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Forget the Cape! Here's Why CMS Is Your 'Unsung Hero' in 2025

Here's Why CMS Is Your 'Unsung Hero' in 2025

Not All Heroes Wear Capes. Here's Why CMS Is Your 'Unsung Hero' in 2025

In an age of AI superpowers, Janus Boye tells us why CMS keeps saving the day with real value.

Presenting the Winners of the 13th Annual CMS Critic Awards!

CMS Critic Awards

<hr /> The Oscars might have <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conclave_(film)">Conclave</a>, but we have content. And Demi Moore can have <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Substance">The Substance</a> – because we've got the schema. Sure, it would be great for Conan O'Brien to host the 13th edition of our world-famous <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/cms-critic-awards">CMS Critic Awards</a>, but we've got something even better than the Academy: You.That's right. YOU.You activated your communities and rallied the vote. You brought enthusiasm for these platforms, showing up to support your favorite tools. You inspire us – and for that, our cup runneth over. While our little awards program has a streak of competitiveness, it's all about celebrating our industry and the continued innovation we see from all corners. From the vendor's perspective, it's an opportunity to highlight the power of your users – from marketers to developers – and let their voices sing. Most of all, the CMS Critic Awards is a chance to have some fun in our fast-paced, nose-to-the-grindstone world. It reminds us that people, not platforms, are at the heart of this content game. From all of us at CMS Critic, thank you for participating. Keep carrying a torch for the tools you love. <h3 id="the-envelope,-please…">The Envelope, Please…</h3> <figure class="media"><div data-oembed-url="https://youtu.be/QVcEwG_3Vw8"><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56.2493%"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QVcEwG_3Vw8" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></figure> Dramatic pause: Before we break the seal, we have a few notes on this year's list of champions:As you'll see, a couple of vendors showed up in a big way, owning more than one category. Still, several newcomers popped up in our nominations wave – no one we would call <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Complete_Unknown">A Complete Unknown</a>, but some smaller solutions that managed to make the cutoff. Congrats to all of you, and bring the thunder again next year. Because you never know what can happen.Here are your winners in the 13th Annual CMS Critic Awards: <hr /> - Best Enterprise CMS: Umbraco  - Best DXP: Sitecore  - Best Free CMS: Umbraco  - Best Headless CMS: Umbraco  - Best Open Source CMS: Joomla  - Best ECM: Microsoft SharePoint  - Best Flat File CMS: Statamic  - Best Website Builder: uSkinned  - Best Static Site Generator: Statamic  - Best DAM: Sitecore  - Best PIM: Pimcore  - Best e-Commerce Solution: Shopify  - Best Headless Commerce Solution: Shopify  - Best Composable Solution: Umbraco  - Best AI Solution in a CMS or DXP: Umbraco  - Best Development/Hosting Platform: Azure <h3 id="congratulations-to-this-year's-winners!">Congratulations to this year's winners!</h3>What can we say? We’re thrilled to have such a passionate community of readers, and we’re already looking forward to next year’s Awards. Given the shifting landscape of categories, we'll be making some changes for our 14th annual program, and even expanding a few things (don't worry, CMS is still closest to our heart). Remember to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/signup">sign up for alerts</a> about additional events this year, and check below for some upcoming conferences that we'll be attending and speaking at.       Vendor Marketing Departments: Looking to promote the good news? Email us at <a href="mailto:info@cmscritic.com">info@cmscritic.com</a> to request your exclusive badges and claim your 30 day Product Directory upgrade.  <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.46%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/cms-summit-25.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">CMS Summit 25</a></h4>May 13-14, 2025 – Frankfurt, GermanyDon't miss the first European edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community! CMS Summit 25 will bring together top-notch speakers, our renowned learning format, and engaging social events. Hear from leading practitioners like Deutsche Bahn, Dr. Oetker, and more – and join customers, agencies, and CMS vendors as we discuss current trends and what's ahead for the content and digital experience fields. Connect and network at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference focused on CMS. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

The Envelope, Please: We Proudly Present the Winners of the 13th Annual CMS Critic Awards

Find out who took home the trophy in each category.

Generative AI is Making Content King Again

<a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/michael-spenceley">Michael Spenceley</a> is Leader, Learning &amp; Content Standards - Innovative Medicine at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.jnj.com/">Johnson &amp; Johnson</a> and a CMS Critic Contributor. <hr />If you're a content professional, you've likely spent much of your career focused on how to govern the accuracy and quality of content. As Generative AI (Gen AI) has entered our collective corporate consciousness, our content is now under a microscope. If you have outdated or inaccurate content, Gen AI will bring it into focus for all to see. On one hand, this will lead to uncomfortable conversations for those who are responsible for the accuracy of content, but this also presents a significant opportunity for content professionals. Here's a conversation I’ve had a few times lately: Business Leader: “We have all this content, if we put it in a Gen AI tool, won’t that make it easier for people to get answers, reduce call center volume and create a better experience for our employees and customers?”Technologist: "Yeah, we can do that. We can integrate your CMS or knowledgebase with our Gen AI platform."Business Leader: “Michael, what do you think?”Me: "Well, I think there are more questions we need to ask. Do we have quality content to feed into the Gen AI experience? Do we have the right level of governance to ensure accuracy? Do we have clear roles and responsibilities for those who own content feeding into Gen AI? Is the ROI sufficient to invest the time and money to do this right?”  Business leaders are now recognizing the importance of good content to enable an effective Gen AI experience for employees and customers. Getting content governance right, especially in large organizations, takes lots of people, rigorous processes, clear roles and responsibilities and accountability. Here are three things all content professionals should focus on as Gen AI initiatives take center stage: <h3 id="1.-keep-moving,-even-when-it's-not-perfect">1. Keep moving, even when it's not perfect</h3>Be agile and be okay with imperfection. If you wait to use Gen AI until you've solved all your content governance problems, you will never start. Come up with an approach that works for your organization.  I see it as a two-pronged approach. First, what steps do you take right now to keep Gen AI moving? At this stage, you don't know what will work so keep it simple. Second, while you're doing that, plan for the long-term. To scale your approach, what tech do you need, what integrations and what processes need to be in place? Here’s a real example of what I’ve tried in my organization:When we need content for a new Gen AI use case, we follow this process:<ul><li>Identify – Identify relevant content that already exists. </li><li>Validate – Analyze content to ensure we have the most current version and it’s the correct level of detail.</li><li>Remediate – Work with subject matter experts to update content that is out of date and create new content to fill any gaps.</li><li>Extract – Technical team extracts content from our source system to ingest into Gen AI. </li><li>Monitor &amp; Update – Leverage existing reporting and processes to determine when content needs to be updated in the Gen AI tool.</li></ul>This is a largely manual process, but it works for now and as we refine it, we're planning for how best to scale it in the future and reduce manual effort through integrations and automation. <h3 id="2.-get-the-right-people-involved-">2. Get the right people involved </h3>If you're a content professional or a SME who owns content, speak up and get involved in Gen AI initiatives. You know things that are important to this process that others may not know. If you're not a content professional and you're on the technical side of Gen AI, don't go it alone. While you can probably get your hands on some content to start, there is a chance that there's a lot you don't know about the content. When assessing content for accuracy and relevance, there can be many nuances, especially in large global organizations. Additionally, content teams already have processes in place to source and update content, and they have relationships with the subject matter experts who can validate content. Rely on content professionals and SMEs to tell you which content is ready for Gen AI and what steps need to be taken to prepare content. Here’s a real example of what I’ve tried in my organization:We established weekly touchpoints that include a combination of content, IT and business process owners. The content team drives the identify, validate, remediate, extract, and monitor process. The content team works with SMEs and content owners to validate content accuracy and remediate gaps. Our IT partners ingest content into the Gen AI tool and train the model. This ensures that this work is connected to our existing content governance process and isn't seen as additional work for content and process owners. We have one source of truth, one process and one governance model for content. Gen AI is just an additional channel where the content is being consumed. This could change in the future, but leveraging existing processes and infrastructure is an effective way to get things moving quickly.    <h3 id="3.-seize-the-opportunity-to-get-resources-and-support">3. Seize the opportunity to get resources and support</h3>In large organizations, content governance has often not gotten the time and attention it deserves, beyond a small group of content professionals. In the short time I've been working on this, I have learned that this connection between content and the success of Gen AI, is logical but isn't always obvious. It's on us, as content professionals, to speak up, get involved and make the case. Here’s a real example of what I’ve tried in my organization:We engaged with leaders and content owners to help them understand how our content will make or break our journey with Gen AI and are weaving Gen AI into our strategic vision for the future of content. We’re defining requirements for how our content needs to be structured and stored in the future to enable a good Gen AI experience.  Specifically, how to simplify and componentize content with component-level metadata. We’re also defining future-state content governance and what that takes from a resource standpoint. This includes how we drive greater accountability and create clearer roles and responsibilities for our content professionals and content owners to ensure content accuracy. <h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3>As with anything new, there are still more questions than answers. Here are a few questions that content professionals should be thinking about:<ul><li>I’ve been on a mission to promote the idea that less content is more. Will a minimalist approach to content work in the age of Gen AI? </li><li>Many people challenge the accuracy of information coming from Gen AI. What role might content professionals play to change that perception? </li><li>Will content structure, metadata and governance still matter as Gen AI gets more advanced?</li></ul>I’m sure we’ll continue to debate these questions in the coming years. This space is evolving quickly, and I'm confident there will be advancements to make it easier in the future. Given the technology and resource constraints that all organizations are dealing with, these are some practical things to consider as you embark on your Gen AI journey. For now, it’s going to be messy, and that’s okay. Seize this opportunity to elevate your role as a content professional in your organization.    <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.46%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/cms-summit-25.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">CMS Summit 25</a></h4>May 13-14, 2025 – Frankfurt, GermanyDon't miss the first European edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community! CMS Summit 25 will bring together top-notch speakers, our renowned learning format, and engaging social events. Hear from leading practitioners like Deutsche Bahn, Dr. Oetker, and more – and join customers, agencies, and CMS vendors as we discuss current trends and what's ahead for the content and digital experience fields. Connect and network at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference focused on CMS. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

Michael Spenceley of J&J shares 3 things content pros should focus on as Gen AI takes center stage.

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<hr /> “If content is king, context is queen.”That’s what <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contentstack-raises-57-5-million-in-series-b-round-qa-with-ceo-neha-sampat">Neha Sampat</a>, Contentstack’s founder and CEO, had to say about her company’s latest innovation, speaking to the “royal” relationship between content and data – and how their DXP is poised to help brands adapt to customers in real-time to every interaction and across every channel.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/contentstack">Contentstack</a> has been steadily building this evolutionary vision of an “adaptive DXP,” laying the groundwork from the moment <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contentstack-just-acquired-lytics-a-real-time-customer-data-platform-heres-why-it-matters">it purchased Lytics</a> – a customer data platform – last January. After breaking that news, I later visited Sampat at Contentstack’s HQ in Austin during a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/groups/cms-experts">Boye &amp; Company CMS Experts</a> meeting, where she rolled out more of the red carpet surrounding her data ambitions. At the time, I had no idea just how fast she would move to “adapt” Lytics. “The future of digital is here,” she said, “which is why we moved so quickly to deliver on our promise to arm customers with the combined power of content and data.”Indeed, the future is here. And for brands to compete, they need more context than ever. That’s where today’s announcement at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">ContentCon 25</a> (the company’s fourth annual customer shindig) comes in. Contentstack just revealed that it has natively added real-time audience insights, intelligent content recommendations, and omnichannel journey orchestration into <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/livin-on-the-edge-contentstacks-new-adaptive-dxp-might-just-rock-your-world">Contentstack EDGE</a> – its fully integrated adaptive digital experience platform.According to Contentstack, this is an industry-first game-changer at the CMS level. Armed with these features – where content and data are seamlessly combined – brands can deliver one-to-one personalized experiences across every channel.Making the announcement at ContentCon will no doubt help to fortify visibility and reinforce the relevance. Featuring speakers from a number of Contentstack’s marquee customers – including Crocs, Mattel, PetMeds, and Volvo – will help bring greater stickiness to the message as they trumpet their success leveraging the platform’s capabilities. To further elevate the message of performance, attendees will be treated to a closing keynote by two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion and Olympic Gold Medalist <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandi_Chastain">Brandi Chastain</a>, co-founder of Bay Football Club.This is sure to score points as partners, agencies, and practitioners leave with practical wisdom – as well as a deeper sense of Contentstack’s roadmap for adaptive digital experiences. <h3 id="a-speedy-expansion-to-the-‘queendom’">A speedy expansion to the ‘queendom’</h3>I recently <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/livin-on-the-edge-contentstacks-new-adaptive-dxp-might-just-rock-your-world">wrote about Contentstack EDGE</a>, the brand envelope for its adaptive DXP. This new platform identity came just five months after its acquisition of Lytics, which demonstrates the speed and efficacy of Contentstack’s team in the pursuit of value from its CDP purchase.We’ve seen other vendors ride hype around M&amp;A, only to have a slow integration and consolidation period that can last years. Worse, the results are sometimes spotty, resulting in a cumbersome UX that misses the mark. This is fast by every modern measure, and the motivation was clear.It’s still early days for these new capabilities, but Contentstack has always doubled down on the user experience, making its native <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contentstack-launch-aims-to-simplify-front-end-hosting-interview-with-dean-haddock-senior-product-manager">products like Launch</a> incredibly easy to use. Speed is absolutely critial, but so too is the delivery of an experience that meets – or at best, exceeds – customer expectations. <h3 id="“the-royal-treatment”-of-ai-powered-personalization">“The royal treatment” of AI-powered personalization</h3>AI is the name of the game, and Contentstack has been at the innovation edge since 2023, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/a-closer-look-at-contentstacks-ai-features-with-christine-masters-senior-product-manager">when I first demoed</a> its early GenAI capabilities. They were certainly novel at the time, and they were one of the first platforms to focus on more concrete, high-utility applications at the workflow level – where automation was solving real problems. Personalization has arguably come a long way. It’s not the elusive “Holy Grail” it once was. But according to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contentstack-fires-up-brand-relevant-ai-powered-personalization-at-contentcon-2024">Conor Egan,</a> Contentstack’s SVP of Product, there are still barriers to realizing its potential. “Personalization is a priority, but brands struggle to deliver,” he said. “The reality is too abstract, complicated, disconnected or they’re locked into legacy tech that makes agility impossible.”Last year, Contentstack released a new personalization engine that combined brand-aware generative AI content creation, automation, and visual building technology. It was a foundation step that unleashed the benefits of AI while simplifying key aspects of the experience. But to deliver true hyper-personalization at scale, both content and real-time data were essential to the recipe. Now, Contentstack is fulfilling the last mile of its personalization vision, providing a blazing-fast integration that addresses long-standing personalization challenges with a practical solution. And by unifying content, data, and journey orchestration into a single, combined platform, brands can power true personalization at scale – all with clarity and confidence.“We’re not just committed to our vision of the future,” Egan said. “We’re offering customers the tools that make personalization possible today.”<h3 id="‘knighting’-its-adaptive-dxp-with-key-features">‘Knighting’ its adaptive DXP with key features</h3>The announcement provides some details about the feature additions to Contentstack EDGE at a granular level, further defining the company’s vision as an adaptive digital experience platform.First, the integration of Audience Insights will enable users to understand what content is driving engagement and delivering on business goals. The added context can help marketers support targeted campaigns and ground their personalization efforts in data-driven insights. Along with visual maps, audience building, and opportunity insights, brands can learn what their audiences care most about in real time. Worth noting: This feature is available at no additional cost to Contentstack customers today.Then, there’s Real-Time Data Activation, which aims to deliver personalized experiences instantly via seamless access to over 200 data connectors. There’s also native integration with existing data warehouses, activated in real time as customers interact – a key benefit that has emerged as brands tap data from a variety of siloed sources.Finally, with Flows, it’s all about scaling the promise of omnichannel personalization. Users can design and automate what Contentstack calls “adaptive customer journeys,” which can guide individuals seamlessly across web, mobile, email, ads, SMS, and other channels, maximizing engagement and conversions. <h3 id="is-this-a-new-reign-for-adaptive-dxps?">Is this a new reign for adaptive DXPs?</h3>For a space that’s often more buzzword than breakthrough, Contentstack is walking the walk with a rarefied air. This launch doesn’t just expand their platform – it helps reshape what’s possible for brands that are still struggling with the paralysis of personalization.Marketers are hungry for the context that Contentstack is promising. The speed at which they’ve delivered these new insights and journey orchestration capabilities is impressive, but UX is key – and we’ll have to see how organizations embrace the feature set. One big benefit here is Contentstack’s focus on customer intimacy and fueling its product enhancements around a solid feedback loop.Atop everything is the crowning position of adaptive digital experiences. While there’s a clear marketing angle, we’re all being forced to adapt to new realities in the race to digital dominance – and Contentstack is building a platform solution around the challenges and opportunities. You can come up with a fancy new name. But you have to make it mean something. And that’s precisely what they’re doing. Contentstack’s ascension to a DXP throne has been hard-fought, but its strategy seems to be paying off. As noted by several key analyst reports, the company’s composable roadmap and the acquisition of a data layer have catapulted it into new quadrants of consideration. This should assist in the battle against industry stalwarts and the general barrier to greater awareness.I still think one of Contentstack’s greatest assets is its culture. Over the years, I’ve spoken to CEO Neha Sampat about the company’s growth ambitions, but it’s always peppered with stories about people – and how Contentstack is doubling down on expanding through diversity and other human-focused initiatives.Case in point: The company has been recognized for its unmatched customer care and tradition of giving back globally through its Contentstack Cares program, including its support of Pledge 1% and “Girls Who Code.”It might be one of the shiniest gems in its crown – and another reason to watch this company as it continues to expand. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-contentstack?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Contentstack? <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to an expert.</a></h4><hr /> <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:33.07%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/contentcon25-logo-1747412490394.png" /><h4 id="contentstack-contentcon-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">Contentstack ContentCon 25</a></h4>June 3-5, 2025 – Chicago, USAThe future of digital is waiting for you! Contentstack presents ContentCon, the premier event for digital teams and industry leaders who are reimagining the future of digital experiences. Join us for two days of transformative presentations and workshops designed to help you put personalization and AI strategies into action. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://contentcon2025.site.zuddl.com/">Register today! </a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

