Analog is becoming increasingly digital

I just turned out to be quite surprised by connecting to my Dell Latitude E6440 highly analog Skullcandy headphones.




Headphones that connect 3.5mm three-pin jack have always been exclusively analog thing. Only three wiring: left channel, right channel and ground. Yes, at a certain point in time, there were “iPhones” and headsets for them, which could already switch tracks on the phone and adjust the volume. But it was not standardized, and these additional functions of the headsets from some manufacturers did not work on competitors.
')
Here I deal with ordinary headphones, without a microphone, without control buttons. And despite the fact that they use the familiar 3.5mm mini-jack, the laptop recognized the manufacturer of the headphones and their type:



Apparently, the headphones have a chip that is connected to two jack contacts and a differential digital signal is transmitted through them, along with an analog signal. And in the sound cards of laptops there appeared a function which, according to a certain standard protocol, this chip polls.
The question is, for what? Just to show the name of the manufacturer and the class of headphones? What does it affect? When did it become a standard?
On requests like "How laptop recognize my headphones vendor" nothing intelligible was found.
Forgive me these questions in the format of the topic, but it seems very entertaining.
If in the comments there is information shedding light on this question, I would gladly complete the topic.