders that give you what you’re trying to do. Discovering new apps will be the new SEO App discoverability could still use work, though. And this represents both a short term and long term challenge for the company. In the short term, conversational discovery just stinks. To be honest, summoning these apps can be frustrating and buggy. OpenAI needs to do some clean up work on their front end, too, adding the creature comforts we expect. For instance, when you @ any available app, it autofills that app like an Instagram handlebut only after you paired the app successfully once already. In the case of Adobe, this gets extra tricky, as you summon specific functions via their separate apps like @Photoshop and @AdobeAcrobat (and don’t ask to build a PDF in Photoshop). Thats unnecessarily messy and should be sorted by the LLM, not the user. [Image: Adobe] Meanwhile, you arent even supposed to be forced to call out apps all the time, as they are supposed to be suggested casually by the LLM in what the company calls indirect invocation. Im not seeing much, if any, of that working yet. When Im too casual, saying Id like to shop at Target instead of @target find me X, it listed nearby Target stores and then offered me shopping advice. When I said I was hoping to work with the Target app on ChatGPT right now, it explained I could do that, along with everything I could do in Target. But it was always up to me to invoke the aforementioned secret code@Target in this caseto make my query. Its an easy enough affordance people will learn thats no different than using X or Threads, but the whole point of a friendly conversational interface is that it isnt a speakeasy. I was continuously surprised by the lack of contextual understanding (and OpenAI says they are not currently live for all users). But this feels rapidly fixable. [Image: Canva] The greater existential question for OpenAI is how and why it would recommend one app over another app that offers similar features with similar quality. Make no mistake, each company wants to be the app thats summoned on command. I myself wondered why some companies would even bother to plug into ChatGPT. As soon as they hand over their capabilities to a generalized AI, arent they diluting their own value? Target makes money with every sale, sure, and Canva still carefully offers its free items for free and its paid items for subscription. But Adobe, for instance, is offering all of its ChatGPT tools for free rather than upselling you to a subscription. At some level, we believe that the more users we haveleveraging the breadth and strength of our applications, the better off we will be over time, says Balakrishan. Monetization will sort of work in its way out. For now, it helps that all of these media generation services link you back to their respective apps, with full interfaces, to finish work you may only start on ChatGPT. Indeed, Canva shared early data from running its own MCP servers to field Claude, CoPilot, and ChatGPT requests since July. Theyve served 2.6 million users whove created more than 11 million designs, and its been working as a tool to attract attention. Canva notes that referral traffic from LLMs is rising at a faster rate than any other source. But bigger picture, everyone seems to agree that baking apps into LLMs should be about more than just porting an app to a chat interface. It should unlock new workflows, functions, and UIs we haven’t imagined yet. There’s some stuff that, for whatever reason, the modality that Figma offers isnt ideal to do that specific thing, says Seiz. “I wonder what kind of new use cases or new things people are going to be trying to do. [Image: Figma] Finding AIs next big modality For Target, which launched just in time for Black Friday, one of its biggest surprises was a new shopping behavior. People uploaded handwritten lists instead of typing things in. That was interesting, and Target doesnt know whats possible from that, yet, but its one of many data points that could inform their future thinking. We wanted to be early and have a role in how that path evolves, says Purvi Shah, VP of UX Design, Research and Accessibility at Target. [Image: Target] The greater concern for companies I talked to was not if they would be commoditized by plugging into a vast AI platform, but how they would be discovered in all that noise. Its no secret that Adobe, Canva, and Figma are each competitors, much like Target and Walmart (which was als was early to integrate shopping with ChatGPT]. Suggesting any of them contextually, in conversation, means that OpenAI needs to make a decision of which competing service is right for any given moment. Naturally, they all want to own that moment. When I ask OpenAI how they will manage this issue, Jow admits, its definitely one of the hardest challenges facing the team. When I ask if well see paid placement, like the search ads that have driven Googles business for years, he says, Well see. In the meantime, app developers shared their own nervousness about how this will develop, and agree we are likely to see a era of AI platform optimizationmuch like sites classically optimized themselves to be discovered by Googlein order to rise to the top of ChatGPT and other LLMs. For now, all developers can do is serve quality and relevant responses to any prompt, according to Seiz, so that OpenAI is incentivized to keep recommending ones service. It’s certainly inevitable that there will be multiple adjacent experiences that offer a really great tool for that use case, says Jow. And I do think that what we want to really ensure is that those options are displayed to the user in a very transparent way, so the user can decide which tool is best suited for them.