Context Is Queen: Contentstack Crowns its Adaptive DXP with Native Real-Time Audience Insights

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Can we heal the ‘open sores’ in open source? For WordPress, Karim Marucchi has a prescription

<hr /> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jina-zohori/">Jina Zohori</a> is a customer fanatic. OK, maybe customer-centric is more corporately apropos. But given her passion and gusto, fanatic feels a little more on target. It reflects her enthusiasm for championing success at a human level – and bringing <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/agility">Agility CMS's</a> powerful yet simple solutions to content creators and developers.She also sees this rabid customer commitment as a holistic calling, one that marshals an entire organization's collective efforts.“Being customer-centric isn't just marketing's job, or sales’ job, or customer success,” she said during our chat at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/the-deep-dish-on-composable-6-tasty-takeaways-from-the-mach-alliances-2025-conference">“The Composable Conference”</a> a few weeks ago. “It's an engineering job. It's everybody's job. Technology is for everybody. And that experience, driven through our technology, doesn't have to stop at our customers.”That attitude is one of the many reasons why Jina is a rockstar leader – and exactly what Agility needs to navigate the dense and fiercely competitive jungles of the headless CMS landscape. As president, she combines her tech savviness and business acumen to drive strategy and meet the needs of her users, especially those in the deep trenches of digital experience and content creation.When I met with Jina at the recent <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/the-composable-conference-2025-takes-shape-as-mach-alliance-announces-speakers-and-new-events">MACH Alliance conference in Chicago,</a> I was eager to talk to a headless CMS that was a member of the open, best-of-breed cabal. This year’s conference modified the formula a bit, and I wanted some perspective on what’s changed through the CMS lens – and how the Alliance is continuing to support the goals of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">content management systems. </a>This is a key question, especially as the market wrestles with questions about the ROI of composable strategies. As stories of failures and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7310313384015511552/">contradictory posts by VTEX</a> color the decision-making, customers are looking to their trusted SIs and vendors to help them navigate the complexities.As a 22-year veteran of the space, Agility is taking it all in stride. A big part of their success? You guessed it: customer centricity. And as Jina explained, that’s manifested through Agility’s focus on meaningful outcomes.“Our bread and butter isn’t just our content management system as a platform,” she said, “but the experience you gain through that as an editor, as a developer, and of course as an end user consuming that content on the front end.”<h3 id="the-evolution-to-headless-cms">The evolution to headless CMS</h3>While we didn’t go deep into the archives, Agility’s heritage is arguably one of its key advantages. With more than two decades under their belt, they’ve seen market opportunity and turmoil – and continued to persevere. Over the years, the Canadian-born and bred platform has earned a stellar reputation, powering large-scale enterprise brands like Cineplex, Scotiabank, and Mitsubishi Electric with its headless CMS. Like many of its legacy peers, life began as a solution to a common agency problem.“When we were building sites for our customers, we realized, 'Hey, it'd be really great if we had a CMS for this,'" Jina said. "Not only would we be able to have everything housed in one really nice package, but it would give the customer more autonomy, so they're not reliant as much on the developers, which would be us at that point.”As a consultancy, building websites opened more doors for implementing their homegrown CMS. As the footprint expanded, the mission shifted from easing the burden for their internal developers and giving more ownership and domain to their customers.The pivot to a headless CMS architecture came later, as CEO and co-founder <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonvoigt/">Jon Voigt</a> and CTO <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelvarty/">Joel Varty</a> saw the advantages of decoupling to provide even greater control and autonomy for developers. According to Jina, this journey began before the headless “Gold Rush.”“Prior to ‘headless’ being coined as a term, we were already looking at how we become more cloud-native, API driven, and decoupled,” she said.It wasn't quite SaaS at that time, but as Jina explained, Agility was aiming for greater flexibility and optionality, so the front end – whatever it might be, whatever channel the presentation layer should be – provided greater freedom and control.“It allows users to just be able to do more.” And the rest, as they say, is history. From an architectural perspective, Agility’s scalable and flexible posture makes it a seamless solution for composable stacks. I’ve spent a lot of time in the Agility UX, and it reflects thoughtful and persistent innovation. The company makes a conscious effort to engage customers around product betas to help perfect their tooling, which has resulted in its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/product/web-studio">rock-solid Web Studio</a> and other features that put the headless CMS over the top. <h3 id="the-road-to-mach">The road to MACH</h3>Agility has been a member of the MACH Alliance since mid-2023. Since then, the Alliance has ballooned to well over 100 member technologies, many of which have aligned to deliver a myriad of composable solutions. As Jina described, the MACH ecosystem of partners – and the resulting collaboration – has really made an impact for Agility.“What MACH does for us is it gives us that sense of community,” she said. “Not just headless in the CMS space, but all these other vendors that come together and provide a full composable solution. Which, again, gives more autonomy to our customers to be able to easily plug and play with different technologies to fit their stack and their needs to better service their customers.”<h3 id="mapping-the-future-with-ai">Mapping the future with AI</h3>AI was on everyone’s mind at “The Composable Conference,” from agentic AI to agentic commerce and beyond. Like all of its other endeavors, Agility has been careful and intentional around its AI roadmap, blocking and tackling around the hype and engaging with customers around their practical and “blue sky” wish lists.Being at the conference helped crystallize things for Jina – and reinforce Agility’s approach.“Obviously, AI is a big part of what our future roadmap looks like,” Jina said. “But being really strategic and listening to these kinds of stories helps refine that for us. So there's an idea of what you think your customers would want, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna give them AI. But really, how is it impacting their day-to-day experience in our platform to do more with less?”As Jina explained, Agility’s AI play is focused beyond the low-hanging fruit, focusing on tangible ways to make their product experience easier, smoother, and more enjoyable to use.“You're on the platform for eight hours a day sometimes,” she reminded me. To that end, usability is key, and AI should help simplify everything from block editors to manipulating pages and templates. “We're really focused on that day-to-day usage and how we enhance and make that better for our users.”<h3 id="takeaways-from-“the-composable-conference”">Takeaways from “The Composable Conference”</h3><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/the-deep-dish-on-composable-6-tasty-takeaways-from-the-mach-alliances-2025-conference">As I've written about previously,</a> this year’s MACH Alliance confab provided different tracks for attendees, designed for the early “MACH Curious” to “Active” and “Pro” practitioners. Obviously, Agility falls into the latter, and I wanted Jina’s perspective on what stood out.“I've been hearing some of the stories from potential customers, and a lot of the MACH Alliance members are telling us about their pain in the beginning of moving towards a composable stack,” she said. I heard this from attendees as well. She noted that some of this angst might have come from the lackluster promise of easy-to-use software combined with a gap in proper training – or even the introduction of “green” staff with limited experience.One of the big changes Jina zeroed in on was the shift in narrative surrounding use cases. Based on her observation, last year’s content focused more on vendors and how their composable tech stacks were central to solving problems. This year, brands took center stage, and customer experience was the focal catalyst for composable transformation. Interestingly, Jina gained a lot of perspective on this from attending the “MACH Curious” sessions.“I wanted to [know] what triggers people to want to move to a composable solution,” she said. “If they're solving these problems with their monolithic solution, and it’s doing the thing it's supposed to do – the website's up, it's running, it's great, it's converting – what's triggering you to think about what else you can do to make things easier?”Smart. And as Jina noted, uncovering the factors requires a deeper dive with the people working on the product and the solution, and the brands in attendance were openly sharing their lessons on a multitude of dimensions. She found this to be incredibly refreshing.“I love that we're [putting] customers first,” she said exuberantly. “It's not all about how I use these really great brands to build out my tech stack, and now we're making X/Y dollars. A lot of the presentations actually had some of the metrics completely wiped out. Because it wasn't about that – it was about the customer experience.”An “agile” conclusion if there ever was one. Here’s six minutes with Jina:  <figure class="media"><div data-oembed-url="https://youtu.be/dIXrxCrTBho"><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56.2493%"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dIXrxCrTBho" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></figure> <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-agility-cms?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Agility CMS? <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to an expert.</a></h4><hr /> <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:33.07%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/contentcon25-logo-1747412490394.png" /><h4 id="contentstack-contentcon-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">Contentstack ContentCon 25</a></h4>June 3-5, 2025 – Chicago, USAThe future of digital is waiting for you! Contentstack presents ContentCon, the premier event for digital teams and industry leaders who are reimagining the future of digital experiences. Join us for two days of transformative presentations and workshops designed to help you put personalization and AI strategies into action. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://contentcon2025.site.zuddl.com/">Register today! </a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

MACHtales: Voices from “The Composable Conference” with Jina Zohori of Agility CMS

<hr /> CFOs are having an evolutionary moment, particularly in the realm of digital transformation. I’ve been tracking this shift for quite some time, talking to leaders on both the vendor and customer side, and it's clear that the role is expanding beyond financial functions to encompass deeper data analysis, risk management, and broader company strategy. This change has been driven by a myriad of factors, including increased global risk, economic volatility, and a surge in new technologies like AI. But there’s also been a precipitous expansion on the composable side of the DX ledger, where CFOs are increasingly tasked with being more informed about the tech composition of modern stacks to help support better decisions.That brings us to some key news about <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/contentstack">Contentstack</a> – which is, by all measures, on a roll. After the company’s <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contentstack-just-acquired-lytics-a-real-time-customer-data-platform-heres-why-it-matters">sage acquisition of Lytics</a> in January, the composable DXP found itself in the Leaders sphere of the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/gettin-hygge-with-ai-and-more-a-few-cozy-takeaways-from-the-forrester-cms-wave-2025">2025 Forrester Wave for Content Management Systems</a>, validating its strategic roadmap. Now, in a move that signals more than just another executive appointment, Contentstack has hired <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/josetteleslie/">Josette Leslie</a> as its new Chief Financial Officer. And if we're reading the tea leaves, this calculated maneuver suggests the company might be gearing up for some bigger market moves.“Josette brings a rare combination of deep industry understanding, operational insight for fast-growing SaaS companies like Contentstack, and a values-driven leadership style that aligns with our culture,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contentstack-raises-57-5-million-in-series-b-round-qa-with-ceo-neha-sampat">Neha Sampat</a>, Founder and CEO of Contentstack. “Her proven track record of delivering results with strategic vision, strong leadership, and a positive culture will be invaluable as we continue to grow Contentstack and drive the market forward.”Leslie replaces <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dovermyer/">David Overmyer</a>, who was part of Contentstack’s original leadership team. During his tenure, he was instrumental in helping to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/seeing-in-a-headless-world-contentstack-introduces-new-visual-building-capabilities-for-marketers">raise $169 million</a> and scale to an industry powerhouse. Overmyer is retiring from his executive role and will continue to serve on Contentstack’s Board of Directors.<h3 id="evolving-beyond-the-balance-sheet">Evolving beyond the balance sheet</h3>As I said, today’s CFO is as much a strategic growth architect as a financial steward. To that end, Leslie’s appointment is a bold, throat-clearing moment that suggests Contentstack is not only doubling down on its ambitions but rewriting the CFO’s role in a modern digital enterprise.Leslie brings a serious pedigree to the table. With more than 25 years of experience – including high-impact roles at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/squarespace">Squarespace</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://us.etrade.com/home">E*TRADE</a>, and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.instinet.com/">Instinet</a> – she’s no stranger to guiding companies through hyper-growth, IPOs, and operational scale. At Squarespace, she helped shepherd the company through its 2021 IPO, proving she can navigate the complex terrain of fast-scaling SaaS platforms with poise and precision.Her new post at Contentstack comes at a pivotal moment. The company is riding a wave of momentum after acquiring Lytics, which added a critical real-time customer data component to its DXP composition. Add in Contentstack’s recognition as a Visionary in the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/6101227">2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for DXPs</a> – and its #19 spot on <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.forbes.com/lists/americas-best-startup-employers/">Forbes’ 2025 List of America’s Best Startup Employers</a> – and you get a sense that the company is running on rocket fuel. Leslie is building her vision on a solid foundation. In her experience, she’s seen firsthand how financial and operational excellence can accelerate innovation and unlock value. “What ultimately drew me to Contentstack was the caliber of the team and its mission to modernize digital experiences,” she said.<h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>Contentstack's CEO Neha Sampat has praised Leslie’s knowledge, insight, and values-driven leadership style – and rightly so. Given her previous successes in acquisitions, change management, and business revitalization, she brings an unmatched acumen and a tight integration of finance, operations, and go-to-market execution to the table.Let’s not forget that Contentstack is a composable platform, built on modularity and scale. In this space, the role of the CFO is uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between financial performance and platform agility. Leslie’s arrival could signal a more aggressive approach to expansion, M&amp;A, and infrastructure investment, especially as the industry accelerates toward real-time personalization and AI-powered experiences.There's also the new vision that Contentstack has been piloting around “adaptive digital experiences,” which is crystallized by its new <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/livin-on-the-edge-contentstacks-new-adaptive-dxp-might-just-rock-your-world">Contentstack EDGE offering</a>. This new breed of adaptive DXP combines intelligent content and real-time, first-party customer data, courtesy of the new Lytics CDP acquisition. Leslie's tech prowess could be a key activator for propelling EDGE to the forefront. The platform’s ability to react in real time to every customer interaction while staying authentically on-brand through AI and data-driven decision-making could be the new model for marketers and brands that rely on their DXP tools to be fast, elegant, and designed for AI. Hence, it's likely a central initiative for the leadership team. With <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">ContentCon</a> just around the corner, the timing is clearly intentional as Contentstack builds hype and energy around its announcements. The annual conference will no doubt set the stage for what’s next in the convergence of content, data, and personalization at scale. One thing’s certain: With Josette Leslie at the financial helm, Contentstack isn’t just building a future-proof platform. They’re financing the future of digital experiences. And given her wealth of wisdom, she has a clear view of the chessboard – and where to move the pieces. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-contentstack?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Contentstack? <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to an expert.</a></h4><hr /> <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:33.07%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/contentcon25-logo-1747412490394.png" /><h4 id="contentstack-contentcon-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">Contentstack ContentCon 25</a></h4>June 3-5, 2025 – Chicago, USAThe future of digital is waiting for you! Contentstack presents ContentCon, the premier event for digital teams and industry leaders who are reimagining the future of digital experiences. Join us for two days of transformative presentations and workshops designed to help you put personalization and AI strategies into action. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://contentcon2025.site.zuddl.com/">Register today! </a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

Contentstack taps a powerhouse CFO to fuel its next wave of growth. Here’s why it matters

Sorry, Eurovision. The real music was at CMS Summit 25. Here’s what made it a hit

