Articles

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

janus-boye

Optimizely Opal Gets Supercharged for Agentic AI, Powering Infinite Use Cases for Marketers

matt-garrepy

<hr /> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(1996_film)">Independence Day</a> destroyed the box office in the summer of 1996. It was a bona fide Hollywood blockbuster, ushering in a decades-long fascination with large-scale disaster and sci-fi films.I was there when it opened. I remember sitting in a chilled theater, a sticky layer of Coke-infused popcorn crunching beneath my feet, holding my breath as mile-long flying saucers cast long shadows across entire cities. What happened next was the stuff of VFX legend: Manhattan melted under a massive laser. F-14 Tomcats picked dogfights with alien spaceships. There were heroes and sacrifices. It was all visually glorious. If you haven’t seen this masterpiece, there’s a big spoiler ahead. The film reaches its climax on the morning of July Fourth, just as Earth’s ransacked military is launching a final assault against these technologically advanced invaders. As he’s rallying the troops for a final speech, President Whitmore (played by the ever-gruff <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Pullman">Bill Pullman</a>) says:“We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight…”Man. I still get goosebumps. <figure class="media"><div data-oembed-url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V16tMmTezFQ"><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56.2493%"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V16tMmTezFQ" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></figure> Appropriating this iconic holiday was a clever plot mechanism, but it also illustrated how a crisis can unify people around a common cause. In the movie, mankind is on the line, and “Independence Day” transcends its American roots, symbolizing a victory for the entire planet. It feels like our world could use a dose of that unifying spirit right now, but I digress. Digital publishers have also been experiencing an “invasion” by advanced technology. For the last few years, AI crawlers have been infesting the web, harvesting content and repurposing it for answer engines like <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://chatgpt.com/">ChatGPT</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.perplexity.ai/">Perplexity</a>. According to one study, more than <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91361611/ai-chatbots-are-breaking-the-web-and-forcing-a-404-makeover">half of Americans use one of these chatbots</a> to search and navigate the web. As people continue to shift their preferences to these tools, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/conductor-ai-revs-up-brand-discoverability-in-generative-ai-answer-engines">zero-click searches</a> are destroying traffic and, consequently, punishing content creators. To understand why this is happening, we have to go back to the dawn of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/google-cloud-platform">Google</a>, when it established not only its dominance in search, but also the business model for the web. By allowing the “Big G” to crawl and index your site, you effectively traded content for eyeballs. Search generated traffic, which publishers could value against the sale of digital ads, subscriptions, and other merchandise. You get the rest.The entire model is changing, and Google is partly to blame. Setting aside its nefarious ad practices that resulted in an <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-prevails-landmark-antitrust-case-against-google">antitrust lawsuit</a>, Google’s infamous <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-google-search-may-2024/">AI Overview</a> has cannibalized organic search traffic from websites by answering queries directly. At the same time, the total number of Google searches is declining, and last year, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://searchengineland.com/google-search-zero-click-study-2024-443869">60% of them ended without a click</a>. In 2025, we could be looking at some dystopian-level declines.  Where does this leave content creators? If there’s no traffic, how can they translate the value of their website and the experiences they produce? And If AI crawlers continue to invade, pillage, and assimilate their content, where’s the incentive to keep producing the quality work that powers the web?