Indeed there is, and you would be correct in that assumption! Take a look at CXL. It's currently optimized for NVMe, Ethernet, or co-processors (GPUs.) It uses the PCIe Gen 5.0 physical layer (but then again most SerDes IPs are general purpose and go into all different types of controllers.) It's essentially an alternate protocol that is negotiated in PCIe link up.

What's nice is that it still keeps everything good about PCIe - like the electrical and mechanical spec, but does away with the old legacy things that nobody likes about PCIe. However, I'm not super familiar with CXL, so maybe it just looks nice from far away.