<hr /> What does sustainability mean to you?For those of us in the digital experience industry, it means being more responsible about our carbon footprint and rethinking our web strategies to reduce the impact on the planet. But it's also a word that expresses a deep concern about the future – and how our efforts today can translate into a more stable and fruitful world tomorrow. In early April of this year, Umbraco published its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://umbraco.com/about-us/impact-report/">third annual Impact Report</a>, transparently documenting its vision for sustainable action and its holistic culture to activate change at a global level. Among its peers in the broader industry, Umbraco has long exemplified how a business can tap profitability, build loyalty, and scale to new heights while embracing sustainable practices. In my analysis of the report, I noted how Umbraco synthesized the company’s business and financial performance with its commitment and responsibility to the CMS industry and the world at large. Taken together, it crystallized Umbraco’s successful investment in sustainable strategies and told an inspiring story about how a business can do good in our world.As a next step in shepherding its vision for the year ahead, the open-source .NET CMS provider has revealed the members of its 2025 Sustainability Team, who were culled from its 250,000-strong global community of web developers, designers, content managers, and business leaders.I had a chance to connect with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-w%C3%BClser-larsen-72a6733/">Martin Wülser Larsen</a>, Umbraco’s Business Excellence Manager and new Sustainability Team steward, about Umbraco’s focus on sustainability. He brings a self-described role of “sustainability enthusiast” to his resume, and is squarely centered on managing and supporting this community-based team.<h3 id="why-such-a-deep-conviction-to-sustainability?">Why such a deep conviction to sustainability?</h3>“There is no long-term upside to not focusing on sustainability,” Martin said. “Working sustainably has, for good reason, become a demand from clients, partners, and employees alike.”As Martin indicated, there are compelling forces at play. Some of the need is driven by EU legislation being rolled out (albeit later than first anticipated) with its omnibus initiative. As such, legislative demand for transparency within the supply chain needs to be met. “But that's not the main driver for Umbraco,” he continued. “We believe in creating a sustainable company in the broadest understanding of the word, focusing on the people, planet, and profitability of our company because we believe this is the type of company people would like to engage with as part of the community, do business with, and work at.”As I’ve covered previously, sustainability is a topic many companies are telegraphing to the market. Some are taking authentic actions, others are “greenwashing” for media exposure. I asked Martin how Umbraco isn’t just standing out from the crowd, but leading the way. As you might expect, it comes down to the power of people. “I think a main differentiator is that we’re in a great position to influence a large part of the industry through the Umbraco community and our partnerships with some of the world's leading web agencies,” he reflected. “What we create and share can be utilized by a much larger audience than just our own company, and it’s part of our open source DNA to collaborate and share great ideas.”Much of Umbraco’s current sustainability planning is based on a legacy of interest in this area. The company has long promoted its focus on being more carbon-conscious and taken clear action. Much of its success orbits the early decision to adopt an open source posture and build a strong community of interest.“When it comes to sustainability, I can’t think of a better foundation for having a positive impact than continuing along the open source path that we have been on from the very beginning of Umbraco’s history,” Martin said.<h3 id="sustainability:-a-team-sport-with-agency-players">Sustainability: A team sport with agency players</h3>The Umbraco Sustainability Team was first established in March 2023 as a community-led task force. The collective’s mission was to identify practical ways to reduce the carbon footprint of websites and digital experiences developed on the Umbraco CMS platform. As the world’s most widely used open-source .NET CMS, Umbraco has adopted an internal sense of responsibility to reduce its impact on the environment. To expand the message faster and further, Umbraco is collaborating with digital agency partners and its developer community to make a bigger impact. To achieve a unified front, the Sustainability Team has assembled a bench of people with solid technical experience in developing professional websites using Umbraco or who have the management expertise to guide clients to more sustainable business choices.While technical solutions are key to this initiative, both messaging and education are essential pillars. As such, team members work alongside Umbraco HQ to write blogs, present talks, and host webinars on the latest carbon-conscious web design practices. <h3 id="building-actionable-tools-with-real-world-impact">Building actionable tools with real-world impact</h3>The inaugural Sustainability Team has already made great strides. I asked Martin what tools or resources from their efforts have really resonated with him thus far.“My personal favorite out of the team’s contributions to date is the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://docs.umbraco.com/sustainability-best-practices">Sustainability Best Practices</a>, where they utilized their experience building web solutions and their knowledge of sustainability to create detailed documentation on how to reduce the carbon footprint of web solutions,” he said. “This documentation is available for anyone to use free of charge, and will not only help reduce emissions from web solutions, but could also reduce hosting costs as more energy-efficient solutions are cheaper to host.”The Sustainability Team is also developing a package that provides web content editors with sustainability insights within the Umbraco CMS back office. They also provided technical input to the Umbraco Cloud team during the development of its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://docs.umbraco.com/umbraco-cloud/getting-started/the-umbraco-cloud-portal/sustainability-dashboard">Sustainability Dashboard, </a>which allows web developers to show clients the volume of greenhouse gases generated from running Umbraco Cloud projects – and explain how and where digital operations can be optimized.Giving these tools to agency partners demonstrates their strategic role in executing Umbraco’s big vision. But as Martin suggests, bringing their team members closer to the initiative is another way that Umbraco is reinforcing the importance of community in developing new ways to expand sustainability. “Agencies are getting directly involved by letting their employees participate as members of the team,” he explained. “That alone is testimony that we are doing something right when inviting the people and organizations who are building a business around our products to collaborate with us.”As someone who votes with my own dollars for products and services that meet specific environmental standards, I understand the importance of branding a company’s participation in goodwill initiatives. It raises awareness for programs and potentially motivates further involvement. To that end, I asked Martin how agency partners can communicate their efforts in a positive channel through badging or credentialing. He noted that Umbraco already has a robust <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://umbraco.com/partners/become-an-umbraco-solution-partner/gold/contributing-platinum-gold-partners/">Contributing Partner</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://community.umbraco.com/mvp-program/">MVP program</a>, but liked the idea of granulating it further and enabling the partners to highlight their involvement in creating a more sustainable web industry. <h3 id="the-2025-umbraco-sustainability-team-members">The 2025 Umbraco Sustainability Team members</h3>As Martin noted, the inaugural members of the Sustainability Team have lent tremendous effort over the past two years, illustrating how the Umbraco community has pulled together to share sustainable digital practices with enterprise clients – all with the goal of measurably reducing the web's emissions.The new members of the 2025 Sustainability Team are:<ul><li>Dennis Adolfi, Head of Technology at Danish digital agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://knowitexperience.com/about">Knowit Experience</a></li><li>Peter Solow, Lead Developer at Knowit Experience</li><li>Imran Haider, Head of Development at London digital agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.wearecogworks.com/">Cogworks</a></li><li>Helen Chaplin, Community Services executive at Manchester digital agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cantarus.com/">Cantarus</a></li></ul>Existing members remaining on the Sustainability team include:<ul><li>James Hobbs, Head of Technology at Wiltshire digital agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://aerstudios.co.uk/">aer Studios</a></li><li>Rick Butterfield, Lead Software Engineer at Bristol and London agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.wearewattle.com/">Wattle</a></li><li>Thomas Morris, Senior Software Engineer at roadside rescue and insurance company <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.rac.co.uk/">RAC</a></li><li>Amy Czuba, Account Director at Macclesfield and Cambridge agency <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://nexergroup.com/uk/nexer-digital/">Nexer Digital</a></li><li>Neil Clark, Head of Sustainability at global agency and B-Corp, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.msqpartners.com/">MSQ Partners</a> (also a member of the BIMA Sustainability Council)</li></ul> <figure class="image image_resized" style="width:87.67%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/image.jpeg" alt="A collage of a group of people

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure>Members of Umbraco’s 2025 Sustainability Team. Source: Umbraco. In addition to Martin serving as the new Sustainability Team Steward, this year’s Umbraco HQ team members include Karita Kostiainen and Mikulas Tomanka.<h3 id="what’s-next?">What’s next?</h3>According to Martin, Umbraco has seen increased interest in its Impact Reports over the years, both from agencies and end clients. This seems to indicate that more organizations from across the market are seeking guidance – and ways to take action – to create a more sustainable web.Of course, a big part of realizing this vision is having the right leadership in place. For Martin and Umbraco, that begins with the Sustainability Team. And while the new players have just arrived, he seems ready to hit the ground running. “We’ve only just held our first ‘meet and greet’ with the new members of the 2025 Sustainability Team,” he said. “Now the real work begins.”As Martin explained, it’s important that the Sustainability Team be given latitude in setting goals and establishing relevant benchmarks. He wants to build on the work that’s already been started, bring in new ideas, and ultimately evaluate where the team’s efforts will have the biggest impact.“The inaugural team created a package for Umbraco that allows people to track and reduce emissions from their solutions,” he said. “I expect that we will likely see additions to that, or maybe even new packages, as we have some skilled engineers on the team who are eager to create new solutions.”As part of its ongoing efforts to educate the web community, the Umbraco Sustainability Team just <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://umbraco.com/webinar-sustainability-2025/">hosted a webinar</a> with sustainability champion <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebernerslee/">Mike Berners-Lee</a> on Thursday, May 22nd, at 3 p.m. UK time. If you're not familiar with Mike, he's the author of a groundbreaking series of books on sustainability, including A Climate of Truth: Why We Need It and How To Get It, There is No Planet B, and How Bad are Bananas? Mike was also one of the first researchers to calculate that the IT industry’s greenhouse gas emissions were equivalent to those of the aviation industry. <h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>I personally believe that doing good in the world is good for business – and that it’s indeed possible to be a good steward of the planet while pursuing growth. To that end, I asked Martin how the broader sustainability efforts are translating for Umbraco’s prospects. Is the messaging resonating with customers – particularly at a time when certain markets are deprecating ESG and DEI regulations and setting back previous policies to address climate change? And how can partners and the Sustainability Team support a beneficial trajectory?“During procurement processes, we see that there's already a demand for data about ESG and sustainability efforts from the market,” he said. “Legislation is making it necessary for more and more businesses to better understand and put demands on the suppliers in their supply chains. The team helps us provide just that."For Martin, the big benefit comes from working openly and collaboratively with agencies and having them well-represented within the makeup of the Sustainability Team. As he pointed out, it ensures that Umbraco gets the necessary “outside-in” perspective to align with what the agencies and end-clients prioritize when looking for new vendors.Umbraco has always marched to the beat of its own drum, and this is another example of how the company isn’t just motivated to improve digital experiences – but our planet as well. I can’t think of a better mission. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-umbraco?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Umbraco? <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to an expert.</a></h4><hr /> <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:33.07%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/contentcon25-logo-1747412490394.png" /><h4 id="contentstack-contentcon-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">Contentstack ContentCon 25</a></h4>June 3-5, 2025 – Chicago, USAThe future of digital is waiting for you! Contentstack presents ContentCon, the premier event for digital teams and industry leaders who are reimagining the future of digital experiences. Join us for two days of transformative presentations and workshops designed to help you put personalization and AI strategies into action. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://contentcon2025.site.zuddl.com/">Register today! </a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

Umbraco Reinforces Commitment to Global Impact with 2025 Sustainability Team

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<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/yanghan11/">Yang Han</a> is the Co-Founder and CTO at StackAdapt and a CMS Critic contributor. <hr /> Marketers are drowning in tools but starving for connection. Over the past decade, martech stacks have ballooned, crammed with platforms for everything from email automation to customer journey mapping. Yet instead of making teams faster and smarter, too many disconnected tools create workflow silos, data inconsistencies, and signal loss. Context gets scattered, collaboration slows down, and customer experiences suffer.Tool fragmentation isn’t just inconvenient—it’s a serious barrier to marketing performance. Integrated ecosystems make it possible to connect signals across channels, deliver more cohesive customer journeys, and move faster in an increasingly real-time world. Below, I explore why reducing tool overload is critical for long-term success and offer practical strategies for unifying fragmented martech stacks without throwing everything out and starting from scratch.<h3 id="understanding-the-problem:-what-is-‘tool-fragmentation’?">Understanding the Problem: What is ‘Tool Fragmentation’?</h3>Martech tool fragmentation happens when companies use too many isolated technologies that don’t easily connect. Instead of working as a streamlined system, the stack becomes a patchwork of apps, platforms, and databases. Each tool might serve a purpose, but without integration, they create more friction than flow.In practice, fragmentation leads to disjointed workflows, inconsistent customer data, and campaign delays. Teams scramble to manually move data between systems, while insights stay trapped in silos. Over time, strategies drift, decision-making stalls, and customer experiences feel disconnected.The problem is widespread. According to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/adobe-experience-manager">Adobe</a>, the average enterprise now uses over <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://business.adobe.com/blog/perspectives/rationalizing-your-marketing-technology-stack-an-imperative-for-it-leaders">130 different marketing technologies</a>. Rather than boosting performance, this bloated ecosystem often drags teams down, making it harder to stay agile, personalize effectively, or see the full customer journey.<h3 id="why-integration-matters-more-than-ever">Why Integration Matters More Than Ever</h3>In a world where marketing moves at the speed of the customer, integration has shifted from a nice-to-have to a must-have. When tools work together, teams gain stronger signal continuity with fewer blind spots across channels and customer touchpoints. Unified systems make it easier to deliver consistent messaging and personalized experiences that feel seamless rather than stitched together. Integration also cuts down the hours wasted on manual syncing and patchwork reporting, giving marketers faster access to the insights they need to make smarter decisions. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.stackadapt.com/resources/blog/how-to-prepare-for-ai-strategy">With AI</a>, automation, and real-time personalization becoming core parts of marketing strategies, a connected martech stack sets the foundation for the agility and innovation that today’s brands demand.<h3 id="key-strategies-to-tackle-fragmentation">Key Strategies to Tackle Fragmentation</h3> <h4 id="1.-audit-your-martech-stack">1. Audit Your Martech Stack</h4>The first step toward solving fragmentation is understanding where you stand. Create a full inventory of every marketing tool in use, from major platforms to niche plugins. Assess each tool's core purpose, how often it’s used, and whether it integrates smoothly with other systems. Pay close attention to redundancies—tools that overlap in function—or technologies that don't "talk" to the rest of your stack. A clear view of your ecosystem will make it easier to spot what’s helping and what’s quietly holding you back. <h4 id="2.-prioritize-integration-first-solutions">2. Prioritize Integration-First Solutions</h4>When evaluating new technologies, integration should still be non-negotiable, but smart integration matters more than sheer volume. Too many loose or flawed connections within the same martech stack can create just as many issues as isolation. Focus on platforms that offer open APIs, strong native integrations, and robust partner ecosystems, but also think beyond marketing. Look for tools that connect seamlessly to adjacent areas of your business, like finance, CRM, and sales systems. While integration within martech is critical, overloading your stack with patchy internal connections can lead to complexity without real gains. Unified platforms can offer a better foundation, as long as they are strong enough not to compromise on capability. <h4 id="3.-build-an-integration-roadmap">3. Build an Integration Roadmap</h4>Once you know what needs fixing, map out a plan. Set clear goals for which connections matter most to your workflows—whether that's syncing customer data between your CRM and email platform or aligning analytics across paid media channels. If direct integrations aren’t available, consider middleware like Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) tools, which can act as the connective tissue between systems. A phased approach will make integration manageable instead of overwhelming. <h4 id="4.-train-teams-to-work-across-systems">4. Train Teams to Work Across Systems</h4>Even the best-integrated stack can fall short if people aren’t trained to use it effectively. Integration isn’t just a technical problem; it’s a collaboration challenge. Run cross-team workshops to show how tools are connected, why certain processes are in place, and what best practices to follow. Developing clear standard operating procedures (SOPs) helps teams move more confidently across platforms and reduces the risk of knowledge gaps dragging down performance.<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3>Fragmentation isn’t just a tech issue—it’s a barrier to marketing success. A disconnected martech stack slows down workflows, scatters customer insights, and weakens every campaign's impact. Small, practical steps like auditing your tools, choosing integration-first solutions, building a clear roadmap, and training teams to work across systems can make a big difference. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-stackadapt?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on StackAdapt? <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to an expert.</a></h4><hr /> <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:33.07%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/contentcon25-logo-1747412490394.png" /><h4 id="contentstack-contentcon-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">Contentstack ContentCon 25</a></h4>June 3-5, 2025 – Chicago, USAThe future of digital is waiting for you! Contentstack presents ContentCon, the premier event for digital teams and industry leaders who are reimagining the future of digital experiences. Join us for two days of transformative presentations and workshops designed to help you put personalization and AI strategies into action. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://contentcon2025.site.zuddl.com/">Register today! </a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