<h3 id="cloudflare-declares-‘content-independence-day’-">Cloudflare declares ‘Content Independence Day’ </h3>When deconstructing this AI conundrum, fighting an advanced alien technology might not be the perfect analogy, but it rings some truth. To be fair, AI is astonishing, and it’s having a profound and often positive impact on the way we work. It’s also helping to solve some of the biggest problems we face, from fully unlocking our genomes to accelerating a cure for cancer.But for the creator and knowledge economies – where generative AI and co-pilots have evolved beyond automating tasks to outright deprecating jobs – it’s been a double-edged sword.Now, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/cloudflare">Cloudflare</a> is attempting to fight back with what it calls “Content Independence Day.” The cloud infrastructure provider just announced that it’s changing its default setting to block AI crawlers unless they agree to pay creators for their content. This, of course, requires the employment of Cloudflare as a CDN, but it's a “full stop” moment.As co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://blog.cloudflare.com/content-independence-day-no-ai-crawl-without-compensation/">wrote in his announcement</a> on July 1, content is the “fuel” that powers AI engines. In his mind, it's only fair that content creators are compensated directly for it.This move has a lot of weight behind it. As one of the largest networks on the planet, Cloudflare serves roughly 20% of the web with its cloud infrastructure services, which include content delivery, DDoS protection, load balancing, bot management, and more. In the announcement, the company suggested that it was being joined by a “majority of leading publishers and AI companies." This likely includes media outlets like The New York Times, which has been publicly embroiled in lawsuits with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html">OpenAI and Microsoft</a> over content copyright infringement. It’s also worth noting that many large publishers like The Atlantic and Vox have <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.axios.com/2024/05/29/atlantic-vox-media-openai-licensing-deal">already struck deals with AI companies</a> to license their content for AI model training.This news isn’t exactly shocking. Cloudflare has been laying the groundwork over the last year, giving publishers <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/03/cloudflare-launches-a-tool-to-combat-ai-bots/">an array of tools</a> for battling the onslaught of AI crawlers. But the path is leading to what Prince describes as a “marketplace” where publishers can choose to provide access to AI bots and be compensated for it.This week, Cloudflare took the first step in launching its new <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/01/cloudflare-launches-a-marketplace-that-lets-websites-charge-ai-bots-for-scraping/">“Pay per Crawl”</a> vision, which is in the experimental phases. It works just like it sounds: A website owner can choose to allow individual AI crawlers to index their content for an agreed-upon rate. Alternatively, websites can allow free access or block bots altogether. According to Cloudflare, its customers will have enhanced visibility into how a specific bot is using their content for things like model training.There’s no word yet on what that pricing model will look like, but Cloudflare is endeavoring to put choice fully in the hands of content creators and publishers. It’s asserting what Seth Godin might call a “permission-based methodology,” where the actions are transparent, the intentions are in the sunlight, and the user has the power. Overall, that sounds healthy. In his blog post, Prince also talked about the shift to a new paradigm for scoring and valuing content. Since the beginning of Google, we’ve been hyper-focused on traffic as the end-all, be-all of analytics. As he proposes, this could be a tipping point – a new “golden age” of high-value content creation – that bridges the knowledge gap for AI engines and improves results. Is he right? I’m honestly not sure. Cloudflare is working with experts and economists to map this new marketplace and provide some guidance. There’s already been a swell of positive support for this move, so I’m betting we’ll see traction and adoption over the coming months.The real question is: How will the AI providers adapt? Will they all board the mothership?