Adapt + Thrive: Contentstack’s ContentCon25 Energizes Attendees with an AI-Powered Vision

Highlights

• Contentstack's fourth annual ContentCon event was held in Chicago earlier this month
• The largest so far in the company's history, it offered a dynamic mix of sessions and workshops
• Contentstack announced its new Data & Insights capabilities at the event, with a live demo on stage
• We sat down with CEO and founder Neha Sampat to discuss their Adaptive DXP (and more)

Ask any native Chicagoan where “Willis Tower” is, and you’ll likely receive a stink eye wider than Wrigley Field.

Why? Because for many in Chi-town, this iconic building – the tallest in the world when it first opened in 1973 – will forever be emblazoned as “The Sears Tower.” 

Oh, you didn’t know about this little switcheroo? If not, don’t beat yourself up. People across the globe still recognize the landmark by its previous name (which, by the way, was laid to rest in 2009). 

Over the years, many of Chicago’s architectural wonders have undergone a commercial rebranding. But for the residents of the Windy City, the switch to Willis has proven so divisive that referring to its posthumous identity has almost become a badge of civic pride.

Wherever you fall on the topic of Sears versus Willis, the building’s Skydeck is still one of the best ways to see this majestic city from above. Here are a few more “data bytes” to snack on:

Look, change sucks. We can all agree on that. And in the realm of technology, AI is making the pace of change so fast – and so unpredictable – that we’re barely able to understand what’s happening before we’re faced with the next hurdle. 

Agentic this. MCP server that. The fact is, we don’t have decades of time to resist the switch. Brands are under increasing pressure to face change head-on, and they need tools that are flexible and future-proofed for this breathtaking rate of transformation. 

We’re certainly feeling this AI-induced anxiety across the DX industry. I’ve heard it from attendees at live events and in my many conversations with CMS and DXP leaders. Everyone is scrambling to get in front of the wave before they’re left behind. 

And this constant change is precisely what drove Contentstack to reposition itself as an “Adaptive DXP.” 

I get it. Every vendor is endeavoring to differentiate its messaging with a flashy tagline or a category challenger. But in a sea of sameness, the word adaptive feels more philosophical, like it’s balancing the conundrum of how we respond to a world in flux, where AI is redirecting the roadmap on a daily basis. 

When I was at Contentstack’s recent ContentCon25, held at the aforementioned Willis (ahem, “Sears”) Tower, I got an expanded glimpse of how they’re delivering on this promise of adaptability. 

Funny enough, the event was held in the same location as the MACH Alliance’s Composable Conference back in April, presenting a kind of “reusable component” experience for previous attendees like me. In other words, I knew where everything was. It was a bit like digital déjà vu. 

But Contentstack owned the space at their fourth annual customer event, and they’ve clearly hit a stride – tapping the kind of community energy that software companies pine for. 

Case in point: There was barely an empty seat at the main stage speaker events, which featured inspiring keynotes from digital luminaries like AI musician (yes, that’s a thing) Taryn Southern – who gave an incredible talk on scaling the imagination with artificial intelligence. 

The mood was festive at all the right beats. Guests were even given a silicone LED wristband that responded to the event’s ambience, making it all feel a little hip and hypnotic – and worthy of vibing.

Clockwise from top left: The event wristbands, CMO Gurdeep Dhillon, the ContentCon25 Partner Pavilion, and Taryn Souther.

And the brands in attendance? Talk about heavy hitters. From insightful sessions led by industry mavens like Crocs, Mattel, and Verizon, a bevy of enterprise players made the rounds at Contentstack’s first full-scale partner pavilion, where agencies and consultancies like Altudo, Horizontal, and XCentium were experiencing a steady stream of interest.  

I spoke to partner reps from several of these shops, and most said the same thing: The quality of the brands and the conversations made the event sponsor-worthy. 

But hey, it’s not all about leads. ContentCon once again stayed true to its root focus on innovation, education, and collaboration. Attendees were treated to a diverse mix of workshops and roundtables navigating a deep bench of topics. I personally wove through several of the developer labs, which covered critical (but decidedly less sexy) topics like compliance and change management. 