Tackling Tool Fragmentation for Martech Success

yanghan

<hr /> It’s no secret that retail is under pressure. The “trade wars” and tariff drama are creating a groundswell of uncertainty, and consumers are shifting their behavior in response.As such, brands are looking for new ways tap AI-powered personalization to drive clicks and sales across the digital commerce frontier. We’re seeing a lot of new innovation at the vendor level, but also partnerships and strategic alliances blossoming to enhance the marketer experience and improve CX outcomes. To that end, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/optimizely">Optimizely</a>, the DXP powerhouse known for its testing, personalization, and content management chops, has announced a strategic technology partnership with unified commerce platform <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/commercetools">commercetools.</a> Together, they’re aiming to transform how enterprise B2C retailers deliver digital experiences.According to the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.optimizely.com/commercetools/">press release</a>, the combination of Optimizely’s content management, personalization, experimentation, and AI capabilities with commercetools’ flexible, composable commerce platform will give marketers greater domain over their digital experiences. The goal is simple: drive conversions and improve customer retention.If it delivers as promised, this partnership could provide a functional, marketer-first solution that unshackles enterprise teams from the grind of dev-heavy digital rollouts and addresses one of the biggest pain points in modern enterprise retail: speed to market.<h3 id="why-this-partnership-matters">Why this partnership matters</h3>Marketers are feeling the heat. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.marketingweek.com/career-overwhelmed-emotional-exhaustion/">According to a recent survey</a>, over half feel overwhelmed, undervalued, and emotionally exhausted. AI is adding some complexity to the equation, but it could also be part of the solution – if it’s done right. For Optimizely and commercetools, freeing marketers to own and accelerate their digital experiences is central to their partnership promise. At the heart of their new integration is the unification of commercetools’ flexible product catalog with Optimizely’s CMS and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.optimizely.com/ai/">AI engine, Opal,</a> which recently announced some fantastic new enhancements. At a high level, here’s how it works: By injecting rich platform data from commercetools to inform AI agents within Optimizely Opal, marketers can leverage product data directly in their CMS. No more chasing down developers for content tweaks or waiting weeks for product pages to go live. Instead, marketers can launch fully personalized, omnichannel campaigns in a matter of weeks, not months.And the timing couldn’t be better. In this volatile consumer market, where trends shift overnight and expectations for personalization are sky-high, speed to market isn’t a luxury. It’s survival.<h3 id="key-benefits-of-optimizely-+-commercetools">Key benefits of Optimizely + commercetools</h3>Again, marketers are central to this partnership, and removing the roadblocks to productivity is key. By unifying content and commerce, users can create content-rich, personalized experiences powered by real-time product and customer data across every brand, market, and channel. With integrated conversions through experimentation, marketers can run A/B and multivariate tests across product, cart, and checkout flows and deploy what works instantly. By using Opal AI to generate product content such as descriptions and sales copy in seconds, marketers can also accelerate their campaign velocity.The Optimizely/commercetools partnership also promises to improve productivity by reducing development friction, giving users greater control over product pages, content, and personalization without submitting tickets to IT. End-to-end workflows will provide marketers with the ability to launch and optimize experiences without relying on the barrier of development resources.There’s also the benefit of leveraging a more composable, scalable architecture that’s future-proofed for what’s next. This is something commercetools is uniquely designed for, coming from a headless commerce heritage. Together, teams will have greater composable latitude for extending or swapping services as needs evolve.<h3 id="behind-the-curtain:-investing-in-innovation">Behind the curtain: Investing in innovation</h3>It’s worth noting that both Optimizely and commercetools are backed by <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.insightpartners.com/">Insight Partners,</a> which counts <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://monday.com/">Monday.com</a> as a successful portfolio IPO. This gives this move an extra layer of strategic depth. Shared investment could signal a potential for aligned roadmaps, faster innovation, and tighter integrations over time. How deep the connection goes is speculative, but the companies seem to be angling around this as a key advantage.Based on how this relationship has been telegraphed, this feels like more than a simple “tech handshake,” but a concerted effort to create a retail-ready composable ecosystem built around the needs of the modern marketing team.<h3 id="the-bottom-line">The bottom line</h3>As I said, retail is getting squeezed, and there’s no crystal ball to predict how things will unfold. In response, the market is getting creative, looking for new ways to provide greater agility and adaptability to maintain growth. Marketers are central to winning that fight, and they need more control and better tools to respond fast to the chaos. At the same time, we’re seeing significant disruption in digital commerce as more product discovery shifts to social, and search slides deeper into channels like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Downstream, Shopify and other tools are becoming more extensible to combat the shifting tides of consumer preference. Building a beachhead between content and commerce – and focusing on the enrichment of data and the usability for marketers – is an area where vendors can establish differentiated value.For enterprise retailers and the content teams that support them, this new partnership is a sign of where things might be headed. The monolithic mashups of the past are giving way to intelligent, modular ecosystems where content and commerce are evolving in omnichannel directions. At the same time, DXPs have made significant strides in embracing a more composable posture to meet this market mandate. Now, they’re all meeting in the middle and exploring new ways to thrive. Both Optimizely and commercetools have reached the top of their respective corners of the DX stack, and this integration is a clear signal that enterprise strategies and priorities are shifting. Many variables are in flux, but if there's one universal constant at play, it's the need for speed. Marketers can't be hamstrung by development delays or complexity – so having an AI-powered solution that gives them greater control and moves at a faster pace is key.Optimizely has already established its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/some-thoughts-on-the-gartner-digital-experience-platforms-dxp-magic-quadrant-for-2025">dominance in the DXP</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/optimizely-leads-gartners-2024-mq-for-content-marketing-platforms-as-more-dxps-join-the-game">Content Marketing Platform</a> categories, and it continues to push the envelope to enrich testing, experimentation, and personalization. But offering a more modular approach for powering commerce with Optimizely's elegant CMS capabilities is another win – and a feather in its own composable cap. Trust is also a key component, and these proven brands offer the kind of scalable assurances that enterprises are seeking. That's a big reason why this new pairing could be a compelling path forward. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-optimizely-or-commercetools?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Optimizely or commercetools? <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to an expert.</a></h4><hr /> <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:33.07%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/contentcon25-logo-1747412490394.png" /><h4 id="contentstack-contentcon-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">Contentstack ContentCon 25</a></h4>June 3-5, 2025 – Chicago, USAThe future of digital is waiting for you! Contentstack presents ContentCon, the premier event for digital teams and industry leaders who are reimagining the future of digital experiences. Join us for two days of transformative presentations and workshops designed to help you put personalization and AI strategies into action. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://contentcon2025.site.zuddl.com/">Register today! </a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

Optimizely and commercetools Partner to Accelerate Enterprise Retail Experiences

<hr /> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jared-smigelski-1b0023163/">Jared Smigelski</a> isn’t a dentist, but he’s doing his part to improve smiles.That’s not easy when you’re modernizing a digital ecosystem that’s been in place for decades. It’s a bit like performing dental work that’s long overdue. Where do you start? How do you ensure a pain-free outcome?When I met Jared at “The Composable Conference” a few weeks ago, I was immediately drawn into his career arc at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/benco-dental/">Benco Dental. </a>He's spent the last 13 years supporting and incrementally improving his company’s digital properties, starting as a software engineer and moving into product and application ownership. Now, he and his team are embarking on a “composable cleaning” that aims to transform his company’s IT posture with a MACH architectural approach – a move that could improve Benco’s competitive agility while future-proofing it for the next wave of tech innovation.“We’re a hundred-year-old company, maybe more, and the site’s been around since there’s been a site,” Jared said. “So it’s heavily monolithic, heavily legacy. All the logic is all over the place, and a lot of it lives on the front end, so we’re looking to pull a lot of that apart. In theory, MACH principles are perfect for what we’re trying to do.”This initiative is exactly why Jared and two of his key practitioners were attending the annual <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/the-composable-conference-2025-takes-shape-as-mach-alliance-announces-speakers-and-new-events">MACH Alliance event in Chicago</a>. They had already started down the composable path by assessing a move to the cloud, embracing an API-first approach, and even procuring several tools to begin “drilling” into their strategy. “We’re in a position right now where we’re integrating a lot of these tools that are already within the Alliance,” he explained, mentioning <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.bloomreach.com/en">Bloomreach</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/contentstack">Contentstack</a> by name.But going composable can be like pulling teeth, fraught with challenges and mired by the looming potential of failure. For Jared, the MACH Alliance community provided a bit of Novocain for his concerns, and hearing the successful use cases from other practitioners made him hopeful about their prospects. For me, this is a fantastic story and a compelling use case. First, it’s an opportunity to hear from a digital leader at the very beginning of his MACH journey, starting with an aging monolithic legacy system – and one that’s homegrown. It's brownfield with a bit of green on the edges. It’s also an example of an enterprise application within the B2B healthcare vertical, which gives it a differentiated spin from the typical retail examples we’re accustomed to in MACH. Finally, Jared’s frankness captured some of the real stakes at play when considering a composable path. In our chat, we delved into his selection of Contentstack as a CMS foundation and what influenced his decision. We also discussed how their roadmap for AI is already beginning to take shape as they consider the possibilities of a MACH-powered future.Will it be easy to realize this vision? Not likely – and he knows this is a years-long gamble for both his team and the company. Getting there could, at times, feel like a mouth full of braces. But with the right planning, mindset, and execution, a more structured and (dare I say) beautiful smile awaits. <h3 id="avoiding-digital-“tooth-decay”">Avoiding digital “tooth decay”</h3>Benco is a storied brand in the dental industry. As the largest privately owned, full-service distributor of dental supplies, equipment, consulting, and equipment services in the US, it has a rich heritage built on almost a century of success. Founded by Benjamin Cohen, the company has remained family-owned and laser-focused on its mission of "delivering success smile after smile."​ Based in Pittston, Pennsylvania, Benco is also the nation's fastest-growing dental distributor with more than 50 regional showroom locations and five distribution centers servicing more than 30,000 dental professionals in all 50 states.As you might imagine, this unabated growth is driving more dependency on Benco’s digital properties, which feature e-commerce shopping capabilities. And while legacy and longevity are key attributes for a brand, Benco’s aging website and infrastructure have been a key source of pain as it looks to scale. To avoid this digital “tooth decay” and get to the next step of digital transformation, Jared has embraced a composable strategy – and tapping the MACH Alliance and its community of expertise is one way he’s hoping to achieve success as he begins to execute.   “The principles, they’ve been around since modern development architecture has been around,” he said, referencing the tenets of MACH. “But actually having some place that pulls it all together is really helpful. We’re here to try to learn more about these principles, get some actionable content when we go back, so we can implement a CMS successfully on the first try.”<h3 id="the-mach-community:-a-retainer-for-knowledge">The MACH community: A retainer for knowledge</h3>As Jared mentioned, the goal of attending “The Composable Conference” was to seek insight and walk away ready to take action. The education piece continues to be a shining example of where the Alliance excels, and that came through in spades during the first day’s keynote sessions and focused workshops. That said, I spoke to a number of attendees who felt that the conference's content was on point, but that “actionable” component might not have been fully realized. This is one area where the Alliance can continue to improve its value to members and the market at large. This year’s session tracks did provide a clear and concise framework for attendees, allowing them to select a path that best fits their current status – from early-stage “MACH Curious” to “Active” or “Pro.” I asked Jared what sessions stood out for him and why they made an impact. “Hearing Andrew talk from Zoro on that first day, that keynote was really pertinent because we’re a similar company,” he said. “We’re a B2B selling to offices, and hearing about that transformation was truly impressive.”He was referring to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/goodfellow/">Andrew Goodfellow</a>, CTO at Zoro – an online provider of tools, parts, and supplies. As CTO, Andy took attendees through the digital retailer’s early adoption of MACH, and how it ultimately enabled Zoro to go from 2 million SKUs to 15 million and double revenue. You can read more about it <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/the-deep-dish-on-composable-6-tasty-takeaways-from-the-mach-alliances-2025-conference">in my conference overview</a>. Jared also mentioned how <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.vfc.com/brands">the use case for VF</a>, the company behind brands like The North Face and Timberland, struck a chord. It was real and relatable, and gave him perspective on where things are at – and the potential for them to go off the rails. “They had a 1.0 version of a MACH approach, which is where I feel we’re at,” he reflected. “We’re kind of new to this, and you hear the candid truth about their story, right? He said it took them three years to release one site the first time, because they jumped in, rushed it, and didn’t do it right. So it’s cool to hear that other companies are having these same challenges.”<h3 id="a-new-cms-crown-with-contentstack">A new CMS crown with Contentstack</h3>Benco doesn't have an actual CMS – and never has. Instead, they have what Jared described as a homegrown “CMS-like” solution. So the prospect of moving to a mature platform is novel… and even a little nerve-racking.“I almost wish we could skip past that first phase where we picked the wrong one and we try to migrate to another,” he said, laughing. “We’re in the very first phase of this. We’ve never integrated a CMS.”Jared mentioned that he had already settled on Contentstack, a composable DXP with a headless CMS as its foundation. While the platform already presented key advantages based on their goals, some soft attributes added confidence to his decision.“We had some really good experiences with their sales team and technical folks,” he said. Relying on experienced voices has been key for Benco as early questions arose like, Where’s your data map? or Where’s your architecture diagram? They simply weren't prepared.The MACH Alliance community has been pivotal to supporting education within the composable category, and platforms like Contentstack have helped bridge the awareness gap from the very beginning. “The Composable Conference” helps to crystallize things over a two-day period, but <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-taps-dylan-valade-of-abbott-to-drive-expanding-ridemach-education-program">programs like rideMACH</a> are shepherding the cause throughout the year with courseware, certifications, and real-world insights from people who have done the work. “This has been really helpful to see and get to connect with people who’ve had those experiences," Jared remarked, "and help talk through what you do the first time.”<h3 id="removing-the-legacy-plaque-to-make-way-for-ai">Removing the legacy plaque to make way for AI</h3>Composable is already proving its value as a key conduit for AI innovation and adoption. Enterprises that have a composable posture are arguably better equipped to shift, experiment, and deploy new AI solutions, and the MACH Alliance is focusing more attention on this – specifically with the advent of its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-launches-new-mach-ai-exchange-to-help-enterprises-streamline-ai-adoption">new MACH AI Exchange.</a>  While Jared and his team are consumed with the elemental steps of their composable strategy, I asked him about AI and where it fits with his organization’s plans. From his perspective, he sees early gains within Benco’s content operations practice and how they leverage the new CMS.“The biggest use case that comes right to mind for AI, especially in something like a CMS, is getting our titles, blog posts, articles, all that stuff SEO optimized,” he said, reflecting how humans aren’t the best at knowing how to game the algorithms for search. This is one way that AI could have a solid impact on performance in the near term.But the future? With a composable architecture, Benco could certainly dive into the realm of more advanced personalization and optimization, akin to what Zoro achieved – something Jared and his team are eager to sink their teeth into.Here’s five minutes of brain floss to sharpen your smile: <figure class="media"><div data-oembed-url="https://youtu.be/BuUbmrwne-I"><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56.2493%"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BuUbmrwne-I" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></figure> <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:33.07%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/contentcon25-logo-1747412490394.png" /><h4 id="contentstack-contentcon-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">Contentstack ContentCon 25</a></h4>June 3-5, 2025 – Chicago, USAThe future of digital is waiting for you! Contentstack presents ContentCon, the premier event for digital teams and industry leaders who are reimagining the future of digital experiences. Join us for two days of transformative presentations and workshops designed to help you put personalization and AI strategies into action. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://contentcon2025.site.zuddl.com/">Register today! </a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

MACHtales: Voices from “The Composable Conference” with Jared Smigelski of Benco Dental