<h3 id="what-this-could-mean-for-the-cms-industry">What this could mean for the CMS industry</h3>Independence Day painted a terrifying picture of how advanced alien technology could wreak havoc on our planet. But it also demonstrated how human ingenuity – and a mastery of our own tools and technologies – could help us turn the tide. As the engines for content publishing, content management systems are at the foundation of this fight. Nearly every commercial and open source CMS vendor is deploying with a CDN or offers native content delivery controls. That’s even true on the managed open source side (think about how easy it is to flip on a CDN in <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/wp-engine">WP Engine</a>). If Pay per Crawl catches on, there could be a shift of preference towards Cloudflare. Likewise, other CDNs that offer bot management (<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/akamai">Akamai</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/fastly">Fastly</a> come to mind) might also introduce default AI blocking. To that end, we can expect increased scrutiny on CDN partnerships and edge technologies.It’s too early to know how this will all play out, but CMS vendors, customers, and practitioners should keep a weather eye on this storm. In the same manner that regulation has galvanized the rights of website users regarding data privacy, this could result in a free-market solution that insulates content creators from the yoke of AI crawlers and provides fair compensation. As the New York Times said, it’s like a toll road, and bots finally have to pay the piper. As a publisher, they've been vocal and audacious about fortifying their content domain, because the leap to digital hasn't exactly been an easy or profitable transition. AI is just the latest threat to their content-driven model. As Cloudflare suggested, this could ultimately coalesce in a new marketplace, one where the crawler economy collides with the agentic. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/01/cloudflare-launches-a-marketplace-that-lets-websites-charge-ai-bots-for-scraping/">As the company outlined,</a> agents could be given “budgets” to hunt down the best and most relevant content – and even leverage an industry-specific stablecoin or token system to transact with. CMSes could become key instruments in this, providing control planes and vectors for how bots can engage with content. If website owners have visibility into the kinds of bots hitting their pages, they can be strategically selective and use permission-based methodologies to allow access. The CDN layer might be the core control point, but the CMS could help simplify that. Via analytics, content creators could also identify which pages are higher-value targets, and thus worth more to a bot.Headless CMSes and composable DXPs might be better positioned to adapt to this new marketplace by leveraging APIs for fine-tuning crawl exposure. We could see the injection of native crawl budgeting or cost-governance tools, as well as dashboards that monitor a variety of dimensions and dynamic indexing based on analytics. This is all pie-in-the-sky, but the potential is ripe for innovation.At the center of this is content strategy, which will likely continue a shift towards “value per crawl.” It’s still all about optimization, but we should expect even smarter tools to help improve site structure and schema – and in this sense, the fundamentals are still sound.There’s a lot more I could speculate on, but it doesn’t change the simple fact that AI needs content, and websites need traffic. Maybe it’s time that there’s a fair transaction between the two. This move is attempting to marry performance with transparency and financial accountability, and CMSes that offer more control could have an advantage.We don’t need to blow up the world to solve this problem, but declaring an “Independence Day” might be a good start. And Cloudflare might be in the best position to help content creators "not go quietly into the AI night.'" <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-cloudflare?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Cloudflare? <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: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>

