I was recently asked to appear on a panel at DrupalSouth Melbourne to discuss the “Future of web”. It's a big topic. In order to gather my thoughts and arrive at least a little prepared, I thought that it would be a good idea to get some of my thoughts on paper.
It is fair to say that we are already living in the future. We have reached Star Trek levels of technology. All human content has been ingested by the AIs. Content can be easily created in multiple forms (text, video, audio and programmes). Content can be translated and captioned in real-time. Human likeness and intonations can also be replicated. This is the world we are living in. Peering into the future will be difficult to do. Before we look into the future it is worth grasping where we currently are at.
AI and a changing landscape
Yes. it can’t be avoided. AI has advanced at such a rapid rate that it is now surpassing human capabilities across nearly all areas of human endeavour, including content creation and the ability to answer questions. These developments are changing the global landscape and will alter the way humans work and play. This will impact "the web" but also the real world. There will be fundamental changes in the way work is organised.
SEO is dead
The SEO industry was built on the back of the need to generate organic traffic for websites. Traffic was required to drive the marketing funnels and getting in the top couple of results of Google was an obsession for an industry. The move to AI-generated summaries on search result pages has radically reduced organic flows to sites. Further, the reworking of SERPs to focus on question answering and shopping has also led to a decline in what would be considered “normal” search results. Content sites that focus on long-tail content have seen large reductions in traffic, killing the SEO business model. The cry has gone out, “SEO is dead”.
Website owners will need to grasp this new reality. It will be harder to attract traffic with content alone. Effective marketing strategies will need to focus on reputation, insights, exposure and attention. This trend has been underway for some time. However, the death of SEO will hasten the progression. In practical terms, thought leaders will need to have a strong presence to drive traffic to their website where the prospective client can be converted.
The web is dead
Once a bit of a conspiracy but now it is becoming true. Web traffic is now dominated by bots. Most traffic is programmatic in nature. Web scapers, spammers and attackers now dominates the day-to-day traffic on the web. Furthermore, web content has now been consumed by the AIs and generated content will outweigh human-generated content. The future will be dominated by a soup of AI-generated content regurgitating what has gone before. Google has responded by featuring Reddit posts, as these posts are known to have been written by humans. The web can’t be trusted. Who is human? What has been human-generated? It is unclear.
Humans may once have recoiled at fake content. Partly because it didn't feel real, but also because it was cheap, low quality and cookie-cutter. This will change. AI-generated content will become more sophisticated, relatable and trusted. Bit by bit humans will accept and start to trust the new AI content. Eventually, they will not be able to tell the difference and it will be as natural as any human-generated content.
Indeed, AI-generated content will be superior to that generated by humans. For example, AIs are able to process complex concepts (in academic papers) and present them in new and understandable ways (conversation). This will open up new ways of understanding for humans. The proliferation of AI content is not necessarily a completely negative thing.
The coder is dead
AI has advanced so rapidly in recent months that it is now outperforming the very best humans. Recent models operate at PhD levels when answering questions and completing tasks. When assigned coding tasks, models can outperform the world's very best coders. Both CEOs of Nvidia and OpenAI have proclaimed that the role of the coder is dead with the rise of AI models. The future seems to be for orchestrators and innovators, rather than coders.
This shift poses big questions for the young people of today. Just what should they study? Previously everyone was encouraged to be a coder or perhaps a data scientist. White-collar, knowledge-worker professions such as these are now under threat. As a response, Elon Musk and Sam Altman encourage young people to do what they love and to be resilient. It seems that there are no guaranteed paths to career success these days.
The content author is dead
The roles of the creative and knowledge worker have been the first to go onto the chopping block. Generative AI has threatened authors, editors, designers, illustrators, reporters and most creators in the information economy. It is safe to assume that there will always be a place for human artistic expression. However, this is not the case in the commercial sphere. The future of content seems to be for influencers and marketers as the new creators.
There will continue to be roles for thought leaders who have considered opinions, hot takes and valuable insights. In a world of a proliferation of AI content, the need for insightful, timely content will have increased value.
The rise of the cyber security specialist
The proliferation of AI agents will lead to the increased use of APIs to get things done. AI agents will access the world on a new scale, unrestricted by the usual limitations of humans. This will lead to an increase in malicious API use as well as mistakes as the AI tries to achieve its task. Malicious attacks will become more sophisticated as a variety of approaches can be orchestrated to achieve an outcome. Humans will need more cyber security specialists who are able to monitor the systems and pull the plug if necessary.
Social platforms
Control for the powerful
The rise in the platforms has led to a shift in the way capitalism operates. Traditional centres of power (media owners, politicians) has shifted to the owners of the large technology platforms which control information flow and influence through algorithms. Yanis Varoufakis sees it as the rise of a new ruling class where users are the “serfs” in a new technofeudalism where there is mass surveillance and the extraction of rent on the content creators. The future of the web needs to be viewed through the lens of capitalism and power, just as much as technology.