<hr /> The martech landscape is, in a word, messy. And we don’t need <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://chiefmartec.com/2025/05/2025-marketing-technology-landscape-supergraphic-100x-growth-since-2011-but-now-with-ai/">Scott Brinker’s 2025 Supergraphic</a>, now a breathtaking pointillist painting of 15,384 discrete solutions, to tell us how confusing this morass has become.Marketers know this truth all too well. Data lives everywhere, scattered across CRMs, analytics dashboards, customer data platforms, CMSes, and dozens of other tools. Getting a complete view of their customers and campaigns has become a struggle, if not impossible.Along comes AI, and with it, the promise of finally unlocking personalization at scale with automated variants and streamlined workflows. But despite the eagerness of non-technical marketers to tap the fabric of AI, the lack of unified data has been a barrier to success. As such, their efforts are falling flat, and their content strategies feel more reactive than revolutionary.But <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.databricks.com/">Databricks</a> might have an answer to this conundrum. The cloud-based data and AI company recently announced the launch of its new Data Intelligence for Marketing solution, which combines its popular <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.databricks.com/product/data-intelligence-platform">Data Intelligence Platform</a> with a library of out-of-the-box integrations – connecting its capabilities to an ecosystem of leading marketing solution providers. Data Intelligence for Marketing leverages the proven power of Databricks to amplify and accelerate successful outcomes. By weaving AI across a bench of trusted marketing partners like <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/adobe-experience-manager">Adobe</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/salesforce">Salesforce</a>, anyone can access insights, personalize experiences, and run more effective marketing – all from a single, unified platform. “We’re launching Data Intelligence for Marketing to ensure every marketer, regardless of technical background, can get the data they need to make smarter decisions faster and run relevant, efficient campaigns,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rischultz/">Rick Schultz</a>, CMO at Databricks. “By unifying customer and campaign data and using AI to reason on that data, this platform enables real-time, conversational analytics for marketers. This empowers marketers to make financially impactful decisions faster and drive more effective and efficient campaigns. It’s what marketers need to compete in today’s data-driven era.”Already deployed in global brands as the data and AI foundation for their broader martech stack, Data Intelligence for Marketing is giving teams an AI pathway that’s bolstered by Databricks. By combining customer and campaign data in real time, marketers can sidestep the complexities, self-serve deeper insights, and develop more relevant and efficient campaigns at scale. <h3 id="powered-by-an-ai-“brick-house”">Powered by an AI “brick house”</h3>Over the last few months, we've been covering the data frontier extensively, focusing on some big moves that vendors like <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contentstack-just-acquired-lytics-a-real-time-customer-data-platform-heres-why-it-matters">Contentstack</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/u-cant-touch-this-cdp-hightouch-nails-80m-series-c-to-power-its-ai-decisioning">Hightouch</a> have made in purchasing or expanding their data capabilities at the DXP and CDP levels. In a composable world, increasingly more tools are being leveraged to augment digital experience stacks. And as <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://chiefmartec.com/2025/05/2025-marketing-technology-landscape-supergraphic-100x-growth-since-2011-but-now-with-ai/">recently codified on Martech Day</a>, AI has been a catalyst for significant growth in multiple dimensions, and data is the elemental fuel for the fire.Databricks is part of the growing <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.databricks.com/product/data-lakehouse">data lakehouse</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/sql/">data warehouse</a> ecosystems, and the company has been on a meteoric rise. Founded in 2013 by the original creators of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/apache-spark/">Apache Spark</a> – an open-source, distributed processing system used for big data workloads – Databricks is a unified analytics platform for building, deploying, sharing, and maintaining enterprise-grade data, analytics, and AI solutions at scale. Why all the fuss? Because data systems are big – and only getting bigger. Enterprises are struggling to keep up, and marketers are drowning in the overflow. Databricks helps to unify and simplify this riptide of complexity by providing a fast, cost-effective, and highly scalable solution. There’s also the inherent flexibility. Databricks lives on top of existing cloud infrastructure, whether it’s <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/aws">AWS</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/microsoft-azure">Azure</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/google-cloud-platform">GCP</a>, or even a multi- or hybrid cloud combination. The Databricks Data Intelligence Platform integrates with cloud storage and security in a user’s cloud account, and automates the management and deployment of cloud infrastructure. The Apache Spark heritage is also a key asset, providing both speed and efficiency for large-scale data processing. Databricks is a clear innovator in the expanding AI landscape, and its Data Intelligence Platform is unlocking possibilities for leading global brands. Now, with the advent of its new marketing integrations, it’s making the promise of AI more attainable. <h3 id="unlocking-the-ai-potential">Unlocking the AI potential</h3>Marketers are hungry for AI. But they’re also cautiously optimistic – and sometimes, downright resistant. According to a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.brafton.com/ebooks/state-of-ai-adoption-in-marketing-teams/?utm_campaign=Saturday&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;_hsenc=p2ANqtz--48LEY4V7WS3TcqHusrz9uJnUfJvH4bm3wYAx3hp-ielN7erV5V2wcizL8Uj3799cBZDwg_w2BJDU4owusHJWCG2UU6JFEKW2HxlMkN9NjMoXNhnw&amp;_hsmi=361878176&amp;utm_content=361870430&amp;utm_source=hs_email">recent survey conducted by Brafton</a>, AI tools are creating a lot of difficulty, even if the potential for value is clearly understood. This is especially true for marketers, who have mixed feelings about the role of AI in their content and marketing operations. On the upside, there’s been an abundance of adoption for streamlining manual tasks. But the struggle is real: Over half of Brafton’s respondents admit to challenges with content personalization, and a quarter find it difficult to generate specific content formats. Some of the friction with onboarding and managing AI tools is also a contributing factor. It can take time to assess AI platforms from a usability and performance perspective, and fully leveraging the capabilities can take time. There’s also the need to create the right internal policies and governance for marketing teams – and how they should use AI-powered resources or generated content. This also includes navigating the complexities of external regulatory requirements for data privacy. Finally, there’s the soft challenge: marketers are underwater. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.marketingweek.com/career-overwhelmed-emotional-exhaustion/">According to a recent survey</a>, over half of them feel overwhelmed, undervalued, and emotionally exhausted. While AI has the propensity to complicate the matter, it could also be part of the solution.This is where simplification is essential, and Databricks stands to make its greatest impact. By connecting marketing data substantively, marketers can streamline processes and insights in new ways, giving them greater confidence in their strategies. Adding conversational analytics further eases the complexity of engaging with data and cutting through the noise. <h3 id="leveraging-key-partnerships-to-scale-ai">Leveraging key partnerships to scale AI</h3>Along with unifying marketing data, Databricks is democratizing broad insights for everyone. Now, marketers can easily access a complete view of customers and campaigns to improve segmentation, personalization, and conversion. With on-board AI that reasons on your customer and campaign data and understands the semantics of your business, enterprises can empower every marketer – not just technical teams – with tools to explore and act on data in real time. And by integrating with meaningful tools, Databricks can help streamline and accelerate the overall AI horizon.Built with open standards and out-of-the-box integrations, Databricks allows marketing teams of all sizes to maximize the value of their existing martech tools and services. The company has partnered with industry-leading technology platforms across multiple categories like analytics, customer data platforms, data management, customer engagement, data privacy, and more:<ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/adobe-experience-manager">Adobe</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://amperity.com/">Amperity</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.braze.com/">Braze</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.getcensus.com/">Census</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://deepsync.com/">DeepSync</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.epsilon.com/us">Epsilon</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/hightouch">Hightouch</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.onetrust.com/">OneTrust</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/salesforce">Salesforce</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://snowplow.io/">Snowplow</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://tealium.com/">Tealium</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.uniphore.com/">Uniphore</a></li></ul>Databricks has also aligned with key integrators to provide custom solutions and consulting expertise in critical areas like data decisioning, data science, customer analytics, and AI solutions for specific industry verticals:<ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://celebaltech.com/">Celebal Technologies</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en.html">Deloitte</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.latentview.com/">LatentView</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://lovelytics.com/">Lovelytics</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.slalom.com/us/en">Slalom</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.tredence.com/">Tredence</a></li></ul>Given the challenges and resistance marketers face in the shift to AI, this partnership model provides a unique asset for marketing organizations. It helps ensure seamless workflows and innovation at scale while helping businesses unlock the full potential of their marketing data.<h3 id="realizing-value-with-data-intelligence-for-marketing">Realizing value with Data Intelligence for Marketing</h3>For marketing professionals, it’s all about efficiency. AI can’t be part of the problem, and Databricks is working to address that. With Data Intelligence for Marketers, teams can adopt AI quickly with fewer barriers––allowing them to run more effective campaigns using real-time, accurate data to power recommendations, triggers, and automation they can trust.Marketing teams at leading global brands are already seeing the impact of Data Intelligence for Marketing while maintaining compliance with global privacy standards like GDPR and CCPA. Based on figures from highly visible customers, the investment appears to be paying off. For example, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.databricks.com/customers/skechers">Skechers</a> – the global footwear brand – uses <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.uniphore.com/products/actioniq/">ActionIQ</a>, a composable CDP, with Databricks. The combo helps personalize customer journeys that boost lifetime value, resulting in a 324% increase in CTRs, a 68% decrease in CPC, and a 28% increase in return on ad spend.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://hightouch.com/customers/petsmart">PetSmart</a>, a leading pet retailer, also tapped Hightouch on Databricks. By juicing the CDP capabilities with AI, the company’s marketing team orchestrates personalized journeys at unmatched scale while powering its broader marketing and loyalty initiatives. “We’re syncing millions of records directly to SFMC every single day to orchestrate personalized journeys for the 65+ million members in our loyalty program,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinotomasone/">Tino Tomasone,</a> Senior Manager, Database &amp; Audience Management at PetSmart. “We’re powering thousands of audiences and over four billion emails every year, and that’s not even factoring in what we do across other channels.”<h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>We all live in a data-driven world, and it's getting spicy. Digital leaders are feeling the heat, but data intelligence platforms are providing a life ring of enhanced data management and insights. By employing AI models to deeply understand the semantics of enterprise data, brands and organizations are deriving faster insights, optimizing their decision-making, and scaling data analytics workflows with ease.Marketers stand to benefit significantly from AI-powered systems that unify data. That said, AI fatigue is a real phenomenon. And while marketers are wrestling with the need for more AI, they’re also struggling with onboarding greater complexity. What we need is less confusion, so marketers can do their jobs more efficiently. That’s where Databricks is potentially easing the burden. As an AI pioneer, the company has long focused on the essential layers of data that power effective AI. With its Data Intelligence for Marketing, it now brings the best capabilities of data lakehouse architecture to unify data, analytics, and AI while simplifying the value for marketers. Databricks is also greasing the wheels with purpose-built integrations that align with data-centric platforms and applications. They're also balancing the complexity equation by partnering with SIs and consultancies that can provide a foundation through the journey, which includes the perilous challenges surrounding data privacy and governance. This all translates into greater confidence and fewer limiting concerns when it comes to scaling marketing programs with AI.I have questions about the fabric of the partnership model and the roadmap for future additions, but harnessing AI successfully requires expertise – and this feels like the right approach for delivering product and support.From a content and digital experience perspective, we’re already seeing the potential for evolution. CDPs have been crucial components in the DXP composition, and Databricks is helping to augment their value through tangible use cases. This could have big implications for the CMS and DXP landscape as platforms continue to innovate with AI along a composable edge. One of the things I really like about Databricks is the spectrum of usability. At its core, it's designed to simplify the modern data stack by eliminating data silos and facilitating data access and insights. But it does this for everyone, whether you’re a non-technical marketer or a data scientist immersed in deep learning. This announcement is relatively fresh, so we can anticipate more details to emerge. In the meantime, do the intelligent thing with this data – and check it out.   <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-databricks?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Databricks? <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to an expert.</a></h4><hr /> <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:33.07%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/contentcon25-logo-1747412490394.png" /><h4 id="contentstack-contentcon-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">Contentstack ContentCon 25</a></h4>June 3-5, 2025 – Chicago, USAThe future of digital is waiting for you! Contentstack presents ContentCon, the premier event for digital teams and industry leaders who are reimagining the future of digital experiences. Join us for two days of transformative presentations and workshops designed to help you put personalization and AI strategies into action. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://contentcon2025.site.zuddl.com/">Register today! </a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

From Data Chaos to Campaign Clarity: Databricks Delivers AI for Marketers

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/tom-cranstoun">Tom Cranstoun</a>, “The AEM Guy,” is the principal consultant at Digital Domain Technologies Limited and a CMS Critic contributor. <hr /> The Frankfurt skyline, the only city in Germany with skyscrapers, provided a fitting backdrop for two days of intense conversation about content management systems at the CMS Summit 2025, organized by <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25/program">Boye &amp; Co. </a>This first European installment brought together a diverse mix of CMS practitioners, vendors, agencies, and analysts from across Europe and North America. My experience at the summit changed how I view the intersection of AI, CMS, and web technologies—areas that directly connect to my professional focus.<h3 id="the-state-of-content-management-in-2025">The State of Content Management in 2025</h3>What struck me most was not the technical specifications of various platforms, but the rich dialogue about how organizations actually use these systems. A common challenge emerged across multiple sessions: the search for a perfect "all-in-one" solution often leads to disappointment.Several presentations addressed this directly, noting that good technology alone doesn't guarantee success. Speakers described how quickly new requirements can reveal limitations in even the most promising systems. This observation was reinforced by cautions against purchasing tools before clearly defining the problems they should solve. The recommendation to view technology "not as a solution but as an enabler" resonated with many attendees, myself included.<h3 id="ai-integration:-substance-over-spectacle">AI Integration: Substance Over Spectacle</h3>The discussion around AI and content management stood out for its practicality. Rather than focusing on theoretical applications, presenters addressed real implementation challenges.Sessions on AI integration cut through typical enthusiasm with a focus on creating genuine value. Speakers emphasized that successful AI implementation depends less on impressive features and more on building user trust and achieving measurable outcomes.Several talks provided valuable insights on how AI systems interact with CMS-powered content, highlighting current limitations and offering concrete approaches to help AI better understand structured content—a critical consideration as these technologies become more deeply integrated. In full transparency, I was one of the speakers and I moderated one of the workshops, “Trust in AI”.<h3>"How Did I Not Know This?"</h3>The most profound insight came during the "Trust in AI" and "Building Products with AI" workshops, where a startling realization emerged that changed my understanding of AI in multilingual content management: Non-English speakers experience AI differently. And those of us in the English-speaking tech world rarely understand this. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="-"> </h4><h4 style="text-align:center" id="“non-english-speakers-experience-ai-differently.-and-those-of-us-in-the-english-speaking-tech-world-rarely-understand-this.”">“Non-English speakers experience AI differently. And those of us in the English-speaking tech world rarely understand this.”</h4> <hr /> As someone familiar with AI bias discussions, I thought I understood the landscape. Yes, AI has a Western tilt. Yes, models reflect dominant ideologies. But what I hadn't fully grasped until this summit was the structural exclusion of non-English perspectives from the foundation upwards.In the European context, where linguistic diversity is lived rather than theoretical, this observation gained immediate traction. As we discussed AI implementation in content management systems, participants from various countries shared starkly different experiences with the same AI tools—experiences shaped primarily by language.The technical explanation proved equally eye-opening. Most large language models powering today's AI features in CMS platforms are trained on Common Crawl, a public dataset that scrapes vast portions of the web. Approximately 44% of this content is in English, with no other language exceeding 6%. German, Spanish, French, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese are present, but minimally so. The remaining global languages are virtually absent.A couple of anecdotes from the side chatter further underscore this challenge in both artificial intelligence and machine translation, particularly when dealing with nuanced languages like German.  <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/trieloff/">Lars Trieloff's</a> remark, "His English is Better than AI's German," while perhaps humorous, highlights the limitations of AI in achieving natural and idiomatic language proficiency. This suggests that even with advancements in AI, human expertise remains essential for tasks requiring linguistic finesse.  <figure class="image image_resized" style="width:86.85%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/image-1747664039114.png" alt="A person speaking into a microphone

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/trieloff/">Lars Trieloff</a>, principal at Adobe. Photo Source: Marta Cukierman <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelika-gust-5a4192205/">Angelika Gust's</a> experience further emphasizes this point. Her workflow, involving an "Experiment in AI," necessitated the active participation of native German speakers. Their role was crucial in rectifying the "stilted German" generated by the AI, indicating that while AI can be a useful tool in translation, it often falls short of producing text that is both grammatically correct and stylistically natural.  <figure class="image image_resized" style="width:85.83%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/image-1747664039107.png" alt="A person in a dress with her hands up

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelika-gust-5a4192205/">Angelika Gust</a>, Senior Product Manager, Digital Channels at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.bahn.de/">DB Regio</a>. Photo Source: Marta Cukierman These real-world examples serve as a potent reminder that achieving truly human-quality language generation and translation remains a hurdle for artificial intelligence. The need for human oversight and correction is not just a matter of preference but a practical necessity for ensuring accuracy and quality. <figure class="image image_resized" style="width:84.04%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/image-1747664038840.png" /></figure> This imbalance creates models that "think" in English—not just linguistically, but culturally and contextually. For CMS implementations serving multilingual audiences, this poses significant challenges. Content created or augmented by AI in non-English languages often exhibits lower quality, cultural misalignments, and reduced effectiveness.Don’t forget that the system prompt is also written in English, the UI and front end often sneak in tricks by looking for text like ‘think deeply” in the prompt and then adjust the model's output.Wow. Perhaps everyone should prompt in English! I hope not.Common Crawl's architecture compounds the problem by prioritizing highly-linked domains, which overwhelmingly come from the English-speaking West. Already-dominant voices are further elevated, while content from smaller, less networked communities is ignored. This is particularly problematic for CMS implementations serving diverse global audiences.The contrast with established institutional approaches was striking. The United Nations publishes all official documents in six languages. The European Union recognizes 24 official languages and mandates linguistic equity across communications. Yet our content management systems, increasingly powered by AI, lag significantly behind this standard despite serving the same diverse populations.Another layer of systemic imbalance arises in how AI systems are fine-tuned. Reinforcement <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement_learning_from_human_feedback">Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF)</a>, the technique used to refine language models, is overwhelmingly English-centric. This creates:<ul><li>Perspective Narrowing: Models reflect Anglophone values and social assumptions</li><li>Language Exclusion: Many global languages receive no feedback at all</li><li>Digital Colonialism: While the Global South provides labour and data, the benefits and governance remain concentrated in the Global North</li><li>Outdated non-native English: The global south was decolonised in the 1950s, their English language was often a second language, used as a link language; it has not kept up with modern English.</li></ul>What made this revelation particularly impactful was its obviousness in retrospect. As someone who has worked extensively with content management systems, I found myself wondering:  “How did I not know this?”<h3 id="digital-sustainability-emerges-as-a-core-concern">Digital Sustainability Emerges as a Core Concern</h3>The conference marked a shift toward acknowledging the environmental impact of digital solutions. Presentations offered compelling data on the growing carbon footprint of websites, applications, and AI systems.Speakers noted that building more climate-friendly digital experiences benefits both the planet and business outcomes. Several vendors and agencies have begun incorporating sustainability metrics into their development practices, signaling a potential industry-wide shift in priorities. <figure class="image image_resized" style="width:86.08%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/image-1747664039089.png" alt="A person giving a presentation to a group of people