ContentCon25 Developer Lab on unlocking the potential of Contentstack EDGE

I was especially delighted by one of the final labs on unlocking the potential of Contentstack EDGE, which offered technical practitioners hands-on advice for leveraging the platform's often overlooked functionality. I learned a few practical things that would easily underscore the price of a ticket for content professionals working in the trenches.

While I chatted at length with agencies and brands (I’ve got a forthcoming video interview with Bill Mitchell of MongoDB about his composable journey), the spirit of this event is wrapped tightly around its heart – and it’s beating louder than ever in Contentstack’s founder and CEO, Neha Sampat.

First, when do you see a chief executive dance their way on stage at a conference? 

Don’t get me wrong. I've seen plenty of first pumping, high-fiving, and even the occasional jig or shimmy. But this isn’t an ordinary chief executive, and that was evident as she cut a rug to her opening keynote. 

It was pure joy.

Neha Sampat during her opening keynote at ContentCon25

It was there that she painted a picture of what’s ahead for those daring enough to make the journey. As she said, there’s no bridge from the “safe” to the promise of the future, and change doesn’t begin just when software launches. It requires bold steps.

“You have to build the bridge,” she said. “It’s an act of courage.”

Neha is a bright gem in the rocky terrain of tech, coupling an unbridled enthusiasm with a grounded voice of trust. It’s no wonder she’s managed to steer this company in a disruptive direction, from its headless beginnings to a foray into the DXP category, powered by $169 million in funding. 

She’s also moved their way up the analyst scorecards, bursting into the Leader ring of the Forrester Wave for CMS (bested only by Optimizely and Adobe). Speaking of bold steps, she also guided the company's first strategic acquisition of Lytics, a notable CDP, back in January. And now, as we step over the AI precipice, she’s poised to challenge the market once more with this new vision for an “Adaptive DXP.” 

Will it be the catalyst that thrusts Contentstack to the next level in an increasingly noisy and commoditized marketscape? 

It’s hard to say. The economic outlook is fuzzy. Competition is tight. MACH is running into resistance. There's a lot of headwind, but what I saw at this event is a platform that is changing – adapting – to meet this moment of transformation, and driving to lead with a clear vision that reinforces brand relevancy.

As Neha so keenly observed in her keynote, “What we do is hard, and no one can do it alone. We need the right people and partners to make things happen." And that’s an area where Contentstack is really stepping up.

I had a chance to sit down with Neha for an exclusive one-on-one at ContentCon. Feel free to take the elevator or the stairs: You can watch the video below for a snapshot of our discussion, or keep reading for more of the granular nuggets. 

Either way, you’ll end up at the Skydeck, with a better view of what’s ahead.  

Becoming an ‘Adaptive DXP’

As an industry, we’ve always endeavored to adapt. That part isn’t new. What’s different is the hyperbolic thrust of AI. Neha underscored this, and I asked her to provide some deeper texture around the decision to embrace this mantle of an “Adaptive DXP.”

“With AI in our face, we’re changing not every year, but every day," she said. "And we’re having to react and adapt to that change.”

When mulling over the right word to encompass the benefits of their platform, “adaptive” kept surfacing as the right choice. It crystallized how the platform could be leveraged on a strategic level – not just today, but well into the future.

“We call it an ‘Adaptive DXP,’ because we think we should be the last DXP you should ever have to buy,” she said brightly. It’s a bold statement, but one she’s ready to back up with Contentstack’s technology and its human intelligence. She went on to say that she’s putting the responsibility on her team to proactively look ahead, read the tea leaves, and ensure that customers are prepared for what’s coming – and ready to react.

“Adaptive is essentially being able to change with the times, regardless of how fast that’s happening,” Neha continued. “It’s being able to support your end user audience as they’re going through the change with you. And some of that comes from our Customer Advisory Board, our Technical Advisory Board, our Partner Advisory Board, all feeding into how we think. Existing customers are also telling us what they like and don't like from our regular feedback loop. But there's also this role that we have as technologists who are a little bit ahead of the game. So we have to kind of triangulate all of those things.”