We will not go quietly into the AI night: What Cloudflare’s ‘AI Independence Day’ could mean for CMS

<hr /> It’s a data swamp out there, and brands are trudging through it. With customer data sprawled across a multitude of devices, platforms, and identities, enterprises are struggling to unify the chaos, glean meaningful insights, and create more personalized experiences.As people engage via a widening channel of digital touchpoints, unifying disjointed customer records has become a huge blocker. While features in CDPs and data warehouses have provided a salve, the use of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://hightouch.com/blog/identity-resolution-tools">identity resolution tools</a> – software solutions that link customer data points across different systems – has become an essential resource for keeping the mud off your boots.But when the data picture is incomplete, things get fuzzy. This is where <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/hightouch">Hightouch</a> is sharpening the details with precision and giving marketers more reliable insight. The composable CDP and AI decisioning platform just introduced probabilistic Identity Resolution, an adaptive feature of Hightouch’s powerful warehouse-native customer data platform that combines AI with deterministic logic to fill in the gaps of fragmented profiles. This new capability introduces what Hightouch calls “multi-zone” identity resolution, which enables businesses to jump between high-confidence deterministic matching and higher-reach probabilistic matching within a single project setup. In this sense, it combines the best of both worlds in one unified solution within the CDP.“Most identity resolution tools are either rigid or opaque,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tejasmanohar/">Tejas Manohar</a>, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Hightouch. “We’ve built something entirely new, a multi-zone identity engine that lets customers toggle between high-confidence deterministic graphs and higher-reach probabilistic graphs, without sacrificing transparency or control.”<h3 id="determining-the-probabilities-with-ai">Determining the probabilities with AI</h3>We live in an ever-expanding world of digital touchpoints, and consumers are engaging across a litany of devices and channels. With so much data in so many places, brands are struggling to capture clean and accurate customer data from a disjointed mountain of customer records, which is eroding the effectiveness of marketing and personalization.While identity resolution helps cut through the chaos, it has inherent challenges relative to the use case. Transactional emails, for example, perform best with high-confidence deterministic matching. Meanwhile, things like ad targeting work best with high-reach probabilistic matching. With Hightouch, you can use the right method for the right use case. Toggle to deterministic identity resolution to leverage exact matches with identical email addresses or phone numbers. Jump to probabilistic identity resolution and utilize machine learning models to infer connections between similar (but not identical) records. This can include linking a nickname and personal email to a business identity to help fill a gap.<h3 id="powerful-identity-resolution-features">Powerful identity resolution features</h3>While other platforms offer probabilistic matching, Hightouch is the first to make both probabilistic and deterministic resolution fully configurable, transparent, and warehouse-native. This enables brands to control their identity resolution logic, optimize for different downstream use cases, and preserve data ownership at every step. Features of Hightouch's adaptive Identity Resolution include its noted multi-zone matching, which enables users to adjust confidence levels up for precision or down for reach. Now you can shift your deterministic and probabilistic resolution in parallel depending on your use case. It's also highly configurable and transparent, allowing you to fine-tune your matching logic, inspect machine learning decisions, and customize golden record logic without code.Hightouch's warehouse-native architecture also allows users to perform identity resolution on their complete data, directly in the data warehouse. No need to move data into a separate CDP or black box – it's all handled in one place, and it's all configurable and transparent. With Hightouch's real-time activation, you can put merged profiles to work instantly across ads, email, customer success, and more through its deep integration ecosystem. As Hightouch contends, this isn’t a “one-size-fits-all algorithm” they’re applying, but an intelligent, transparent framework that evolves with your business needs. And with AI inside the warehouse, identity resolution steps up from being just a hygiene task to a strategic advantage.<h3 id="the-verdict">The verdict</h3>Identity resolution tools have been around for a while at both a warehouse-native and black box level, providing options that are native and outside an organization’s data stack. Proximity aside, there are implicit limitations that are exacerbated by the growing number of data sources and disjointed customer records. Hightouch is endeavoring to solve this problem with its novel multi-zone identity engine. What’s key is that customers have more power to switch between deterministic and probabilistic graphs to achieve a more complete picture and attain greater confidence. There's more control over use cases for high confidence or high reach, and this could deliver more value to marketing teams as they focus more on personalization.The artificial intelligence piece is also pivotal, unlocking more scale and potential as the lakes of data continue to grow. But this investment in AI-powered solution is precisely what’s putting this platform on the map. Hightouch is still “riding high” as it innovates along its AI decisioning capabilities, which earned it an <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">$80 million Series C last February.</a>Earlier this year, I spoke with Hightouch’s <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/hightouch-taps-adam-greco-as-product-evangelist-strengthening-its-leadership-in-composable-cdps">Product Evangelist, Adam Greco,</a> about the evolution of the company’s composable CDP and how it’s challenging the category. As I observed at the time, Hightouch is plotting a unique course, and this latest foray into native, AI-powered identity resolution is further evidence of that.  <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-hightouch?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Hightouch? <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: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>

