Rebegun, The Clone War Has

Written by Brook Schaaf

You have to hand it to George Lucas. Not only did he create one of the most popular movie franchises ever, but Yoda’s archaic-English-inspired, inverted syntax speech pattern seems like just the right phrasing for certain cultural moments, like “Begun, The Browser Wars Have” (AdExchanger).

The real-world reference here is Perplexity’s announcement of its $200/month Comet browser with agentic AI functionality. OpenAI also announced its own, likely to debut later this summer. The Comet demo is quite impressive. Be sure to check out the short shopping video, which rips links off of a review site. As HelloPartner soberly noted, “Right now, we do not know how affiliate will fit into the mix from a compensation perspective, but the conversation should be getting started.” Having subscribed to Comet myself, let me say that the coupon results are not impressive (at least, not yet).

I kept the reference to The Clone Wars movie because the theme of cloning, or at least copying, is so strong here. Consider that, like cars, browsers aren’t so entirely different from each other; features and speed aside, you’ll get to your destination. Consider that each of the first two browser wars was won through distribution (Microsoft’s Internet Explorer with the Operating System, Google’s Chrome with cash payouts). Consider that the strategic market entry of Chrome was through and alongside open source Chromium, which makes it much easier to copy because the same extensions will work on any Chromium-based browser, like Microsoft Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Comet, or Operator (apparently the name for OpenAI’s).

Chrome would seem to be in a defensible position with 68% worldwide market share and, apparently, its own high-priced ($249/month) agentic Chrome agent, named Project Mariner (this was announced in May, but somehow didn’t make it onto my radar—perhaps not a good sign for Google).

But Google’s position is more vulnerable than it seems for two reasons: first, agentic AI is going to reduce most dramatically the sweet, sweet flow of AdWords dollars, so the transition will be financially painful. Second, because the anti-trust ruling remedy for Google’s search advertising monopoly is anticipated next month. The light remedy will be a ban on freezing out competing browsers in pre-bundling, i.e., easing the chokehold on distribution. The severe remedy will be a forced divestiture of Chrome, among other possibilities.

AdExchanger pooh-poohs search without an operating system or customer data, but I think this places excessive value on historical data when the crux of the matter is supporting user tasks, which agents can do especially well as they are the same as the user himself, i.e., not third-party scraper bots. As noted in The Media Copilot, “While AI bots generally need to identify themselves as synthetic, which can sometimes mean they’re blocked, Perplexity bypasses certain defenses for user agents (as opposed to search crawlers).” This will be true of all agentic search, unless the website is willing to block the human user as well. 

Should you have a bad feeling about this, take heart. As in the past, this new war will play out over years, especially if the price tag for the next-gen browser is so hefty. During this time, publishers and merchants will be able to adjust, and they may be able to claim new territory for themselves.

The shopping cart must remain (and Shopify is drawing a line in the sand around its own), as will price segmentation (sales, coupons, and cashback to remain beloved as ever) and review or discovery content, not to mention navigation and arbitrage. Some kind of fee or revenue-sharing arrangement will need to be made between the publishers and the AI crawlers, not just because content will wither away but because the AI companies need revenue, too. And if the browser market again becomes fragmented as the search market is likely to be, affiliates shall have many more opportunities.

It may well play out that the best and most deserving agent wins—the human agent. May this force be with you.