As DXPs struggle to differentiate around core capabilities, this forward-thinking partnership could prove instrumental. Contentstack already has a composable foundation, but as it has deepened its offerings, from Launch to Automate to the new Lytics acquisition, the impact of human guidance within these increasingly complex systems has become paramount. 

I spoke to several customers at ContentCon who echoed the value of Contentstack’s expertise, also noting the impact of the company’s Care Without Compromise program as an illustration of its commitment and accountability, particularly within a composable stack. When coupled together, the injection of these service elements could be another defining value point of an Adaptive DXP.

Crowing context as “Queen” with Data and Insights

One expects big announcements at vendor conferences, and ContentCon lived up to that promise. On the first morning of the event, I ran a story announcing Contentstack’s enhanced Data & Insights capabilities, which promised to fuel the value of its AI-powered Adaptive DXP.

With Data & Insights, the company is natively adding real-time audience insights, intelligent content recommendations, and omnichannel journey orchestration to Contentstack EDGE, and fulfilling the promise for brands to deliver one-to-one personalized experiences across every channel.

In my review of last year’s ContentCon event, it was clear that Contentstack was building serious AI momentum. In 2023, I covered the early phases of their GenAI initiatives with Christine Masters, who was squarely focused on AI from a product management perspective. Even then, I was seeing novel applications bleeding into practical automation. 

But the drive towards AI-powered personalization was catching fire with the announcement of its new Contentstack Personalize, and A/B/n multivariate testing and segmentation engine. This also included the platform’s Brand Kit, which aimed to align AI-generated content at scale with a brand’s voice, as well as a bevy of new extensions for Contentstack Automate.

Much of the focus of the new Data & Insights capabilities is on leveraging the relationship between content and context (a word I’ve been hearing a lot in CMS and DXP circles). As Neha explained, you need both on the dance floor – doing the right moves – for personalization to work.

"Over the last year, we’ve brought personalization to the table with Contentstack Personalize, but quickly learned that customer data was an important part of that equation in order to really bring the power of personalization at scale to life.”

“Content has always been king, and it’s been the center of the Contentstack ecosystem,” she said. “The argument today is that content is data, or data is content, and the two need to interoperate in order to realize what AI can bring to life. Over the last year, we’ve brought personalization to the table with Contentstack Personalize, but quickly learned that customer data was an important part of that equation in order to really bring the power of personalization at scale to life.”

If content is king, context is queen. And with the Lytics acquisition, Contentstack finally has the ingredients to accelerate this part of the journey. As Neha explained, by leveraging the multiplicative force of AI, they can now bring content and data together, contextualize user activity, and create audience profiles – in real time – to deliver personalized experiences to every person.

“As users are poking around on your site, whether they’re known or unknown users, you’re able to collect information about them that helps deliver an experience that’s meaningful to them,” she said. “That’s where context becomes the evolution of where content started. You have content, you have data, you have AI, you have correlation between the three, which all turns into context – which is super powerful.”

Conor Egan, Contentstack’s SVP of Product, during the opening demo at ContentCon25

During the early hours of day two at ContentCon, Conor Egan, Contentstack’s SVP of Product, and John Kelly, Director of Product, gave a live demo of Data & Insights. As they shared on stage, the new capabilities were made possible through the Lytics acquisition, and everything we saw was built and deployed in roughly five months (the Lytics brand is still a fixture within the UX).

The demo was comprehensive, detailing how users can uncover real-time audience insights and personalize content with almost no friction. They used a mock website (a resort called the “Red Panda,” perhaps a tip of the hat to the “White Lotus”) to illustrate the scope of features, starting with Audience Insights – which enables users to understand what content is driving engagement and delivering on business goals.

Audience Insights Opportunity Explorer in Contentstack’s Data & Insights

The UX provided a bit of visual magic, and right in the CMS. Tracking the orbs of interest as they moved across the Opportunity Explorer tool – showcasing the time-based variances in prevalence and likelihood around specific keywords – was both fascinating and, admittedly, fun to watch. As a marketer, it’s easy to see how this added context can support targeted campaigns and ground personalization efforts in data-driven insights. 

