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Why owning the browser matters for where the future of work and enterprise software is going

January 14, 2022

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Blogs

Udit Garg, Head of Product

I have been Head of Product at Retain.ai for a few months now, and I am incredibly excited by the company, product, and potential we have here. We are solving a real pain point, have a fully GA product working at scale, and have some of the biggest enterprises in the world as customers.

A key belief we have at Retain is that the internet browser is the future of where work is done. It is how you interface with modern applications; prepare your deliverables; and where you perform all your workflows. This belief has driven our product roadmap, our positioning, differentiation, and customer targeting. Our platform has a chromium based browser extension that is able to collect workflow data from over 500 enterprise applications, including calendar and email - and that is how we get the majority of our data. Our early adopters are those who share the same vision.

We estimate that workers already spend 80%+ of their time online (whether it is in web applications, on calls, collaborating, etc), and 60-70% of that work is done in the browser. If those trends hold, the browser will be the clear main interface for enterprise applications. This makes sense if you think about the massive cloud migration- most of those applications are accessible through a web interface (in a way this is nothing new). 

We also continue to have the discussion of “what about work outside of the browser such as Powerpoint?” It is a valid question and yes, many people do work outside of the browser. 

First, I think that is going to change in some instances. Our bet is that more and more people will be working online, and they will continue to move into the browser. Take even Microsoft Office- over the past few years a lot of the collaboration has moved online through Office 365 and Sharepoint. I think in the next few years most people will be using the browser versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc instead of the desktop versions.

Second, I am in no way saying everything will go through the browser. For example, we see heavy usage of native applications for collaboration (email, messaging, calls) or a large shift to mobile applications for “on the go” work. I pride ourselves in building a flexible architecture that can combine your activity data from wherever it is done (application and form factor). 

The value really comes together when one can look across all your workflows combined including email, meetings, collaboration, AND BROWSER and create that true view on all the work performed by individuals or for the customer lifecycle. 

Here at Retain, we live where you work - and we believe that is and will increasingly be in the browser. It also happens to be the only way to solve the problem we solve (please contact us to learn more about what we do). We will be able to provide workflow intelligence on more and more of an individual’s activity. Our vision is that Retain is your primary “performance enablement” tool that knows where you spend your time and coaches you on how to stay focused on your OKRs and objectives. The future of all work is definitely online, and a lot of it will be in the browser, and for many, it is already true. We are ready. Learn More.