Hightouch Adds New AI-Powered Adaptive Identity Resolution to its CDP

Conductor AI ‘Revs Up’ Brand Discoverability in Generative AI Answer Engines

Sowing the Seeds of Love: Umbraco's Codegarden 2025 Celebrates 20 Years of Community and Innovation

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/katie-austin">Katie Austin</a> is the Strategic Awareness and Advocacy Lead for <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/progress-sitefinity">Progress Sitefinity</a> and a CMS Critic Contributor. <hr /> Your <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">content management system (CMS)</a> is more than just a piece of infrastructure; it’s the foundation of your digital presence. It shapes how quickly you can respond to market changes, how effectively you engage your audience, and how seamlessly your teams collaborate. In short, your CMS is a direct lever on customer experience, speed to market, and digital performance.Yet, for many organizations, the CMS that once powered growth is now quietly becoming a source of friction. As digital expectations evolve and AI-driven content operations become the norm, legacy platforms often struggle to keep up. What was once a reliable tool can slowly turn into a bottleneck. Slowing down teams, limiting innovation, and creating hidden inefficiencies across your digital ecosystem.If your CMS feels more like a constraint than a catalyst, it’s time to take a closer look. The signs aren’t always obvious, but they’re there, lurking in your workflows, your analytics, and your team’s frustrations.In this article, we’ll explore five key indicators that your CMS may be holding you back and what you can do to move forward with confidence.<h3 id="1.-your-cms-slows-down-marketing-operations">1. Your CMS Slows Down Marketing Operations</h3>One of the most telling signs that your CMS is no longer serving your business is when it becomes a bottleneck for your marketing team. In today’s digital-first world, marketing agility is non-negotiable. Campaigns need to launch quickly, content must be updated in real time, and teams must be able to respond to trends and customer behavior without delay.Yet, in many organizations, marketers are still dependent on developers for even the simplest tasks. Take the following examples of updating a homepage banner, creating a landing page, or publishing a blog post. This dependency creates friction, slows down execution, and often leads to missed opportunities.The problem isn’t your team—it’s your tools. A CMS that lacks marketer-friendly features forces creative teams to work through IT, creating unnecessary backlogs and reducing overall productivity. Worse, it can stifle innovation, as teams avoid experimenting with new formats or channels due to technical constraints.What to look for:<ul><li>Manual content publishing processes that require developer intervention</li><li>Lack of WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editing or real-time preview tools</li><li>Inflexible templates that require code changes for layout or design updates</li><li>Delays in campaign launches due to technical bottlenecks</li></ul>What to do about it:Modern CMS platforms like <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=content-paid&amp;utm_campaign=sf_ww_sponsored_article_1_cmscritic">Sitefinity</a> are built to eliminate these barriers. With intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces, reusable content blocks, and built-in workflow automation, Sitefinity empowers marketers to take control of the content lifecycle. Teams can launch campaigns faster, iterate more freely, and maintain brand consistency without relying on developers for every change.The result? Faster time-to-market, more agile marketing operations, and a CMS that truly supports your growth strategy.<h3 id="2.-you’ve-outgrown-the-platform">2. You’ve Outgrown the Platform</h3>Growth is a good problem to have, until your CMS can’t keep up. As your organization expands into new markets, launches additional brands, or scales its digital footprint, the demands on your content infrastructure increase exponentially. What once worked for a single site or region can quickly become a tangled web of inefficiencies.If your CMS wasn’t built with scale in mind, you may find yourself duplicating content across multiple sites, struggling to maintain consistent branding, or relying on disconnected tools to manage what should be a unified experience. This not only wastes time and resources but also introduces risk—especially when it comes to compliance, localization, and governance.What to look for:<ul><li>Difficulty managing multi-brand, multi-region, or multilingual content</li><li>Lack of centralized governance, permissions, or approval workflows</li><li>Fragmented user experiences across websites, apps, and channels</li><li>Inconsistent branding or messaging due to siloed content systems</li></ul>What to do about it:Sitefinity is purpose-built for organizations that need to scale without sacrificing control. Its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.progress.com/documentation/sitefinity-cms/multisite-manage-multiple-sites?