We’re replaying the browser wars of the 1990s. But this time it’s software companies in the crosshairs.

Remember the browser wars?

Back in 1995, Microsoft realised something rather important. If you controlled the browser, you controlled how people accessed the internet.

Netscape had built a very nice business. Microsoft had other ideas.

Microsoft’s real fear wasn’t losing the browser market. It was losing Windows.

If applications could run inside Netscape, people might no longer care which operating system they used. So Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with Windows, which ran on roughly 90% of PCs, and gave it away for free.

In 1998, US regulators took Microsoft to court, accusing it of using its Windows monopoly to crush browser competition.

Now it’s happening again with AI.

Except this time, the prize isn’t the browser.

It’s the entire software industry.

Think about what happens when you use ChatGPT or Claude.

You ask it to create a newsletter. It connects to Mailchimp.

You ask it to design a graphic. It connects to Canva.

You ask it to organise a project. It connects to Notion.

You no longer need to open three different applications. You just tell the AI what you want.

And that’s the crucial shift.

Mailchimp, Canva and Notion become the tools in the background. AI becomes the interface.

Which puts OpenAI and Anthropic in an extraordinary position.

They can increasingly see which tools customers use, what they’re trying to achieve and where the friction lies.

And then build those capabilities themselves.

Why send you to Canva when AI can generate the design?

Why send you to Mailchimp when AI could eventually manage the entire campaign?

Software companies have noticed. But they’re stuck.

Don’t integrate with AI and you risk becoming invisible.

Do integrate and you risk becoming replaceable.

It’s the browser wars all over again. Except Microsoft controlled the operating system. OpenAI and Anthropic are competing to control the layer through which we use software.

But this time it feels worse.

We seem to have lost some of the cultural energy to challenge these new behemoths.

Vested interests have too much at stake. And the computing power needed to create a genuinely open, competitive AI market isn’t widely available.

Yet.

Twenty-five years ago, regulators challenged Microsoft’s attempts to use one monopoly to dominate another market.

This time it’s the entire software industry caught in the crosshairs.