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E-Commerce
In a seismic shift for one of televisions marquee events, the Academy Awards will depart ABC and begin streaming on YouTube beginning in 2029, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday. ABC will continue to broadcast the annual ceremony through 2028. That year will mark the 100th Oscars. But starting in 2029, YouTube will retain global rights to streaming the Oscars through 2033. YouTube will effectively be the home to all things Oscars, including red-carpet coverage, the Governors Awards, and the Oscar nominations announcement. We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the Oscars and our year-round Academy programming, said academy chief executive Bill Kramer and academy president Lynette Howell Taylor. The Academy is an international organization, and this partnership will allow us to expand access to the work of the Academy to the largest worldwide audience possible which will be beneficial for our Academy members and the film community. While major award shows have added streaming partnerships, the YouTube deal marks the first of the big four the Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, and Tonys to completely jettison broadcast television. It puts one of the most watched non-NFL broadcasts in the hands of Google. YouTube boasts some 2 billion viewers. The Academy Awards will stream for free worldwide on YouTube, in addition to YouTube TV subscribers. It will be available with audio tracks in many languages, in addition to closed captioning. Financial terms were not disclosed. The Oscars are one of our essential cultural institutions, honoring excellence in storytelling and artistry, said Neal Mohan, chief executive of YouTube. Partnering with the academy to bring this celebration of art and entertainment to viewers all over the world will inspire a new generation of creativity and film lovers while staying true to the Oscars storied legacy. The Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC has been the broadcast home to the Oscars for almost its entire history. NBC first televised the Oscars in 1953, but ABC picked up the rights in 1961. Aside from a period between 1971 and 1975, when NBC again aired the show, the Oscars have been on ABC. ABC has been the proud home to The Oscars for more than half a century,” the network said in a statement. “We look forward to the next three telecasts, including the shows centennial celebration in 2028, and wish the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continued success. The 2025 Academy Awards were watched by 19.7 million viewers on ABC, a slight increase from the year before. That remains one of the biggest TV broadcasts of the year, though less than half of Oscar ratings at their peak. In 1999, more than 55 million watched James Cameron’s Titanic win best picture. The film academy, in choosing YouTube over other options such as Netflix or NBC Universal/Peacock, selected a platform with a wide-ranging and massive audience but one without as much of an established production infrastructure. Still, more people especially young people watch YouTube than any other streaming platform. According to Nielsen, YouTube accounted for 12.9% of all television and streaming content consumed in November. Netflix ranked second with an 8.3% market share. Jake Coyle, AP film writer
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E-Commerce
Gen Z is never beating the unemployable allegations. For Gen Z, a growing confidence crisis means common workplace interactions are now a major source of anxiety. Working with unfamiliar colleagues, making small talk, using the phone, and waking up early were among the biggest anxieties for young workers, according to new research from Trinity College London. These fears have also been echoed online. Can we talk about the fear of having to make a phone call in a dead silent office of cubicles, one TikTok creator recently posted. When you finally finish sending that email thats been giving you anxiety and they respond with are you free for a quick call? another viral post reads. The trick is to send this email a few minutes before you go home and then you have valid excuse for “not seeing” the response, one commenter suggested. In two national surveys of 1,538 people aged 16 to 29 across the U.K., 42% said they feel anxious about working with others, 38% find small talk anxiety-inducing, and 30% report phone anxiety. Notably, respondents were more worried about everyday office interactions than about their jobs becoming redundant because of AI. Presenting work (25%) and accepting criticism (22%) were also major concerns. POV: youre presenting on a work call, but your anxiety thinks youre being hunted for sport, one TikTok creator summed it up. More than half of respondents (59%) said they find it difficult collaborating with older colleagues. That may be tied to changing office culture and norms. Over half felt that traditional workplace banter can be inappropriate or offensive, while 42% said theyd had a negative interaction with a colleague or boss. One TikTok creator claimed, Youve never really experienced jealousy until youve worked at a corporation where theres some old coworker who hates you for just being young, skinny and hot. A sentiment echoed by others online. The poll also found 21% had or were dreading entering the workplace for the first time, while 33% of those already in employment said it was challenging. Starting out at work has never been an easy transition, but shifting workplace norms seem to be dialling up the anxiety for the youngest workers. (And honestly, many of the things on the list stress out workers of all ages, too.) So what can employers do to help mitigate the anxiety? Asked what they would change about the workplace, 32% said mental health days should be standard, while 28% would scrap the 9-to-5 in favor of flexible hours. Early mornings and strict start times, many said, filled them with dread. Am I the only one who contemplates quitting their job when I keep having to wake up early and am really tired one TikTok post read. Or as one creator summed up the general mood: The concept of waking up early (which I hate) to go to work (which I hate) to be there ALL day (which I hate) to get off and go home (which I love) and to have to rinse & repeat literally everyday for the rest of ur life (which I hate).
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E-Commerce
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