Polarised debate
Online debate has become radically polarised in recent years. Political and culture wars which once played out only in the minds of the sceptical are not on full display in every platform. We are living in an echo chamber where the algorithms play to our interests and prejudices. This has led to cancellations, pile-ons and a general lack of self-awareness and courtesy online. The platforms are increasingly used to drive the polarised landscape. The rise of alternative facts and misinformation is not being countered as the platforms drop the aim of regulating content. It is more efficient (and profitable) to cater to an audience (of one). In this light, the web must be seen as a tool for the powerful, as much as it is a tool of freedom.
It is important to note that there are a range of voices. Citizen journalists and commentators have taken the baton from the decaying organised media. Most people get their content from the web, not TV and so there is potentially a wider range of voices that can be heard. However, the nature of the algorithms has led to a lack of balance and alternative opinions which has led to the polarisation.
Ceding of privacy
Our approach to privacy has changed gradually over the years. What would have been unthinkable a few years ago, is now accepted. We are now used to being tracked at every turn. Our techno overlords know our interests, location, associates and secrets. It is almost impossible to avoid. As consumers, we have been prepared to cede our privacy for the receipt of “free” services in walled gardens of the popular platforms. The large platforms will continue to be all-knowing, even with current government regulations.
Laws such as the GDPR have led to a few outcomes. Firstly, users have stronger control over their privacy, being aware of how their data is being used. Secondly, this has come at the cost of a woeful user experience where most sites are requiring opt in acceptance of the use of cookies. This is incredibly frustrating and has led to user fatigue. Finally, marketing platforms will always be seeking workarounds for the legal limitations.
Content management
Content management is a solved problem
This one is not new. Content management systems have two basic functions:
- Allowing for content to be managed through CRUD operations and
- Publishing that data using templates, feeds or APIs.
It is harder and harder to work out ways to push the envelope for Content Management Systems (CMS). Recent trends have incorporated the CMS as a simple component into a composable architecture with the CRM at the centre. The future of the web is not about inventing new features for the CMS. The CMS needs to be seen as just one part of the marketing landscape.
Homogenisation
The web was once the Wild West. It is not uncommon to hear people pine for the days of MySpace or the humble HTML homepage forever under construction. The web still is wild in many parts. However, the public face of the web has become more homogenised. Modern design trends (minimalism) and technical requirements (responsiveness, accessibility) have led to more predictable sites. The rise of foundational frameworks helps make the build process more scalable (for owner) and understandable (for users). The essentials have been distilled and paired back. Sites will continue this focused approach, with a need to deliver integrations and functionality in a more seamless manner.
Plug and play
Integrations are becoming easier to make as SaaS companies look for easier adoption. Such integrations have been made possible through the use of AI to understand structure and semantics with the need for being taught. This evolution can be seen in a couple of areas.
Chatbots
- Initially needed explicit rules, intents and API queries
- The rise of LLMs allows for snippets to be fed to the model
- Services can now crawl a site automatically and extract the relevant data.
- In the future, all sites will have a chat interface provided by third-party
Search
- Initially, an index provided keyword search
- The rise of LLMs allows for semantic search
- User behaviour can inform the result sets
- In the future, all sites will have a search interface provided by third-party
Smarter sites will be easier to create.
Content creation
Over time we have seen shifts in the way the web has been used by the various actors.
Creativity has moved to the platforms
The World Wide Web led to an explosion in human creativity. Early adopters took to the tools to express themselves in new ways:
- The web was a place for homegrown gardens. Now it has been industrialised and commodified.
- Users collaborated and organised content using folksonomies. These initial services have died, but tagging still lives on.
- RSS feeds allowed for aggregation and collaboration. Feed readers are now a thing of the past as users get their feeds directly from the platforms.
The platforms now are the focus point for creators.
Consumption and attention span
The rise of platform feeds has delivered dopamine hits to idle consumers. This has led to shortened attention spans and changes in the kinds of content created.
- Videos are now much shorter: 30sec to 10 mins
- Articles are now hundreds of words long rather than thousands
- Music is now consumed by the song, rather than the album.
AI-generated, short-form content will continue to dominate.
Influence and attention for the savvy
Creators now have learnt to productise their efforts. Creators have swapped one middleman (TV, newspaper) for another (platform owners). The shift has seen the rise of superstar millionaires on YouTube and OnlyFans with more control over what they produce. Smart business owners are shifting their efforts away from print and web to these platforms where they can build a connection and direct relationships. In this light, “attention” has a stronger value than page impressions. Social platforms will continue their dominance over websites as creators move to where the eyeballs are.
So what is the future?
The most obvious approach is to extrapolate on what we are seeing emerge. This is difficult because advancements in AI and the cultural landscape are rapidly changing. It is fair to say that most of us will be surprised by what happens in the future. It will be upon us before we know it.
For everyday people
Access to information and tools will continue to become easier. We will most likely continue the trend of speaking to our devices and asking questions, rather than searching for answers. We will be able to automate tasks and have the machines do the work for us. The world will be divided into those that can use the tools and those that can’t. Those who are AI-enhanced will be able to operate at an order of magnitude above those who can’t. Learning to work with the tools will be important for success.
For websites
Websites play a smaller role than what they have done in the past:
- Content creators move to the audience. The audience will congregate on the platforms.