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/speakers/thorsten-jonas">Thorsten Jonas</a> presenting “The Time is Now for Web Sustainability.” Photo Source: Marta Cukierman This focus on sustainability connects directly to questions about resource allocation and efficiency—particularly relevant as content management systems grow more complex and data-intensive.<h3 id="collaborative-problem-solving-">Collaborative Problem-Solving </h3>The second day shifted from presentations to working groups addressing pressing industry questions. Topics included building products in the age of AI, future-proofing content across multiple platforms, and establishing accuracy and trust with AI systems. <figure class="image image_resized" style="width:87.11%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/image-1747664277914.png" /></figure><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianmills/">Julian Mills</a> facilitating one of the day two workshop sessions. Photo Source: Janus BoyeThis format created space for substantive cross-organizational dialogue, allowing participants to share challenges and strategies from different perspectives. Many attendees noted this collaborative approach as particularly valuable compared to the experience of traditional conferences.<h3 id="reflections-and-forward-movement">Reflections and Forward Movement</h3>Looking back on the summit, what remains most valuable are the connections formed with other practitioners facing similar challenges. The conversations during breaks and social events often yielded insights as valuable as the formal sessions.For those working at the intersection of content management and emerging technologies, the path forward requires both technical expertise and strategic vision. We're navigating an industry-wide transformation driven by technological changes that pressure vendors, agencies, and clients alike.The multilingual AI revelation particularly calls for a shift in how we approach AI integration in content management. If we truly want AI-enhanced CMS to serve global audiences, then we need:<ul><li>Training data that's representative, multilingual, and culturally nuanced</li><li>Evaluation processes that account for linguistic diversity</li><li>Governance structures that include voices from all markets served</li><li>More inclusive, ethically curated datasets</li><li>Feedback systems reflecting a genuinely global range of human values</li><li>Movement beyond tokenism into structural equity</li></ul>The next European CMS Summit is scheduled for May 12-13, 2026, again in Frankfurt. Based on the quality of this year's event, it promises to provide another opportunity for meaningful exchange across the global CMS community. If you're based in North America, you can also join <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect in August</a> or <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25">CMS Kickoff in January.</a> And finally, the conversation continues in the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/groups/cms-experts/">CMS Expert Groups,</a> where <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/matt-garrepy">Chief Critic Matt Garrepy</a> is also an active community leader. This post represents my personal takeaways rather than a comprehensive report. I extend my gratitude to all speakers, demonstrators, and fellow attendees for two days of inspiring dialogue and discovery. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:33.07%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/contentcon25-logo-1747412490394.png" /><h4 id="contentstack-contentcon-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon">Contentstack ContentCon 25</a></h4>June 3-5, 2025 – Chicago, USAThe future of digital is waiting for you! Contentstack presents ContentCon, the premier event for digital teams and industry leaders who are reimagining the future of digital experiences. Join us for two days of transformative presentations and workshops designed to help you put personalization and AI strategies into action. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://contentcon2025.site.zuddl.com/">Register today! </a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

'How did I not know this?’ CMS Summit 25 changed my understanding of AI

tom-cranstoun

Sanity says CMSes are broken. Is its 'Content Operating System' the next evolutionary step?

CMS Summit 25

Find out at CMS Connect 25, August 5 - 6 in Montreal, Canada. Seats are limited.

CMS. Content. AI. Where is it all headed?

<hr /> In French, sur la table rolls off the tongue like a light-bodied Beaujolais, beckoning for another pour. Translated to English, it means “on the table” – the place where we break bread and cultivate conversation. As such, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.surlatable.com/">Sur La Table</a> is a fitting name for a company that focuses on food and dining. The upscale retailer specializes in selling high-quality kitchenware, cookware, cutlery, bakeware, and other home goods. They even offer cooking classes and a popular blog with all kinds of food tips.For <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mokshika-sharma-profile/">Mokshika Sharma</a>, the company’s Vice President of Product and Technology, the latest dish on the menu is composability. As she shared during our discussion at “<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/the-deep-dish-on-composable-6-tasty-takeaways-from-the-mach-alliances-2025-conference">The Composable Conference”</a> in Chicago, Sur La Table is already adopting a more modular posture across its stack, allowing Mokshika to expand and grow PE holding company <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cscgeneration.com/our-companies">CSC Generation’s</a> investment in the kitchenware retailer. “My job is really the full umbrella of anything that has electrons and supporting retail,” she said, laughing about the atomic reference. Her role also encompasses some big-ticket requirements like defining the e-commerce product vision, growth and revenue optimization, cost and operational enhancement, and more.The even bigger mandate: Supporting CSC Generation’s mission to help distressed brands and organizations climb out of their technical debt and achieve the next level of technical competency. CSC brings a platform of retail practices into automation and AI, supporting a portfolio that includes Backcountry, One Kings Lane, Touch of Modern, and more. Based in Austin, Texas, Mokshika is a passionate technologist with a heart for brand engineering. She's amassed a deep background in digital retail, an area where MACH principles have proven their potential. She also has the industry chops to back it up, serving as a CIO Council Member at the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://nrf.com/">National Retail Federation (NRF).</a>Retail has long been a sweet spot for the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-launches-new-mach-ai-exchange-to-help-enterprises-streamline-ai-adoption">MACH Alliance,</a> which clearly attracted Mokshika to its message. As you'll glean from our conversation, she had some key takeaways from the conference that might set the table for future success.<h3 id="a-varietal-that’s-composable-forward">A varietal that’s composable forward</h3>Aligning with the session tracks at “The Composable Conference,” Mokshika admitted to being “MACH Curious” – and as a first-time attendee, that makes sense. But a few minutes into our conversation, it was evident that she’s more capable than curious – and the journey to the MACH Alliance community was a codifying moment.“It really helped me understand how the Alliance is supporting the initiatives we’re already doing in our organization,” she said. This maps to some of the existing best practices Sur La Table is already engaging in around headless and other resources. The conference, in her mind, was more relevant because it reinforced that momentum while providing access to a community that could help drive the next steps. <h3 id="legacy-recipes?-c’est-la-vie">Legacy recipes? C’est la vie</h3>“I think the dream of every technologist is, of course, to be composable 100%,” Mokshika said lightly, although she admitted this dream won’t likely be fully realized. But that’s not the point. In her view, it’s about creating and investing in reusable components – building blocks, so to speak – that can be leveraged well into the future.Of course, one of the roadblocks to composability is the reality of legacy systems. According to Mokshika, there are many legacy processes and tools in her line of work, and much of it is heavily siloed. Breaking it apart takes a lot of careful thought and consideration.“Sometimes it’s a composable answer,” she said. “And sometimes, you don’t need to build the rocket ship, and you can think about what the early starting point is to get to composable.”Mokshika also pointed out the realities of what she called “operational hazards.” These occur when you create a system that is inherently more complex, ultimately driving the need for more people and oversight. To that end, digital leaders and practitioners need to plan carefully as they dive into composable waters. “Now you have to support all these pieces,” she explained. “It’s a very thoughtful exercise you have to do in retail.”<h3 id="setting-the-table-for-success">Setting the table for success</h3>There were a number of ah-ha moments for Mokshika, but she really zeroed in on some key activators around the community collaboration, and where the MACH Alliance has focused its human expertise to support a successful knowledge transfer. “I think the big takeaway is how much people are actually pushing the boundaries of what companies are building for legacy brands to consider and take care of other people’s roadmaps,” Mokshika said. “They’re here, talking to you, asking for advice – and at the same table.”Being at a more focused event also resulted in more substantive conversations. “I’ve obviously been to a lot of retail conferences that are very large, and you don’t have this chance to do a one-on-one conversation as much as I was able to do here,” she commented, “and more so, I didn’t get to do it through a technical lens.”That last point was codified in sessions that featured slideshows with architectures, where Mokshika noted that people were taking pictures of the diagrams and schematics. “I guess the magic here is that they’re actually talking about how to think about your whole ecosystem, and not just the one thing that I’m trying to sell.”While still new to the community, Mokshika’s composable maturity might already be well ahead of the curve. But the point of the conference is to move people and brands to the next step – and that seemed to be the outcome in her case. “I wish I had come here earlier when first joining retail,” she says. “It would have been a great start of my journey.”Take five minutes and join Mokshika at the MACH table. C'est si bon. <figure class="media"><div data-oembed-url="https://youtu.be/d4IL8-XkSag"><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56.2493%"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/d4IL8-XkSag" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></figure> <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.46%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/cms-summit-25.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">CMS Summit 25</a></h4>May 13-14, 2025 – Frankfurt, GermanyDon't miss the first European edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community! CMS Summit 25 will bring together top-notch speakers, our renowned learning format, and engaging social events. Hear from leading practitioners like Deutsche Bahn, Dr. Oetker, and more – and join customers, agencies, and CMS vendors as we discuss current trends and what's ahead for the content and digital experience fields. Connect and network at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference focused on CMS. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

MACHtales: Voices from “The Composable Conference” with Mokshika Sharma of Sur La Table

<hr /><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/mark">Mark Demeny</a> is a leading CMS expert, a tech analyst with the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-launches-new-mach-ai-exchange-to-help-enterprises-streamline-ai-adoption">MACH Alliance,</a> and a CMS Critic contributor. It’s been a few months since the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/6101227">Gartner DXP Magic Quadrant for 2025</a> was released, and there has already been some very well-researched commentary and discussion from vendors. So, rather than repeating the excellent work of others, I want to highlight a few of the core concepts and where the DXP market is headed.First, each and every time a major DXP MQ (or Forrester Wave) is released, it kicks off the discussion about what a DXP actually is (and if it deserves to be a category at all). <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonybyrne1/">In fact, over seven years ago, Tony Byrne</a> of Real Story Group wrote in 2017 that “<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.realstorygroup.com/Blog/there-no-such-thing-dxp">There is no such thing as a DXP</a>,” and the discussion remains the same since.Even at the time, it was well understood that many of the core features of digital experience delivery often came from many vendors integrated into a cohesive experience, and that a DXP wasn’t something that you buy, it’s something that you build. The implication is that even if you buy from a single vendor, there is still a great deal of work and technology choices that go into an implementation.Each and every time a new DXP report comes out, analyst firms have to contend with this truth, and often do so in different ways. With regards to this reality and some of the subsequent vendor selections, Gartner has made two interesting choices – by both flattening and widening the vendor selection.When I talk about “flattening” the vendor selection, this relates to broad categories. Last year, I wrote an <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/thoughts-on-the-forrester-dxp-wave-2023-dont-judge-an-analyst-report-by-its-infographic">article for CMS Critic on the Forrester DXP Wave,</a> where I broke down vendors into a few broad classifications and talked about “anchor” applications. That categorization is useful here as well:<ul><li>“Platform DXPs” (vendors going after this market as a core priority)</li><li>Headless SaaS vendors</li><li>Larger vendors with some DXP functionality but no larger DXP product strategy </li><li>Niche around an industry or use case</li></ul>In contrast to Forrester, Gartner has focused entirely on the first two categories and eliminated the majority of vendors from the latter two. As a result, larger vendors with “DXP adjacent” functionality, but no “DXP vision,” such as <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.sap.com/index.html">SAP</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.oracle.com/">Oracle</a>, and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/salesforce">Salesforce</a>, are not included in Gartner's report.  <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:57.7%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/05/image.png" /></figure>The 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms (DXP). Source: Gartner. Similarly, any vendor which I classified as “niche capability” such as <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/arcxp">Arc XP</a> (media publishing) or commerce enablers (<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/amplience">Amplience</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/bloomreach">Bloomreach</a>) has either been excluded or considered a platform DXP (such as <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/liferay-176339360844">Liferay</a> or <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/magnolia">Magnolia</a>).At the same time as Gartner was reducing the vendor footprint in one direction, it “widened” to include others by increasing the number of Headless SaaS vendors included in the report. Previously, DXP typically meant that you had to include all of the functions around digital experience delivery. Gartner lists 22(!!!) criteria, but these are very broadly grouped as:<ul><li>Content management (CMS) - including repository functions such as permissions, etc.</li><li>Customer Data and Analytics (CDP)</li><li>Experience delivery (including personalization/testing) </li></ul>This focus on meeting all criteria in some way typically favored suite vendors such as <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/sitecore">Sitecore</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/adobe-experience-manager">Adobe</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/optimizely">Optimizely</a>, etc. which include all those core elements, and excluded headless vendors which would usually only have core Content Management functions.However, by including vendors such as <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/contentful">Contentful</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/builderio">Builder.io</a>, and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/uniform">Uniform</a>, which may be missing a core pillar entirely, Gartner is clearly scoring on the ability to be built into a DXP and integrated with other vendors easily.<h3 id="a-focus-on-composability">A focus on composability</h3>Underpinning both sets of vendor groups is the idea of composability. Indeed, Gartner claims in the report that “by 2026, at least 70% of organizations will be mandated to acquire composable DXP technology, as opposed to monolithic DXP suites, compared to 50% in 2023.”Like the term headless, composable also has a very broad definition that vendors can stretch and bend to meet their goals. In my mind, it can be summarized as the idea that different core functions (i.e. the groupings listed above) in a DXP or any tech stack can easily be integrated with or swapped for other vendors. Where headless often means the API-driven delivery of content or data, composable extends to the management of data and the application itself.<h3 id="why-is-composability-important?">Why is composability important?</h3>Let us be clear up front: A composable approach often adds work. If you have a fairly small use case and a single vendor tool can meet all of those, you should seriously consider that as your approach. There is a reason why <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/wordpress">WordPress</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/shopify">Shopify</a> are popular.But the opposite is true for many scenarios. Sometimes, the ability to extend/customize is a requirement. I think this is a critical concept that is often hard to communicate, but the best example I have heard is this: If a boat gets you 80% to your destination, how are you covering the last 20%? Do you have vendor-provided agile tools (like a motor dinghy) or are you expected to swim yourself (in which case, you had better be a strong swimmer!)However, a composable approach becomes more sensible - and in some cases, the obvious choice when you have one of three needs:<h4 id="1.-differentiated-customer-experience">1. Differentiated customer experience</h4>If your use case requires new channels and front-end approaches - and these change regularly - then a composable approach will help improve them continuously. If you have used any travel-related applications lately - including hotel/airline, public transport, etc., you can see that these often add functionality around physical access via tap methods, new tracking for wayfinding, baggage, etc.These functions were not conceived when the original underlying core functions around content, customer data, etc. were first introduced, so a composable approach makes it easy to build or acquire these capabilities to be joined into a cohesive customer experience.<h4 id="2.-vendor-independence">2. Vendor independence</h4>Quite simply, the more you can avoid vendor lock-in, the better. Despite some of the larger vendors offering capabilities in all scoring criteria, it’s likely that one of these adjacent functions, such as commerce, search, or customer data, may not meet your needs fully relative to a leader in the space. While it may be convenient to procure the functions you need from a single vendor, if one of the applications is not performing to the level you need, being able to easily change core functions quickly is critical. <h4 id="3.-sustainability-and-other-engineering-considerations">3. Sustainability and other engineering considerations</h4>Sustainability simply relates to the ability of an engineering team to maintain a high level of performance over time. This means reducing larger “big bang” projects to a more consistent level of continual improvement.Similarly, it is very common to work with content or commerce applications that are older and “deeper” in the organization. The ability to work with these via an API-centric approach is often key – the ability to ingest and transform content and data easily is critical in these cases.One of the common philosophical differences between composable applications and others is that they often do not “assume” that it is the source of all truth, or even the starting point for content creation or experience delivery. Therefore, they tend to be more suited to situations where they play an equal role in a larger content supply chain.<h3 id="conclusion-">Conclusion </h3>The Gartner DXP MQ for 2025 has done a decent job dealing with the ephemeral notion of what a DXP actually is – and (as always) the report itself goes into far more detail than a simple 2x2 matrix can cover. Perhaps in the future, a clearer distinction between functions of content/data interoperability across vendors or tools will be ranked differently than the functions of cohesive user experience, since that is usually one of the key choices one has to make up front.Indeed, there are some vendors that are composable in the sense that they have acquired many companies to assemble a DXP, but their key execution difference is that they lack a cohesive user experience across those tools.Given that Gartner is focused on larger enterprises, the need for composability in enterprise applications is critical, so it makes sense that they are focusing here. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.46%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/cms-summit-25.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">CMS Summit 25</a></h4>May 13-14, 2025 – Frankfurt, GermanyDon't miss the first European edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community! CMS Summit 25 will bring together top-notch speakers, our renowned learning format, and engaging social events. Hear from leading practitioners like Deutsche Bahn, Dr. Oetker, and more – and join customers, agencies, and CMS vendors as we discuss current trends and what's ahead for the content and digital experience fields. Connect and network at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference focused on CMS. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