The suite also features Real-Time Data Activation, which delivers personalized experiences instantly via access to over 200 data connectors, and Flows – which allows users to design and automate adaptive customer journeys across web, mobile, email, ads, and more. These tools are all worth a demo test-drive.

All of this extra marketing goodness might even bleed into the CMP category, where players like Optimizely enable full-blown campaign management and personalization within a unified platform. As Neha explained, it’s all been part of Contentstack’s progression from headless CMS to a true DXP, always focusing on how to give marketers what they need to be successful.

“I go back to our ‘North Star,’ and it's that the world's best digital experiences run on Contentstack,” she said. “You can't do that as just a headless CMS. You have to have some of the other pieces. And personalization was a really important pillar for that. We built things before it, like Launch, Automate, Brand Kit, and GenAI. But Personalize was the pillar that really catapulted us into a true DXP player, and adding data made us a really powerful personalization player.”

Riding the agentic AI wave

Agents are coming – fast and furiously. While brands and vendors rush to create MCP servers and build out agentic infrastructures, many enterprises I’ve spoken to are still struggling to understand how to harness the agent experience. 

Between the breakneck speed of adoption and the lack of leadership and guidance, vendors and agencies have a clear opportunity to provide thoughtful direction, distinguish the hype from the hope, and validate the impact of their offerings amidst an onslaught of AI washing.

I asked Neha what we can expect on the frontier. It’s no surprise that she’s taking a calculated approach to bringing AI to customers, focusing first on practical, tangible value. It’s also worth noting that the no-code, agent-based frameworks and logic within their Automate tooling could be a secret weapon for accelerating their next steps. 

“People are always hyping things, and we’re hearing a lot about the agentic world and agents,” she said. “We called it the ‘A-word’ on stage yesterday. It’s not that we’re trying to avoid agents or won’t have an agent strategy. Stay tuned for that. But what we think is important is what customers need and want today, and what’s our role in helping to enable that.”

While Contentstack didn’t announce anything specific about its agentic strategy, the topic was widely discussed across multiple sessions. And it was more than just the technical aspects. In fact, during one of the final fireside chats, Mondelēz – a global leader in the snack food category – offered insights around its journey to build an “empathetic” ecosystem of agents. 

Neha reflected on what they’re doing right, and perhaps how that might inform her own trajectory.

“They’re building out an entire responsible AI strategy for their brands,” she said. “The legal components and frameworks and brand situations. You have to think about all of that. But they're building out a structure that makes sense for the organization and where that methodology will apply.”

“As we fast forward into new experiences and omnichannel and other ways of establishing AI principles, we’ll continue to bring more agents to the table or things that we know will be valuable. But we want to do it at a pace that isn’t so daunting or stressful for the brands we work with."

Obviously, governance is a huge part of the AI gambit. From generative copyright issues to persistent hallucinations, organizations are still trying to get a handle on what the “right way” is. This is manifesting in a host of strategies, from fierce internal AI regulations to the hiring of Chief AI Officers (yes, another C-Suite role). 

As I’ve been tracking Contentstack’s push into AI over the last few years, this conscious effort to bring sanity to the chaos through enhanced control and governance has been a core focus. Without the foundation or the guardrails, it’s not delivering on its promise. 

A great example of this is their Brand Kit capabilities, which, as Neha explained, helps confront some of the innate challenges with AI’s current training limitations. At the same time, she’s quick to point out that choice, driven by composability, is the bedrock for everything, so these are optional configurations. 

“We want to empower brands to move at their pace,” she said. “When we built in generative AI, it wasn’t forced. You can turn it on or not, or do it the way that you've been doing it. You can experiment with some of our brand awareness or activate Brand Kit. We obviously encourage that you do, because if you don't use it, you're missing out on making generative AI less hallucinatory. We want to empower you to do it the best way, and we believe we know what those best practices are.”

Contentstack’s accumulated wisdom in the AI trenches will certainly help to shape its agentic strategy. But this continued focus on listening to the customer’s needs and unleashing real value could be a critical differentiator – and one reinforced by trust.