- Organic traffic will be lower as search engines display generated AI summaries. Paid traffic will become more expensive with zero ROI in a perfectly competitive market.
- Long-tail content sites will struggle as AI content will pollute the space. Trusted sites will dominate.
- The marketing stack will play an orchestrating role. The CMS is just a means of delivery.
Website owners need to be aware of the context they are now operating in. Websites will continue to play an important role, however, they cannot be considered a solution on their own.
The way forward for website owners
The picture above is quite bleak in parts. Machines are playing a larger role, however, this doesn't mean that human creativity and expression is coming to an end. The web has allowed connection and communication on an unparalleled scale. This has led to an explosion of creativity and knowledge sharing, leading to the vast enrichment of humanity. We are now seeing a shift in the sands wher ethe web is not solely created by and for humans.
What is a website owner to do?
Be human
In a world of regurgitated and "me too" content it is more important than ever to offer a fresh take and compelling content. It is a tough context to operate in, however, this can be seen as an opportunity more than a challenge. Continuing to be human will be a point of difference and will help to engender trust.
Be authentic
Everyone has something to sell. What impact does this have on the content that is produced? The rise of the influencer has blurred the lines between what is content and “advertorial”. To a certain degree, this blurring of the lines pervades most of the content on the web. Valuable content, given freely will continue to be valued Providing an authentic take on the subject matter will offer more value and engender more trust. The open-source world is a beacon of light in this environment. Open source projects, driven by a strong community, is the definition of authenticity.
Deliver on core requirements
Some websites are not required to deliver on commercial interests. For example, government sites may need to provide a service or publish materials according to a regulatory schedule. In these cases, the delivery of the content or service needs to be reliable and unbiased. Continuing to deliver quality, trstworthy content is key.
Be adaptable
The changing landscape will lead to website owners staying abreast of new approaches:
- Utilisation of AI for content creation, augmentation and ideation.
- Utilisation of AI for site building and delivery.
In general, businesses will need to adapt or die. The winners will be those who can take advantage of the massive scalability that is offered by AI tools. Adapting to the changing landscape and techniques is vital for staying efficient and relevant.
Semantic knowledge
Content rich websites derive their core value from the content, not from the technology or functionality associated with it. Content should get better with age as it is added to, improved and refined. AI provides a great opportunity for the knowledge within the content to be captured as a knowledge graph which can then be used to drive semantic search and chatbots. The value added from these services will unlock latent value for all content websites. Website owners must consider extracting knowledge from content to drive semantic search, chat and personalisation. There are new opportunities for unlocking value that has lain dormant in the data. Website owners need to seize this value and capitalise on it to compete with industrial-scale search services which will seek to exploit it.
Integrate
For many website owners, the website remains an island. There is no clear strategy to facilitate secure, privacy-first data flow between systems. It is common for there to be gaps in:
- Capturing user feedback into a CRM system for processing.
- Capturing newsletter subscriptions into a CRM.
- Capturing of anonymous, dimensioned user behaviour into analytics.
- Incorporation of business intelligence visualisations.
- Single Sign On.
Getting these integrations right will lead to efficiencies within the organisation. Seeing the bigger picture will lead to better, more integrated user experiences.
Be helpful: Journeys, personalisation and recommendations
Users will be on your website for a reason. They will most likely have an immediate problem they need to solve. User experience will continue to be important with a focus on user intent and interests. Sites will need to be able to adapt to identify
- What is the user is trying to achieve and where they are in the journey?
- What is the specific intent, if any, at a point in time?
- What are the user’s interests for more relevant content?
These concerns are not new. However, users will demand more from their online experiences and the bar will be raised for expected experiences. For a CMS to be useful, it needs to provide an enhanced experience which sits on top of the supporting content on the site.
What does this mean for Drupal?
Drupal is an open-source CMS with a strong presence in the enterprise areas with strong adoption in the government, not-for-profit and publishing sectors. Drupal is known for its flexible “site builder” tools for building complex sites with many integrations. Recently it has focussed on the “marketer” persona with the Starshot initiative and the release of Drupal CMS which offers a number of “no code” improvements to empower ambitious site builders build the next generation of the web,
Drupal is open source and part of the open web. As such it offers authenticity and counters many of the trends and patterns which are emerging. There are rays of light to somewhat bleak picture painted above, Drupal, and other open source CMSs continue to offer an alternative and real freedom in a world where content has been commodified and the wildness of the web has been curtailed.
Conclusion
When considering the future of the web it is important not to fall into the trap of technological determinism. The technological landscape is changing, as is its culture. It will be shaped by the powerful as well as technology. Outcomes will be influenced by:
- The response of governments will put in guidelines for the deployment of the technology.
- The continuance of critical and balanced (new and old) media reporting- the fourth estate.
- The self-regulation by the platforms to lead to safer outcomes.
Open source projects such as Drupal, provide a technological alternative to the large platforms which have dominated of late. Drupal offers path forward for organisations who wish to remain in control of their website and content. Ultimately it comes down to being part of the open web and participating in the vision that formed the early days of the web.