Some Thoughts on the Gartner Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Magic Quadrant for 2025

mark

<hr /> If there's one thing the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-launches-new-mach-ai-exchange-to-help-enterprises-streamline-ai-adoption">MACH Alliance's</a> annual conference can boast, it's a plethora of tales. Composable is a wiry web of complexity, and this community gathering is an opportunity to share stories about the good, the bad, and yes… even the not-so-attractive challenges of taking the MACH road. I talked to a lot of amazing people at “The Composable Conference” in Chicago last week, and you can catch more of the granular tidbits and tasty toppings <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/the-deep-dish-on-composable-6-tasty-takeaways-from-the-mach-alliances-2025-conference">in my “deep dish” of the conference. </a>One of the smartest things the event coordinators designed for this year's content was the use of tracks, where sessions were mapped to an attendee's MACH maturity. This provided clarity for early-stage “MACH Curious” to full-fledged professional practitioners – and the feedback around this format was largely positive.I wanted to get a diverse range of perspectives, and some of that was reflected in my overview. But I was also able to sit down with a few attendees to capture some video, and our team has assembled these into "MACHtales" – stories from the voices across the MACH community.In this segment, we riff with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/andrew">Andrew Kumar,</a> the Global VP of Agencies, ISVs, Ecosystem, and Customer Solutions at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/uniform">Uniform</a> – a composable DXP. Full transparency: Andrew is also an occasional CMS Critic contributor with a deep heritage in CMS. As Uniform has evolved its position in the thick fabric of the digital ecosystem, the company has found success as a vital translation layer for experiences, notching a Visionary spot on the recent <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.uniform.dev/resources/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms">Gartner Magic Quadrant for DXPs.</a>In five minutes, Andrew gives us the hot take on Uniform's evolution as an interoperability bridge and how <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/its-an-ai-agent-world-is-agent-experience-the-secret-weapon-for-controlling-the-chaos">agentic AI</a> is changing the game from an experience perspective. He touches on the need for incremental steps, and how aligning tech, build, and ops – and how AI weaves across each of these stories – is key. This is where humans need to be in the loop. Along the way, he gets into Uniform's strategy of adding their own CMS, and how it acts as an acceleration springboard while avoiding any vendor lock-in, opening up the headless frontier based on a customer's needs. He also shares what stood out at "The Composable Conference" and how the community's value will benefit ISV members like Uniform in 2025 and beyond.I love how he touches on the emergence of new roles in the ecosystem, from web producers to visual architects. It codifies how change is constant – and why standards are critical for creating architectural guardrails. Roll the footage:<figure class="media"><div data-oembed-url="https://youtu.be/C3pSrxD87Fw"><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56.2493%"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C3pSrxD87Fw" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></figure> <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.46%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/cms-summit-25.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">CMS Summit 25</a></h4>May 13-14, 2025 – Frankfurt, GermanyDon't miss the first European edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community! CMS Summit 25 will bring together top-notch speakers, our renowned learning format, and engaging social events. Hear from leading practitioners like Deutsche Bahn, Dr. Oetker, and more – and join customers, agencies, and CMS vendors as we discuss current trends and what's ahead for the content and digital experience fields. Connect and network at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference focused on CMS. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

MACHtales: Voices from 'The Composable Conference' with Andrew Kumar of Uniform

<hr /> Change is a-brewin' for <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/sitecore">Sitecore</a>.Just over a year ago, the DXP appointed <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/big-shift-at-sitecore-dave-oflanagan-takes-the-helm-as-interim-ceo">Dave O’Flanagan</a> as its new CEO, assuming the role from <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tzikakis/">Steve Tzikakis</a>, who had held the reins since 2020. During O'Flanagan's tenure, the company achieved some key wins, specifically around the growth of its popular AI-enhanced <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.sitecore.com/products/xm-cloud">XM Cloud offering</a> – a headless, cloud-native SaaS CMS that changed the game for the legacy player as the fastest-growing product in Sitecore’s history.As of this morning, the torch is passing to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-stine-49540a9/">COO Eric Stine</a>, who has been a visible force behind Sitecore’s recent traction. Effective immediately, Stine will assume the role of CEO, bringing deep experience and proven performance to the top job. The appointment comes at a time of rapid change for Sitecore. While the company has achieved notable growth, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/sonic-boom-sitecore-surges-past-500m-in-arr-heres-why-it-matters">surpassing $500 million in ARR</a> as of last October, it faces the same economic headwinds as its competitors. There’s also the persistent grudge of AI and deriving value from those investments in an increasingly crowded field. But Sitecore has been pushing the innovation envelope, reengineering the company’s core DXP and CMS for an AI era led by the agent revolution. While the company has steadily introduced solutions in AI/ML and GenAI, it released its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.sitecore.com/resources/insights/artificial-intelligence/introducing-sitecore-stream">Sitecore Stream</a> solution at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/sitecore-rocks-and-rolls-in-music-city-the-top-5-tracks-from-symposium-2024">last year’s Symposium event</a>, which brings integrated, brand-aware AI across its product ecosystem. With Stine’s experience leading enterprise software companies to grow at scale, he aims to accelerate Sitecore’s expansion to attract and retain even more of the world’s top brands.“I’m honored to lead Sitecore through the next phase of growth and innovation,” he said in the company’s press release. “Having spent a significant amount of time with our clients, our partners, and our talented team of employees, I am confident that we are uniquely positioned to help brands simplify how they reach, engage, and serve their customers.<h3 id="proven-experience-to-drive-the-next-wave-of-growth">Proven experience to drive the next wave of growth</h3>As mentioned, Stine was serving as Sitecore’s Chief Operating Officer and has been instrumental in building momentum across the company’s go-to-market organization. Under his leadership, Sitecore XM Cloud – an AI-enabled SaaS platform for delivering powerful digital experiences at scale – has significantly expanded its customer base, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.sitecore.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/2025/01/sitecore-closes-2024-with-100percents-growth-in-ai-enhanced-cloud-based-content-management-system">growing global revenues by 100% over the last year</a>.Stine’s impact on driving sustained revenue growth and aligning teams around customer success certainly gives the company an edge as it transitions through this period. A big part of his focus has been dedicated to deepening Sitecore’s partner ecosystem and improving customer retention – where it continues to be a trusted DXP to some of the world’s most notable brands, including Equifax, INEOS Automotive, Shure, and Zurich Insurance Group.“We have the most compelling and advanced AI-powered DX platform on the market, unlocking powerful, personalized connections at global scale,” Stine said. “Combine that with an ecosystem able to implement and drive value faster than any other vendor, and we are simply unrivalled.”Stine is no stranger to the C-Suite. Before joining Sitecore, he was Chief Executive Officer of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.elemica.com/">Elemica</a>, a digital supply chain platform for manufacturers. Prior to that, he served as Chief Commercial Officer at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.skillsoft.com/">Skillsoft</a>, an employee training platform provider, and Chief Revenue Officer at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.qualtrics.com/">Qualtrics</a> – an experience management platform. Earlier in his career, Stine spent over a decade at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.sap.com/index.html">SAP</a>, one of the world’s leading ERP providers, where he led industry go-to-market strategies and built customer-centric commercial operations across North America.<h3 id="the-shift-to-a-cloud-first,-ai-powered-era">The shift to a cloud-first, AI-powered era</h3>During his time as CEO, Dave O’Flanagan made significant strides, leading Sitecore’s transformation as a modern cloud-focused AI-capable DXP. The rollout of Stream arguably gives Stine a faster runway for building more innovative solutions, particularly as agentic AI becomes a mandate for digital experiences. O’Flanagan initially joined Sitecore through the acquisition of Boxever – a customer data platform (CDP) – where he was founder and CEO. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51">The transaction</a>, which closed in 2021, happened simultaneously with Sitecore’s purchase of Four51, a digital commerce platform. At the time, these were viewed as key elements in completing Sitecore’s vision for its DXP.Following the integration of Boxever into Sitecore’s CDP, O’Flanagan became the company’s Chief Product Officer and later rose to CEO. Over the course of his tenure, he moved Sitecore into the Cloud as a feature-rich DXP with AI capabilities. Under his watch, XM Cloud became a key factor in the company’s roadmap, gaining significant adoption – thanks in large part to Stine’s guidance. While O’Flanagan will be moving on from the day-to-day management of the business, he will remain an advisor to the Board.<h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>Change at the top of an organization is always precarious. It can telegraph a wide range of signals to the market while leaving customers wondering about the broader implications. Managing the optics is always tricky. For Sitecore, Stine is exactly the kind of vocal consensus builder who can drive results. He brings the right mix of confidence and charisma to help reinforce the vision and address some of the persistent challenges that exist. This includes assurances to Sitecore’s legacy XP users and committing to support and enrich those tools while focusing on the future of XM Cloud.On that note, the growth of XM Cloud is a clear indicator that the company is moving in a solid direction from a composable perspective. In my recent assessment of the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/gettin-hygge-with-ai-and-more-a-few-cozy-takeaways-from-the-forrester-cms-wave-2025">Forrester Wave Report for CMS</a>, I discussed with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/mattmcqueeny">Matt McQueeny</a> – a CMS Critic contributor and three-time Sitecore MVP – how XM Cloud is showing up as a contender from a feature and pricing perspective. All positive points in its favor.One of Sitecore’s greatest strengths is its community. Stine is already a visible leadership figure among users and partners, and maintaining strong ties will be key to easing the transition and laying out future innovation. When I spoke to agencies and partners at last year’s Symposium, it was clear that O’Flanagan was working to build stronger bridges within Sitecore’s ecosystem.There’s no doubt that AI continues to be the center of gravity for Sitecore’s strategy, enabling brands to deliver more personalized and scalable digital experiences. I recently spoke to O’Flanagan about the company’s <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/sitecore-partners-with-microsoft-to-launch-industrys-first-ai-innovation-lab-for-marketers">partnership with Microsoft to launch the industry’s first AI Innovation Lab</a> – which is keenly focused on the role of marketers. Bolstered by Microsoft’s partnership with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://openai.com/">OpenAI</a>, this kind of collaboration is exactly what vendors need to drive differentiated value as trusted advisors.2025 has already served up a menu of challenges, from trade wars to waning consumer sentiment. If there’s a time for bold and decisive leadership, it’s now – and that might be playing into Sitecore’s calculus as it shakes things up. There are obviously other factors at play, but Stine's experience and heritage make him an ideal choice for steering this company through its next chapter. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-sitecore?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Sitecore? <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to an expert.</a></h4><hr /> <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.46%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/cms-summit-25.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">CMS Summit 25</a></h4>May 13-14, 2025 – Frankfurt, GermanyDon't miss the first European edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community! CMS Summit 25 will bring together top-notch speakers, our renowned learning format, and engaging social events. Hear from leading practitioners like Deutsche Bahn, Dr. Oetker, and more – and join customers, agencies, and CMS vendors as we discuss current trends and what's ahead for the content and digital experience fields. Connect and network at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference focused on CMS. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

Sitecore Taps Veteran Eric Stine as CEO to Lead Next Phase of Growth and Innovation

The ‘Deep Dish’ on Composable: 6 Tasty Takeaways from the MACH Alliance’s 2025 Conference

<hr /> At <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fmachalliance.org%2Fevents%2Fcomposable-conference-25&amp;esheet=54242130&amp;newsitemid=20250423626378&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=The+Composable+Conference+2025&amp;index=3&amp;md5=43a1cfa7eaa4a3566b2d9ca6d14dae9d">“The Composable Conference 2025”</a> this week, the topic of AI permeated almost every session and sidebar conversation. Based on my connections with attendees, it’s clear that many organizations have already invested heavily in their own strategies with varying results. Meanwhile, some businesses are still searching for the right place to start their journey.Now, the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/the-composable-conference-2025-takes-shape-as-mach-alliance-announces-speakers-and-new-events">MACH Alliance</a> is providing a helping hand across the lifecycle, built on the terra firma of composability. The Alliance – a not-for-profit industry body dedicated to advocating for open, best-in-class technology ecosystems – just unveiled its new <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fmachalliance.org%2Fmach-ai-exchange&amp;esheet=54242130&amp;newsitemid=20250423626378&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=MACH+AI+Exchange&amp;index=2&amp;md5=2db441d6ec823188692b0030ff55277b">MACH AI Exchange</a>, a professional peer network focused on guiding real-world AI implementation for enterprise companies. The program, which was launched during this week’s conference, was inspired by a recent Alliance study that codifies the value of MACH in streamlining and accelerating AI adoption. According to the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fmachalliance.org%2Fglobal-annual-research&amp;esheet=54242130&amp;newsitemid=20250423626378&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=2025+MACH+Alliance+Global+Annual+Research&amp;index=4&amp;md5=8b35e7c9765b71263fa3b549fb481c06">2025 MACH Alliance Global Annual Research</a> report, 77% of organizations well into their composable journey are using AI. That’s compared to only 36% of those new to MACH. The data suggests that MACH's flexible, connected, and open foundation could translate into successful AI outcomes.<h3 id="implementing-ai-solutions-at-scale">Implementing AI solutions at scale</h3>As part of its rollout, the MACH AI Exchange will launch with three founding members who are leaders in their field. This includes <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlrh/">Karl Hampson</a>, CTO, Data &amp; AI at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/valtech/posts/?feedView=all">Valtech</a>; <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikasjain2007/">Vikas Jain</a>, Director, US Retail &amp; Consumer Ecosystem Portfolio at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/google-cloud/posts/?feedView=all">Google Cloud</a>; and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/thexunwang/">Xun Wang</a>, CTO at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/bloomreach">Bloomreach</a>.Core to its charter, the network’s mission is to support enterprise businesses as they implement AI solutions at scale. This includes the bleeding-edge realms of generative and agentic AI technologies. The MACH AI Exchange will accelerate a knowledge base of technical insights, architectural patterns, and implementation methodologies that can significantly reduce integration risk and accelerate deployment timelines.“AI thrives on structured, real-time data, and enterprise architectures face heightened challenges as AI workloads dynamically scale,” said Vikas Jain, founding member and Director of Google Cloud’s U.S. Retail &amp; Consumer Ecosystem portfolio. “The MACH AI Exchange will enable the convergence of composable principles and AI capabilities to help technical leaders establish a competitive advantage through architectural innovation.”<h3 id="who-can-join?">Who can join?</h3>According to the press release, the peer-to-peer community is open to those implementing AI in enterprise systems. This includes engineers, architects, and strategists integrating AI into workflows, builders and innovators shaping AI in MACH environments, and problem solvers pushing AI forward in business technology.“Enterprise stacks weren’t built to handle the constant innovation of the AI era, but that also doesn’t mean we need to start from scratch, either,” said Xun Wang, founding member, CTO of Bloomreach. “Just like MACH de-risks change by making technology adaptable, open, and connected, AI adoption requires the same foundation. In the MACH AI Exchange, members will share what works, what breaks, and how to de-risk AI adoption without common AI buzzwords and hype.”<h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>As AI continues to ripple across our roadmaps, enterprises are struggling to separate the hype from the hope. Regardless of where an organization is on its AI maturity lifecycle, guidance continues to be a missing link – and without it, many businesses risk missing the mark on AI’s full potential.Buoyed by a MACH foundation, it’s evident that organizations can leverage a composable posture to accelerate and streamline their plans. But more importantly, the MACH Alliance is providing valuable industry insight to help mitigate risk and guide the journey. This layer of human expertise could be a critical differentiator.To learn more about the MACH AI Exchange, visit <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fmachalliance.org%2Fmach-ai-exchange&amp;esheet=54242130&amp;newsitemid=20250423626378&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=https%3A%2F%2Fmachalliance.org%2Fmach-ai-exchange&amp;index=6&amp;md5=835c89f808371874a54aaa43b71e7f53">https://machalliance.org/mach-ai-exchange</a> <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:24.53%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/03/image-1742910054704.png" /><h4 id="the-composable-conference-2025"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://machalliance.org/events/composable-conference-25">The Composable Conference 2025</a></h4>April 22-24 – Chicago, USAExperience the future of composable and MACH principles in “The Windy City” and dive even deeper into the innovative world of MACH architecture and its benefits for your business. Building on the momentum of MACH THREE, this conference will provide your teams with the expert, impartial guidance needed to craft a winning transformation strategy and leverage the latest advancements in automation and Al to maximize efficiency and drive your organization forward. This event is ideal for executives, business leaders, technologists, and everyone in between who is looking to harness the power of composable. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://machalliance.org/events/composable-conference-25">Secure your spot today.</a> <img style="width:30.46%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/cms-summit-25.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">CMS Summit 25</a></h4>May 13-14, 2025 – Frankfurt, GermanyDon't miss the first European edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community! CMS Summit 25 will bring together top-notch speakers, our renowned learning format, and engaging social events. Hear from leading practitioners like Deutsche Bahn, Dr. Oetker, and more – and join customers, agencies, and CMS vendors as we discuss current trends and what's ahead for the content and digital experience fields. Connect and network at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference focused on CMS. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