“As we fast forward into new experiences and omnichannel and other ways of establishing AI principles, we’ll continue to bring more agents to the table or things that we know will be valuable,” Neha said. “But we want to do it at a pace that isn’t so daunting or stressful for the brands we work with. We want to do it at a pace that is reasonable, approachable, and practical in everyday use for a CMS user or DXP user.”

The MACH evolution

Like the rest of the tech ecosystem, MACH – the composable architecture that’s the cornerstone of the MACH Alliance – has been experiencing its own rate of change, particularly within the commerce realm. 

With the U.S. tariff gambit still playing out, uncertainty has roiled the retail and commerce markets this year, forcing brands to (you guessed it) adapt. This has also been compounded by behavioral shifts as consumers tap ChatGPT for search and social for product discovery and transactions. 

In this torrid landscape, MACH has endeavored to be a voice of calm and direction. At the same time, brands are struggling to pivot quickly, and composable stacks have gotten more complex as AI enters the mix. Over the last few months, I’ve spoken to several sources who have admitted to craving fewer vendor contracts and less of a conflated procurement mess. One bill, one throat to choke. You get the picture. 

Throw on top the very real phenomenon of failed MACH projects, and the market is reassessing the value of a composable venture. In other words: Is the juice worth the squeeze?

I recently spoke to Mariano Gomide de Faria, founder and CEO of VTEX, a composable commerce platform. Like Contentstack, VTEX is a member of the MACH Alliance – at least until recently, when it “paused” its affiliation due to some pointed disagreements with the organization’s charter. 

Mariano publicly challenged what he calls the “MACH Mirage,” and it created a viral debate on social media. In our conversation, it felt like the issue is much larger than the Alliance itself – and far from being settled.

This is to say that MACH is evolving, and AI is central to its vector. The introduction of a new Open Data Model and MACH AI Exchange is signaling a shift in priorities, and both initiatives show real promise. Is this enough to maintain relevancy in a rapidly changing market?

As a founding member of the MACH Alliance, I wanted Neha’s perspective on the horizon. In many ways, Contentstack is the wunderkind success story of a composable, headless CMS that has achieved both funding and market share. At the same time, it has expanded its offerings to achieve a pre-composed DXP posture with an ecosystem of products, which could be perceived as antithetical to the Alliance's view on legacy monoliths. 

“I would say that we've been really successful in getting to the other side, to where now the DXP quadrants are no longer calling ‘composable’ out. Even though Contentstack has added more to its platform over the years and become multi-product, we still believe that it's really important for customers to be able to choose the best of what they want.”

“The MACH Alliance was founded in 2020, and when we were starting to talk about it, there was this huge need to educate the market on what composable even meant,” she reflected. “When we were competing against these big vendors that have huge marketing budgets and have been in the market for a long time with a majority of the market share, the only way we could really do that successfully was if we came together and shared thought leadership and had a bigger impact. So it made a ton of sense.”

As she reminded me, there was a central belief that, if done successfully, the MACH Alliance might no longer be needed if composable became more widely adopted. From her vantage point, considerable progress has been made toward that end. But as platforms like Contentstack expand their breadth of services, are we building a new kind of vendor lock-in? 

Neha doesn't think so, because choice is still the guiding principle. 

“I would say that we've been really successful in getting to the other side, to where now the DXP quadrants are no longer calling ‘composable’ out,” she eluded. “Even though Contentstack has added more to its platform over the years and become multi-product, we still believe that it's really important for customers to be able to choose the best of what they want.”

Clearly, there’s more work to be done – and as she noted, Contentstack’s composability sometimes lends its headless CMS to a specific architectural requirement. But customers are driving the demand, and that has evolved the strategy into a DXP position where MACH still serves as its bedrock.

“If you're looking to modernize your technology stack around the content ecosystem, then Contentstack can play a role as an Adaptive DXP, not just a headless CMS,” she explained. “We have to follow the lead of what's being listed in RFPs and what people are looking for when they search, so that we don't lose that momentum. But we’re also trying to bring people down the path of where the terms don't matter. What matters is that it's modern.”

