The web in 2024 is not just a list of trendy frameworks or graphic redesigns. This year, structural changes come from the European regulatory layer, which reshuffles the deck for search engines, browsers, and conversational AIs. We are seeing concrete effects on the digital strategy of companies, far beyond simple design.
Digital Markets Act and online search: what is changing in Europe
The DMA began to produce measurable effects as early as March 2024. Google had to open anonymized access to its search data for the benefit of competing engines in the European Economic Area. This obligation, based on Article 6(11) of the regulation, changes the game for any SEO strategy aimed at the European market.
Windows Search has also been adjusted: Microsoft removed Bing suggestions and certain Store recommendations in the EEA to comply with the same regulatory deadline. European users now access a less locked-down search environment, which opens up opportunities for alternative engines and sites that rely on multi-platform SEO.
On the browser side, Apple launched BrowserEngineKit in March 2024 to comply with the DMA. On iOS 17.4, third-party browsers in the European Union can now use their own rendering engine instead of being constrained to WebKit. We regularly follow the news on Tip Top du Web to measure the impact of these developments on traffic and site performance.
For web teams, the direct consequence is threefold:
- Analytics data must incorporate a diversification of organic traffic sources, as alternative engines gain regulated visibility.
- Cross-browser testing on iOS in Europe becomes mandatory, as rendering is no longer guaranteed to be identical between Safari and third-party browsers.
- Content strategies must anticipate a more fragmented search ecosystem, where the dominant position of a single player gradually diminishes.
Conversational AI and DSA obligations: a new framework for web content
ChatGPT has been designated as a platform subject to the Digital Services Act. This classification imposes transparency obligations on OpenAI regarding generated content, moderation, and access to data by European regulators. Conversational AI falls within the scope of online content regulation, just like social networks.
For web professionals, this means that content produced or assisted by AI must meet traceability requirements. Sites that integrate chatbots or automated text generation functions must document the role of AI in content creation, under penalty of non-compliance.
We recommend auditing automated content flows on your sites now. The boundary between human editorial content and machine-generated content becomes a compliance criterion, not just a perceived quality issue.
Privacy-first analytics and the end of third-party cookies: adapting your tech stack
Post-GDPR analytics tools are redefining user data collection. The privacy-first trend is no longer just a marketing positioning: it stems from combined legal obligations (GDPR, ePrivacy, DMA). Server-side solutions and cookie-less analytics are becoming the norm for sites operating in the European market.
Transitioning to tools like Matomo, Plausible, or server-side configurations of Google Analytics requires a redesign of the measurement layer. Classic metrics (bounce rate, pages viewed per session) lose reliability when consent is not granted. The challenge is to build reliable indicators with partial data.
Three areas deserve particular attention:
- Modeling conversions, which compensates for signal loss through statistical estimates rather than exhaustive tracking.
- Enriching first-party data through forms, user accounts, and direct interactions on the site.
- Tracking Core Web Vitals remains a measurable SEO lever without cookies, and constitutes a convergence point between technical performance and compliance.
User experience and web design in 2024: what technical performance demands
UX/UI trends in 2024 are less dictated by aesthetics than by technical constraints. The opening of rendering engines on iOS pushes front-end teams to rethink their compatibility testing. A site that worked perfectly under WebKit may show significant rendering discrepancies on Gecko or Blink in the European context.
Responsive design now incorporates a geographic regulatory variable. Interfaces must adapt not only to screen sizes but also to browser configurations that vary according to the user’s jurisdiction. This added complexity enhances the appeal of Progressive Web Apps, whose behavior is more predictable from one engine to another.
The integration of artificial intelligence into interfaces (chatbots, personalized recommendations, internal semantic search) adds a layer of design. The design of these components must account for consent states, transparency notices, and opt-out options compliant with the DSA.
Creating websites in 2024 requires close coordination between developers, legal experts, and marketing teams. The European web now operates under rules distinct from the rest of the world, and digital strategies that ignore this reality accumulate a costly compliance debt. Professionals who integrate these constraints from the design stage gain a structural advantage over their competitors.
