The Internet was a slow burn starting in the 1960s and gaining momentum through one of humanity’s most productive generations into the 80s and beyond, spurred on by personal computing. Mobile was a (retrospectively) natural continuation.
LLMs have been around for a very long time but they’re just forcing the issue with a product that’s not yet compelling enough to justify its enormous cost. It’s like waiting for the iPhone and the App Store to make smartphones ubiquitous.