A thriving community and culture

I’ve already given you my reaction to ContentCon25, but I wanted Neha’s first-hand perspective on seeing the community she built blossom into a worldwide network of practitioners, partners, and global brands.  

“I was having a lot of surreal reactions to this conference because it’s the biggest one we’ve done,” she laughed, suggesting that it will end up being one of the smallest events the company will ever do. And based on the growth over the past four years, there’s sufficient reason to believe it.

Neha mused about her company’s early days, when she and a handful of co-conspirators built a booth for the DeveloperWeek conference. The story involved a truck, a trip to Home Depot, and cans of paint strewn across her driveway in San Francisco. Going from that small, scrappy startup to one that’s professionally regarded with world-class customers is a milestone, but the biggest win in her mind is the expanding community, which is crystallized at ContentCon. 

“I remember the first ContentCon in 2022,” she recalled. “We walked away from a really great event, and we said the most valuable part was bringing brands together and then kind of getting out of their way. Allowing them to connect, to share what was working and what wasn’t. To build trust around how they were working with us and [other] partners in the ecosystem.”

That was a really important “aha” moment for Neha because it illuminated Contentstack’s role in bringing customers together to learn from one another. Transformation, she reiterated, is hard stuff. And having partners going through similar challenges – or customers you can use as a sounding board – can be equally transformative. This makes the event worth the effort.

“We look at ContentCon as a community of change makers that come together to turn impossible into possible. And the more brands we can bring to the table to have those conversations, the more powerful the community.”

To that end, Contentstack is taking the event on the road from Chicago to London. ContentCon Europe is locked in for September 11th of this year, and will feature powerful stories of digital transformation as well as an array of developer labs and workshops. And as Neha hinted, more news on Contentstack’s agentic AI front.

Contentstack's TechSurf India Hackathon and attendees at Women in MACH. Source: MACH Alliance website.

From a cultural perspective, Neha continues to be a champion for diversity, which has become especially important amidst a shifting social and political landscape. As I’ve covered in our previous conversations, she has long been an advocate and evangelist for a wide range of programs, putting her beliefs into action. This includes things like engineering internships and mentoring opportunities through her ownership at Austin Woman Magazine and affiliations like Women in MACH. 

“For me, nothing's changed, regardless of what's happening around us,” she said. “If anything, I've leaned in more, supporting Black Girls Code, Code Without College, the Surfboard Camp, the Tech Academies that we run in India to bring more women into STEM. All of that is still very much in play. And if anything, we're just turning up the dial on how much we do and how much we can do.”

What’s ahead from the Skydeck

Fun fact: The Sears Tower held the record as the world’s tallest skyscraper for over two decades, hence its storied reverence. But like so many records, it was ephemeral, just waiting to be challenged by ambitious engineers with a vision – and the will to make it happen.

Up to this point, it would be easy to describe Contentstack as a kind of “best kept secret” in the ecosystem. But there's clearly a shift underway, and if ContentCon25 was any indication of what's ahead, the Adaptive DXP is on the rise. The raw enthusiasm from partners and customers felt like a moment of change, and certainly a place where the company's future fortunes could be paved. 

That's especially true of systems integrators who are showing up. Part of that is the motion towards modernization and some of the churn from legacy platforms. SIs are hungry for solutions that make the transition to a modern stack more predictable and profitable, and that's where Neha sees the opportunity with a broadening base of agency partners.

“When it's an enterprise SI that's typically worked with a really large legacy partner that's maybe becoming less favorable, they're thinking, 'Who's the best modern player in the market?' And that's when we get that alignment.”

In terms of their go-to market, Neha is focused on amplifying Contentstack's voice in the market. Part of that, she said, is simply staying ahead of the game with thought leadership and reaching decision makers earlier in their journey. “Once we get in front of these brands, we have a really good success rate at bringing them over the finish line.”

Getting to the Skydeck won't be easy. But Neha has continued to climb with confidence. And with the kind of innovation and community along for the journey, they might have everything they need to tower over the competition.

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