MACH Alliance Launches New MACH AI Exchange to Help Enterprises Streamline AI Adoption

<hr /> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/">Agility CMS</a> Chief Technical Officer <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelvarty/">Joel Varty</a> just wrapped up his first YouTube video series, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoA-Jt52_c&amp;list=PLEI81bLU4t-uzsIOt1iaykzI4ZSsNQ9ao&amp;pp=gAQB">Building with Next.js and Headless CMS</a>. It’s an 8-part series looking at the power of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/starters/nextjs">Next.js</a> when paired with Agility CMS. Next.js and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/product/headless-cms">headless CMS</a> go hand-in-glove to help <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/product/developers">developers</a> build fast, scalable, and dynamic websites. Joel’s video series walks you through integrating Agility CMS with Next.js, examining essential topics such as previewing, creating components, caching, authenticating, and more.Watch the Full Series: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoA-Jt52_c&amp;list=PLEI81bLU4t-uzsIOt1iaykzI4ZSsNQ9ao&amp;pp=gAQB">Building with Next.js and Headless CMS on YouTube</a>  <figure class="media"><div data-oembed-url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoA-Jt52_c&amp;list=PLEI81bLU4t-uzsIOt1iaykzI4ZSsNQ9ao"><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56.2493%"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UGoA-Jt52_c" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></figure><h3 id="the-what-and-why-of-next.js-">The What and Why of Next.js </h3> <h4 id="the-what-">The What </h4>Next.js was developed in 2016 by <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/partners/integrations/vercel">Vercel</a> as an open-source, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/blog/react-cms">React</a>-based JavaScript framework. It enables server-side rendering (SSR), static site generation (SSG), and incremental static regeneration (ISR) to optimize performance and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/solutions/modern-websites-and-seo">search engine optimization (SEO)</a>. In other words: Next.js decides the best way to show content based on how data is fetched from pages: <ul><li>SSG prepares pages ahead of time. </li><li>SSR generates them on demand. </li><li>ISR generates them statically at first, but then incrementally updates them as changes happen in the CMS. </li></ul>All these options reduce the work a visitor’s browser must do. This makes the browsing experience smoother and more efficient.  <h4 id="the-why-">The Why </h4>Both developers and marketers benefit from Next.js: <figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Developers</td><td>Marketers</td></tr><tr><td><ul><li>API Routes </li><li>Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) </li><li>File-Based Routing </li><li>Optimized Performance </li><li>Seamless Vercel Integration</li></ul></td><td><ul><li>Fast loading speed for high-performance sites </li><li>SEO-friendliness for easy content indexing </li><li>Greater content control via headless integration </li><li>Supports <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/solutions/content-hub-and-omnichannnel-deployments">omnichannel</a> marketing activities </li><li>Real-time previews and publishing</li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table></figure>Marketing websites benefit from fast-loading, SEO-rich content. E-commerce platforms can take advantage of dynamic product pages using ISR. With Next.js and a headless CMS, your content becomes omnipresent – meaning it’s ready for websites, apps, digital signage, and beyond. <h3 id="joel’s-key-takeaway-">Joel’s Key Takeaway </h3>If there’s one thing Joel wants you to take away from <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoA-Jt52_c&amp;list=PLEI81bLU4t-uzsIOt1iaykzI4ZSsNQ9ao&amp;pp=gAQB">Building with Next.js and Headless CMS</a>, it’s this (in his own words): “As a modern web framework, Next.js is the leader when it comes to building actual production sites for customers. A front-end developer with React skills can really level up their game by following along with this series. I see it as an opportunity for someone to take their career to a whole new level.” <h3 id="next.js-makes-a-difference-">Next.js Makes a Difference </h3>React is powerful. But by itself, it doesn’t offer SSR, SSG, ISR, SEO, or many other amazing acronyms. Next.js fills in those gaps and transforms React into a full-featured web framework. From there, Next.js: <ul><li>Spans developer and marketing needs: Developers can build quickly while content teams manage content effectively – without stepping on each other’s toes.  </li><li>Future-proofs your tech stack: Next.js works with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/resources/guide/introduction-to-jamstack">Jamstack</a> and deploys on platforms like Vercel or <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/partners/integrations/netlify">Netlify</a>. It’s flexible and adaptable, meaning you aren’t “locked in” to, well, anything. </li><li>Powers better web experiences: Build faster, more accessible, and more scalable websites and apps without wrestling the framework.  </li></ul><h3 id="get-your-popcorn-ready-">Get Your Popcorn Ready </h3>Joel has been a mainstay within the industry for 20 years. He’s known for his engaging and insightful <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/resources/events">webinars</a>. And his ability to craft dad jokes out of thin air borders on the supernatural. All that to say, you’re going to learn quite a bit – and get some unexpected chuckles too – when you check out <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoA-Jt52_c&amp;list=PLEI81bLU4t-uzsIOt1iaykzI4ZSsNQ9ao&amp;pp=gAQB">Building with Next.js and Headless CMS</a>.  <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-agility?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Agility? <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to an expert.</a></h4><hr /> <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:24.53%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/03/image-1742910054704.png" /><h4 id="the-composable-conference-2025"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://machalliance.org/events/composable-conference-25">The Composable Conference 2025</a></h4>April 22-24 – Chicago, USAExperience the future of composable and MACH principles in “The Windy City” and dive even deeper into the innovative world of MACH architecture and its benefits for your business. Building on the momentum of MACH THREE, this conference will provide your teams with the expert, impartial guidance needed to craft a winning transformation strategy and leverage the latest advancements in automation and Al to maximize efficiency and drive your organization forward. This event is ideal for executives, business leaders, technologists, and everyone in between who is looking to harness the power of composable. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://machalliance.org/events/composable-conference-25">Secure your spot today.</a> <img style="width:30.46%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/cms-summit-25.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">CMS Summit 25</a></h4>May 13-14, 2025 – Frankfurt, GermanyDon't miss the first European edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community! CMS Summit 25 will bring together top-notch speakers, our renowned learning format, and engaging social events. Hear from leading practitioners like Deutsche Bahn, Dr. Oetker, and more – and join customers, agencies, and CMS vendors as we discuss current trends and what's ahead for the content and digital experience fields. Connect and network at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference focused on CMS. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

Varty’s Videos: A CTO’s Take on Next.js

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<hr /> I first heard the term “MCP” as a tech-obsessed, Commodore-64-toting 8-year-old. It landed during the epic video game movie Tron, where it was used as an off-hand contraction for the nefarious “Master Control Program."As the story's digital antagonist, the MCP exhibited the worst traits of artificial intelligence, projecting an unscrupulous, destructive, self-serving agenda. Kind of like that terrible neighbor who’s always on a power trip at your HOA meeting – but with lasers. Life is sometimes stranger than fiction, and this acronym has now materialized on the grid as a real-life TLA with an AI inference. Hopefully, the similarities to that other MCP end here, but I’m keeping my light cycle on standby.This newer permutation of MCP – <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://modelcontextprotocol.io/introduction">Model Context Protocol</a> – is an open standard for governing how applications provide context to LLMs. Much like USB-C provides a standardized way to connect devices to different accessories, MCP does the same to connect AI models to different data sources and tools.Why is this important? Because MCP has become a critical piece of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/its-an-ai-agent-world-is-agent-experience-the-secret-weapon-for-controlling-the-chaos">the agentic pie</a>, enabling you to build agents and workflows on top of LLMs – which often need to integrate with various data sources and tools. MCP can provide access to pre-built integrations that ease the connection process, including lightweight programs and hosts like IDEs. All of this, as Tron might say, is about interoperability. And while the digital frontier is very much focused on the evolution of agents, we’re still wrestling with integration complexities in the here and now. This is where data models can be key assets, helping brands, system integrators, and vendors to present products, orders, inventory, and other commerce-related data. But building a data model from scratch is tough. And by definition, each from-scratch data model is unique. That’s why the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/the-composable-conference-2025-takes-shape-as-mach-alliance-announces-speakers-and-new-events">MACH Alliance</a> has introduced a new <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://machalliance.org/open-data-model-initiative">Open Data Model Initiative</a>, which aims to solve the lingering interoperability issues plaguing enterprises, SIs, and ISVs. The industry group – which is focused on future-proofing enterprise technology through open, connected, and composable digital experiences – just announced the launch of the program. It coincides with its annual live event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://machalliance.org/events/composable-conference-25">“The Composable Conference,”</a> which is being held in Chicago this week.  Led by the Alliance’s Interoperability Task Force, the Initiative will provide a set of reusable data model recipes and reference structures. These components will be extensible across critical technology domains, such as commerce, product information management (PIM), and orchestration. These patterns aren’t a set of draconian standards. In fact, they’re designed to be lightweight, adaptable, and built for real-world applications. This addresses the strategic concerns of businesses as they seek out more composable, interoperable solutions to help them navigate a rapidly changing digital landscape."Interoperability has been a primary focus for the MACH Alliance," said <a href="Adam%20Peter%20Nielsen">Adam Peter Nielsen</a>, CTO of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.novicell.com/">Novicell</a> and MACH Alliance Interoperability Lead. “With a shared data model recipe, we can make tangible progress toward seamless integration and strategic agility across diverse technologies.”<h3 id="broadening-the-composable-roadmap-">Broadening the composable roadmap </h3>According to the Alliance, its Open Data Model will be made publicly available under an open-source license on <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a>, helping to ensure transparency, accessibility, and broad community engagement. But that’s only the first step. The plan is to maintain innovation and maturity through the MACH Alliance Interoperability Working Group, which will actively enhance and expand the model. The goal is to deliver a solution that’s ready for full member consumption by the end of Q2 2025.To accelerate go-to-market readiness, the MACH Alliance is working with several MACH Certified Vendors that have provided sample material. The list includes <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/conscia">Conscia</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://alokai.com/">Alokai</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/commercetools">commercetools</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.bluestonepim.com/">Bluestone PIM</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/occtoo">Occtoo</a>, and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://pipe17.com/">Pipe17</a> – which offered its open, comprehensive, canonical data model as a starting point. “We built our data model over five years,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellygoetsch/">Kelly Goetsch</a>, COO of Pipe 17 and former MACH Alliance president and chair. “It sits at the heart of our solution, has been rigorously tested in real-world use, continuously refined, and has always been open source from day one. We’re thrilled to contribute it to the MACH Alliance, further empowering the commerce ecosystem to innovate and scale faster.”Also leading the initiative are a set of MACH Certified System Integrators, including <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.applydigital.com/">Apply Digital</a>, Novicell, and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.valtech.com/en-us/">Valtech</a> – buoyed by the hyperscaling support of MACH Certified Enabler <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/aws">AWS</a>.<h3 id="giving-merchants,-sis,-and-vendors-a-mach-multiplier">Giving merchants, SIs, and vendors a MACH multiplier</h3>The new Open Data Model is poised to provide significant benefits across the MACH ecosystem. From vendor-neutral patterns for seamless interoperability to reference structures for vertical markets like manufacturing, the initiative will provide a “springboard” for new projects or legacy – all with a dedicated focus on transparency.  First, merchants will have the ability to adopt this data model as their own – and effortlessly connect their existing homegrown systems with MACH-compliant solutions.Additionally, systems Integrators and agencies will be able to build repeatable solutions, enhance their overall efficiency, and speed up MACH implementations. This will accelerate their time to deliver value to merchants.As for MACH Alliance vendors, the initiative will provide immediate access to a robust foundational data model, dramatically reducing initial development effort and enhancing a more seamless data flow between partner solutions.<h3 id="what-about-ai-(and-that-mcp-stuff)?">What about AI (and that MCP stuff)?</h3>Of course, there’s the future runway to agentic AI that I mentioned, which is wholly dependent on data. As the Alliance posits, without a shared data model, enterprises will continue to face fragmented, siloed data environments that limit AI’s ability to make accurate decisions and deliver tangible business value.By establishing an open, vendor-neutral data model, the MACH Alliance is laying the groundwork for the use of agentic AI and supporting <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-context-protocol">Anthropic’s MCP-powered agents. </a>This is helping to connect AI assistants to the systems where data lives, including content repositories, business tools, and development environments. Its goal is to help frontier models produce better, more relevant responses. "Enterprises demand solutions that work together,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobhowland/">Bob Howland</a>, Chairperson of the MACH Alliance. “By standardizing an Open Data Model, we dramatically simplify integrations. Vendors adopting the Open Data Model will find faster implementation cycles and significantly reduced complexity – enabling true interoperability that powers digital innovation."<h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>Spoiler alert: At the end of Tron, the computer system is once again free, giving the personified programs the ability to move about and, presumably, connect with other programs to build cool things. There’s something beautiful about this idea of seamlessly interoperating. There’s no question that security and governance are top of mind in such paradigms, and we’re a long way from easy. Still, interoperability can be made easier – better, even – with the introduction of more predictable standards. From the beginning, the concept of “openness” has been core to the MACH Alliance, making it a solid foundation for providing a common, open source data model that’s been proven. Based on the Alliance’s plans, it sounds like this model will continue to benefit from ongoing innovation and be well-supported in the future.The flexibility and extensibility of this model are also key factors. By enabling off-the-shelf access to its merchant, SI, and ISV ecosystems, the Alliance is helping to ensure that the model is instantly adoptable and supported by its members. There’s also an open invitation for experts and practitioners to help shape the model for future use cases.The market is always yearning for standards, and with the rapid acceleration of AI – specifically with MCP-powered model agents – having more predictable and reliable pathways to integrate should reduce the friction for building the next wave of agentic applications. Even the most advanced models are limited by their isolation from data, walled in behind silos and legacy systems. This is why this investment in an open data model is an ambitious and positive step forward.Will this solve every integration problem on the light cycle grid? Not likely. But it's a start. It might also unlock more potential for additional industry applications, something the organization has struggled with as it endeavors to expand and export its relevance to other industries. To that end, the MACH Alliance is also undergoing its own evolution (including its messaging). The Open Data Model might be the first page of its next chapter as it seeks to enrich its foundational mission and further support the market. With composable continuing to make gains, many are asking what's ahead, and this initiative is a glimpse of its vision for an open, AI-enabled ecosystem. You can learn more about the Open Data Model initiative and even contribute to the project at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://machalliance.org/open-data-model-initiative">https://machalliance.org/open-data-model-initiative</a> <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:24.53%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/03/image-1742910054704.png" /><h4 id="the-composable-conference-2025"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://machalliance.org/events/composable-conference-25">The Composable Conference 2025</a></h4>April 22-24 – Chicago, USAExperience the future of composable and MACH principles in “The Windy City” and dive even deeper into the innovative world of MACH architecture and its benefits for your business. Building on the momentum of MACH THREE, this conference will provide your teams with the expert, impartial guidance needed to craft a winning transformation strategy and leverage the latest advancements in automation and Al to maximize efficiency and drive your organization forward. This event is ideal for executives, business leaders, technologists, and everyone in between who is looking to harness the power of composable. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://machalliance.org/events/composable-conference-25">Secure your spot today.</a> <img style="width:30.46%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/cms-summit-25.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">CMS Summit 25</a></h4>May 13-14, 2025 – Frankfurt, GermanyDon't miss the first European edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community! CMS Summit 25 will bring together top-notch speakers, our renowned learning format, and engaging social events. Hear from leading practitioners like Deutsche Bahn, Dr. Oetker, and more – and join customers, agencies, and CMS vendors as we discuss current trends and what's ahead for the content and digital experience fields. Connect and network at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference focused on CMS. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:31.83%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/01/cms-connect-2025-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-connect-25"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">CMS Connect 25</a></h4>August 5-6, 2025 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present the second annual summer edition of our signature global conference dedicated to the content management community! CMS Connect will be held again in beautiful Montreal, Canada, and feature a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. Join vendors, agencies, and customers from across our industry as we engage and collaborate around the future of content management – and hear from the top thought leaders at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference exclusively focused on CMS. Space is limited for this event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect25">so book your seats today.</a>

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