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=content-paid&amp;utm_campaign=sf_ww_sponsored_article_1_cmscritic">multi-site management capabilities</a> allow you to oversee dozens—or even hundreds—of digital properties from a single interface. Granular permissions ensure the right people have access to the right content, while built-in localization tools make it easy to tailor experiences for global audiences.Whether you're expanding into new markets, consolidating legacy systems, or simply trying to bring order to digital chaos, Sitefinity provides the structure and flexibility to grow with confidence<h3 id="3.-ai-isn’t-embedded-(or-is-missing-altogether)">3. AI Isn’t Embedded (or Is Missing Altogether)</h3>Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept. It’s a foundational element of modern digital experience platforms. From content creation and personalization to SEO optimization and workflow automation, AI is transforming how marketing and IT teams operate. If your CMS doesn’t support AI or requires complex, custom integrations to do so, you’re likely falling behind.Today’s digital leaders are using AI to do more with less. They’re automating repetitive tasks, delivering hyper-personalized experiences, and gaining real-time insights that drive smarter decisions. Without AI, your team is left to manually tag content, guess at what will resonate with audiences, and spend hours on tasks that could be handled in seconds.What to look for:<ul><li>Manual tagging, categorization, or SEO optimization</li><li>No personalization or predictive content capabilities</li><li>Lack of automation in content workflows</li><li>Inability to analyze content performance in real time</li></ul>What to do about it:With <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.progress.com/blogs/ai-digital-modernization-limitless-data-connectivity-sitefinity-15?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=content-paid&amp;utm_campaign=sf_ww_sponsored_article_1_cmscritic">AI-powered digital modernization</a>, Sitefinity integrates AI directly into the content lifecycle, making it accessible and actionable for both marketers and developers. From AI-powered content recommendations and automated SEO enhancements to intelligent segmentation and performance analytics, Sitefinity helps teams work smarter—not harder.By embedding AI into your CMS, you unlock new levels of efficiency, agility, and customer relevance. It’s not just about keeping the pace, it’s about leading the way.<h3 id="4.-it-doesn’t-integrate-with-your-stack">4. It Doesn’t Integrate with Your Stack</h3>Your CMS doesn’t operate in a vacuum. It needs to connect with your CRM, marketing automation platform, analytics tools, and more. If it doesn’t, you’re left with siloed data, manual handoffs, and limited visibility.Disconnected systems not only slow down operations but also make it harder to deliver cohesive, data-driven experiences. In today’s omnichannel world, integration isn’t optional, it’s essential.What to look for:<ul><li>Manual data transfers between systems</li><li>Inconsistent customer profiles or reporting</li><li>Limited API or connector support</li></ul>What to do about it:Sitefinity’s open architecture and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms/integration?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=content-paid&amp;utm_campaign=sf_ww_sponsored_article_1_cmscritic">robust integration capabilities</a> makes it easy to connect with the tools you already use. Whether you’re syncing with Salesforce, integrating with Power BI, or connecting to a custom ERP, it ensures your CMS is part of a unified digital ecosystem.<h3 id="5.-security-and-compliance-gaps-are-emerging">5. Security and Compliance Gaps Are Emerging</h3>Security and compliance are non-negotiable. Especially for enterprises operating in regulated industries or handling sensitive customer data. Unfortunately, many legacy CMS platforms struggle to keep up with evolving standards.From outdated authentication protocols to limited audit trails, these gaps can expose your organization to risk. And with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA tightening, the stakes are higher than ever.What to look for:<ul><li>Frequent security patches or workarounds</li><li>Difficulty meeting compliance requirements</li><li>Lack of role-based access or audit logging</li></ul>What to do about it:Sitefinity is built with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms/platform/security?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=content-paid&amp;utm_campaign=sf_ww_sponsored_article_1_cmscritic">enterprise-grade security and compliance</a> in mind. It supports role-based access control, secure hosting, and detailed audit trails, helping you protect data, meet regulatory requirements, and keep customer trust.<h3 id="conclusion:-don’t-let-your-platform-be-the-problem">Conclusion: Don’t Let Your Platform Be the Problem</h3>Your CMS should be a strategic enabler and not a source of friction. If it’s slowing down your teams, limiting your growth, or failing to keep up with modern demands, it’s time to take a closer look.The good news? You don’t have to settle. Platforms like Sitefinity are purpose-built to support today’s digital experience leaders—combining marketer-friendly tools, developer flexibility, AI-powered insights, and enterprise-grade security. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=content-paid&amp;utm_campaign=sf_ww_sponsored_article_1_cmscritic">Discover how Sitefinity powers content-driven digital experiences.</a> <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <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>

