Death to the super-app… long live the ‘ultra-app’
Today’s super apps are narrow, tightly integrated walled gardens… it’s time for a new breed of customer digital platforms that unleash broad, but tightly-connected open ecosystems
Hi everyone,
Thanks for coming back to Customer Futures.
Each week I unpack the fundamental shifts around Empowerment Tech. Digital wallets, Personal AI and new digital customer relationships.
This is a PERSPECTIVE edition, a regular take on the future of digital customer relationships.
If you’re reading this and haven’t yet signed up, why not join over three thousand executives, entrepreneurs, designers, regulators and other digital leaders by clicking below. To the regular subscribers, thank you.
Today’s super-apps like Alipay, Grab and Gojek are amazing platforms.
They are super-platforms.
They can add all sorts of additional services - adjacent services - because they bring the customer to one place (their platform) and use the data from one service to enable the second.
Once onboarded, users can access a range of applications that take advantage of their personal data, all managed by the platform. Re-using data from one service to another. Making these super-apps incredibly useful.
Come for the taxi, stay for the movie tickets (Gojek).
Come for the food delivery, stay for the train booking (Uber).
Come for the insurance, stay for the groceries (Grab).
It makes them super-flexible, super-expandable, and they become super-valuable.
Both to the users, and to the tech providers who take a handsome cut of all the transactions on the super-app platform. Now THAT’S super-valuable as a business.
Today’s super-apps have seen explosive adoption and growth in their core markets. Because when you look closely you’ll see an incredibly efficient data flywheel that’s driving these network effects. It’s an oversimplification, but the platforms can offer me product B because they have my data from product A.
Over time, they collect even more data from product A and B. They can then start to build an excellent picture of how I behave on the platform, what else I do, and therefore what I might like. Which services to offer. What financial products to provide (or not).
Not only does this enable pretty good personalisation, but a tight recommendation engine.
From a customer acquisition point of view, the killer feature is seamless - and nearly instant - onboarding flows. From product to product to product.
All the value, all the customers, all the network effects.
So what’s the downside?
Walled gardens
Super-apps are able to create this flywheel precisely because they control the experience end-to-end.
It’s all locked in.
A walled garden.
The platform alone decides what other apps and services are made available to users.
Adding the next user application or service means agreeing:
Commercials - who pays what, and how does the value flow from the super-app platform to the application, and to user?
Legal and data - what data is collected and flows to and from the application, and to and from the platform? What is stored where and why?
Technical - how is the app integrated into the super-app platform, and what other extensions and platform dependencies are there?
Experience - what is onboarding flow, and how does the experience integrate with the super-app platform overall?
In the super-app world, it’s the platform owner that decides and controls all this. Short term, of course, this is a great. These super-apps are doing very well, thank you very much.
But zooming out a bit, this platform model and control presents a limit.
To the growth. To the value. To the scale.
I’m sure the super-app platform providers would like to expand into more areas. To offer even more applications. To drive even more growth.
But these commercial, legal, technical and user experience questions are barriers to that growth.
Perhaps they sometimes identify a knock-out commercial opportunity. But there’s a blocker around technical integration. Or perhaps it’s via a 3rd party provider, and they can’t agree terms around access to platform data.
Can super-apps become more open?
Regular readers will see where I’m going.
What if we could bundle the best of super-apps, but make them more open?
The same instant onboarding. The same seamless experience. The same product A → product B recommendations, rewards and personalisation.
That’s where we’re headed with Empowerment Tech (ET). A new category of Personal AI, digital wallets and digital customer tools that live on the customer side.
I predict Empowerment Tech is going to unbundle super-apps in marvellous and exciting new ways.
Because anyone will be able to prove anything, to anyone, anywhere.
Look at it this way. Today’s super-apps are narrow, tightly-integrated walled gardens. Highly valuable if they can keep the flywheel spinning internally. And if they can capture the winner-takes-all-effects. Inside the garden it’s beautiful. But it’s a ‘zero sum’ game.
A new breed of digital customer platforms are emerging. The vision? We’ll shift from narrow, but tightly-integrated businesses… to broad, tightly-connected open ecosystems.
You used your flight app today to check-in, so you can now use it to get free access to the gym and pool nearest to your hotel.
You used your employee app today to log in, so you can now use it to get a free taxi ride tomorrow.
You used a student app today for access to the learning system, so you can now open a student bank account in under 30 seconds, and with 3 taps.
Of course, there are dependencies. Things like user experience flows, commercial models and liability frameworks. In other words, ‘acceptance networks’ for the data. But that’s coming.
You see, this new approach won’t immediately disrupt the super app-model. But it may open it all up. Businesses will be able to access many more applications. Many more services. And create more value.
And I’ll say it again. Just like Embedded Finance is disrupting financial services - where ‘every company can become a FinTech company’ - soon, we’ll see Embedded Identity. Where digital identity won’t feel like an extra step or app. It won’t even feel present.
It’ll just feel like another seamless experience, organised around the individual, rather than the business.
We should also consider that the super app platforms themselves will embrace ET faster than the web2 platforms.
Why?
Because it’s where millions of customers already are. Turning a super app into something bigger. Offering users even more value, even more services.
I believe this new breed of ET-powered customer platforms will not only become possible, but will become inevitable. Because the (customer data) sum will be greater than the (digital wallet) parts.
Maybe we’ll call them ultra-apps.
They will be ultra-flexible, ultra-scalable, and ultra-valuable. But they will be more than that too. Because they’ll be ultra-private, ultra-secure and ultra-personal.
And remember, this is all before you throw in Personal AI. Smart, autonomous agents that live on the side of the customer. Another post coming on that soon.
‘Ultra’ comes from the Latin for ‘beyond’.
It’s time to move beyond the super-apps of today. Beyond walled gardens. And beyond today’s limits of creating value for users.
Ultra-apps will be the next generation of platforms for the digital economy, and will open up a limitless set of use cases and new value for people and businesses.
I’m excited about where this is all headed.
I’m beyond excited.
I’m ultra-excited.
If you enjoyed this and want to learn more about the future of the digital economy and customer relationships, sign up now: