The year 2024 has reshuffled the cards of the web in areas that most annual reports do not cover: European regulation on AI content, Google’s strategic retreat on third-party cookies, and the rise of bots in global traffic. We review the structural changes for web development professionals, digital marketing, and online communication.
AI Act and labeling of AI content: what changes for websites in 2024
The regulation (EU) 2024/1689, known as the AI Act, came into effect on August 1, 2024. Its Article 50 requires chatbots to clearly indicate to users that they are interacting with artificial intelligence. Deepfakes (images, audio, video generated or manipulated by AI) must carry a visible label.
Providers of large generative models like OpenAI or Anthropic must integrate a machine-readable watermark into the produced content, with a compliance timeline running until December 2, 2026, for models already on the market. The fines for non-compliance can reach 15 million euros or 3% of global revenue.
For web teams, the consequence is direct: any site that publishes AI-generated content (e-commerce product sheets, articles, visuals) must anticipate these labeling obligations. We observe that several players are already following this regulatory news on the Journal Du Web site, which aggregates developments impacting the digital strategy of businesses.
Automated web traffic: bots surpass humans
The information has gone relatively unnoticed in Francophone circles. In 2024, automated bots now represent the majority of global web traffic, surpassing human visitors. This shift affects all types of sites: e-commerce, media, SaaS applications.
The operational consequences are multiple:
- Audience metrics (page views, sessions, bounce rates) lose reliability if bot filtering is not properly configured in analytics tools
- Marketing campaigns based on cost-per-click suffer from artificial inflation due to non-human clicks
- Anti-scraping protection systems become a separate budget item for sites with substantial editorial content
Web development teams must rethink their approach to performance measurement. A site that shows traffic growth without segmenting humans and bots is mistaken about its own reality.
Google’s abandonment of third-party cookies: the backtrack and its effects
Google announced during the summer of 2024 the abandonment of its plan to eliminate third-party cookies in Chrome. After years of communication about the Privacy Sandbox and the gradual replacement of trackers, this reversal caught the advertising ecosystem off guard.
Advertisers and networks that had invested in cookieless solutions (universal identifiers, contextual targeting, Topics API cohorts) now find themselves maintaining hybrid strategies in parallel. The third-party cookie remains functional in Chrome, but its regulatory legitimacy continues to erode under the pressure of the GDPR and the Digital Services Act.
We recommend not slowing down the transition to server-side tracking and first-party data architectures. The signal is clear: even if Google is temporizing, the underlying trend towards a web less dependent on third-party cookies remains intact. Companies that have already migrated to privacy-respecting measurement solutions retain a structural advantage.
Web design and user experience: technical areas to watch
The web design trends of 2024 are not limited to aesthetic choices. Two technical areas deserve the attention of digital professionals.
Performance and Core Web Vitals
Google continues to weigh user experience signals in its ranking. Interaction to Next Paint (INP) has officially replaced First Input Delay as the reactivity metric. Sites whose front-end development relies on heavy JavaScript frameworks must audit their INP, as a degraded INP score directly impacts search result positioning.
AI integration in design tools
Figma has integrated artificial intelligence features into its design workflow. This evolution changes the daily life of web design teams: generating variants of mockups, suggesting components, partially automating design systems. The effect on productivity is tangible but raises the question of interface homogenization if AI suggestions are not guided by strong artistic direction.
DSA and platform compliance: rising obligations
The Digital Services Act (DSA) expanded its scope in 2024. Platforms like ChatGPT, Reddit, or Roblox are now subject to stricter oversight by the European Commission. The obligations focus on content moderation, algorithmic transparency, and the protection of minor users.
For digital marketing and communication professionals, the DSA changes the rules of the game on several fronts:
- Targeted advertising campaigns on designated platforms must comply with enhanced transparency requirements
- Online marketplaces (Shein, Temu) must comply with the DSA, affecting cross-border e-commerce strategies
- The terms of use for social media data APIs are evolving, impacting social listening and analytics tools
The European regulatory framework is becoming a key parameter of digital strategy, on par with SEO or technology choices. Companies that treat compliance as an isolated legal issue are falling behind those that integrate it from the design phase of their web projects.
The year 2024 marks a turning point where regulation weighs as much as technology in web decisions. AI Act, DSA, postponed abandonment of third-party cookies: each evolution redefines practices in development, web design, and digital marketing. Teams that map these constraints now approach 2025 with a head start.