Is Your CMS Holding You Back? 5 Signs It’s Time to Rethink Your Platform

katie-austin

Accelerating the Agentic Future: Sitecore.ai Gives Marketers an Inspiring Roadmap for Their AI Journey

Semrush - Be an SEO hero

Be an SEO hero with Semrush

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

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/michael-spenceley">Michael Spenceley</a> is Leader, Learning &amp; Content Standards - Innovative Medicine at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jnj.com/">Johnson &amp; Johnson</a> and a CMS Critic Contributor. <hr /> Most organizations understand <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-operations">content operations</a>, even if there are differences in how it's executed. Generally speaking, it's the foundation of people, processes, and technology that enables a brand to manage its content at scale across a multitude of channels. But it's also a living, breathing activity that requires continuous maintenance and consideration. Regardless of how you navigate the ebb and flow of creating, reviewing, publishing, and managing your content, there are fundamentals that almost every model shares – and areas where things can be optimized and improved.In my years of managing content across large enterprises with distributed teams in highly regulated industries, I've formulated an operating model for optimizing content operations. Not only has it proven very successful in content applications, but it also has the potential to improve collaboration, support strategic goals, and enhance other facets of your business operations.<h3 id="why-is-this-important?">Why is this important?</h3>You may already intuitively think about your operation in this way. However, this structure provides a clear path for continuing to optimize your operation over a longer period. It also gives your team and your broader organization a clear language to articulate where and how work gets done today and a roadmap to get it to where it should be in the future. While I’ve framed this concept in the context of content operations, most of it likely applies to any service delivery operation across a wide range of processes and industries.  <h3 id="what-is-it?">What is it?</h3>This model provides a clear set of options for how work gets done, where it gets done, and who does it – with a focus on ensuring that the how, where, and who is fit for purpose based on the nature of the work. Here is an example of a tiered operating model: <ul><li>Tier 1 – Stays with the business<ul><li>Mostly strategic work that requires a high level of business or product subject matter expertise</li><li>Highest cost tier </li></ul></li><li>Tier 2 – Centralized content services<ul><li>Mix of tactical and strategic, requires moderate level of business or product subject matter expertise, significant content strategy expertise, and proximity to business stakeholders in tier 1</li><li>Lower cost tier</li></ul></li><li>Tier 3 – Outsource/Offshore<ul><li>Mostly transactional, requires low level of business or product subject matter expertise but still requires human intervention</li><li>Low-cost tier</li></ul></li><li>Tier 4 – Automate<ul><li>Transactional, repeatable and requires minimal human intervention</li><li>Lowest cost tier </li></ul></li></ul><h3 id="how-do-you-do-it?">How do you do it?</h3>It’s worth mentioning at this point that all the steps below shouldn’t be done in isolation; they should all be done in partnership with business stakeholders who currently own and interact with these processes. <ol><li>Start by defining the tiers in your model. Determine which tiers already exist and then consider tiers you need in the future that you may not have today.</li><li>Document processes, activities, and tasks that are done in each tier today. It’s up to you how granular you get. If your processes are complex, you’re going to need more granularity. If you plan to split certain activities across tiers, you’re going to need more granularity to understand which parts of the process should sit in different tiers. </li><li>Estimate your cost for each tier. This can be as simple as an average hourly rate by tier.</li><li>Based on cost and complexity of the work in each tier today, consider where you have opportunities to centralize, optimize and move work down the tiers. Work can move down the tiers over time, or it can skip tiers depending on the nature of the work. </li></ol><h3 id="how-might-this-help-you?-">How might this help you? </h3>It provides a roadmap to take in new work in a structured way, and it shows your business partners that you’re willing to collaborate in a way that acknowledges what they value, their pain points, and their appetite for change. In the beginning, you may be focused on work that’s perceived as tactical or tedious that you don’t want to do, but that gives you an opportunity to centralize, standardize and optimize it. This opens the door to begin a conversation about taking on more strategic and impactful work. This doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a journey.  <h3 id="watchouts">Watchouts</h3>Here are some common pitfalls to be aware of as you consider implementing your version of this model:<ul><li>Don’t create unnecessary handoffs. Be thoughtful about splitting up related activities across different tiers. Sometimes it makes sense to keep certain activities together.</li><li>As you implement, you’re moving work between teams, between vendors, and maybe between countries. This is a delicate process that requires a focus on managing and leading through the change.</li><li>While there will be challenges and a learning curve, once a process moves from one tier to another and is stabilized, it should be better than it was before. This isn’t just about cost; it’s about optimization of both the process and the experience of everyone who interacts with that process.</li><li>Make sure your lower-cost tiers (especially automation) actually cost less. If it costs you millions of dollars to build an AI to do a task that a human can do for a few thousand dollars per year, it may not be worth it – at least not yet. As AI becomes more advanced and cheaper, that time will come.</li><li>If you come across activities that just don’t make sense, always question it. Don’t try to optimize something that shouldn’t be done at all.    </li></ul> <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <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>

An Operating Model to Optimize Content Operations (and Probably Lots of Other Stuff)

michael-spenceley

<hr /> Your <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">Content Management System (CMS)</a> is a core element of your online presence. However, a CMS is only one part of your digital marketing toolbox. To unlock its full potential, you need to integrate email marketing tools that help:<ul><li>Reach out to new audiences</li><li>Engage visitors and turn them into customers </li><li>Track the performance of your campaigns</li></ul> In this post, we'll highlight platforms that integrate with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/wordpress">WordPress</a> and other CMSs.<h3 id="moosend"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/moosend">Moosend</a></h3> <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:92.15%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/06/image-1750083711805.png" alt="Picture" /></figure> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://moosend.com">Moosend</a> is an easy-to-use email marketing and marketing automation platform with a short learning curve and powerful tools. Its key features include:<ul><li>Built-in AI tools</li><li>Website tracking and segmentation</li><li>Ready-made automation flows</li></ul>Moosend integrates natively with WordPress and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/drupal">Drupal</a>, but it's also possible to integrate the email marketing platform with any headless CMS through third-party tools.The email marketing platform lets you set up automated campaigns, segment your audience, and track performance, all from an intuitive dashboard. Connect your CMS with Moosend to automatically group your audience based on their interactions with your website, share content like blog posts, product updates, and promotions, and deliver a consistent user experience across channels. Best for: Small to mid-size businesses looking for an <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://moosend.com/blog/cheap-email-marketing/">affordable email marketing platform</a> that carries powerful features without enterprise-level complexity.<h2 id="constant-contact"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/constant-contact">Constant Contact</a></h2> <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:92.51%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/06/image-1750083711640.png" alt="Picture" /></figure> One of the oldest and most popular email tools in the email marketing space, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://constantcontact.com">Constant Contact</a> is a go-to for businesses like nonprofits and event organizers due to core features that include:<ul><li>Event registration and ticketing options</li><li>Donation tracking tools to manage your data as a non-profit</li><li>RSVP tracking</li></ul>Its drag-and-drop email builder and powerful automations make it a well-rounded choice. You can connect it to popular CMS platforms via plugins or API, making it easy to capture subscribers and launch campaigns.Best for: Organizations that need to combine email with events, surveys, and social media in one place.<h3 id="mailchimp"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/mailchimp">Mailchimp</a></h3> <img style="width:93.9%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/06/image-1750083711715.png" alt="Picture" />  <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mailchimp.com/">Mailchimp</a> is a popular newsletter tool that can help you craft beautiful email campaigns, improve brand visibility, and influence your <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://attrock.com/blog/website-traffic-case-study/">website traffic</a> with more visitors and a better CTR. Whether you're running a blog or an eCommerce brand, this platform can help you go beyond email marketing with analytics tools that track the metrics that shape your content strategy, such as:<ul><li>Open and click-through rates</li><li>Deliverability</li><li>Unsubscribes</li></ul>Most CMS platforms support Mailchimp, and the setup is quite straightforward.Best for: Businesses and marketers who want deep insights into subscriber behavior and email performance.<h3 id="brevo"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/brevo">Brevo</a></h3> <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:93.26%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/06/image-1750083711667.png" /></figure> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://brevo.com">Brevo</a> is a robust all-in-one email marketing platform that helps you engage your audiences through SMS and email marketing campaigns. Its strength lies in delivering the right message at the right time using: <ul><li>A no-code email builder</li><li>Advanced segmentation and personalization options</li><li>Dynamic content</li></ul>Brevo integrates smoothly with most CMS platforms like WordPress, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/woocommerce">WooCommerce</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/elementor">Elementor</a>, making it easy to launch targeted campaigns based on user behavior.Best for: SMBs, growth-focused businesses that need a scalable solution.<h3 id="aweber"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/aweber">AWeber</a></h3> <img style="width:65.49%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/06/image-1750083711798.png" /> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.aweber.com/">AWeber</a> is an email marketing tool marketed towards SMBs and content creators who want a powerful platform that can scale with them. The interface is user-friendly and feature-packed, including:<ul><li>Advanced behavioral targeting</li><li>Split testing</li><li>AI-powered content creation tools</li></ul>AWeber also supports rich media, so incorporating visuals like GIFs or links and thumbnails that lead to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.veedyou.com/video-animation-cost/">animated videos</a> in your emails is seamless. AWeber integrates with various CMS platforms (WordPress, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/wix">Wix</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/shopify">Shopify</a>) through pre-built connectors and plugins.Best for: Creators and entrepreneurs looking for simple yet powerful tools to engage subscribers and grow their reach.<h3 id="boost-the-effectiveness-of-your-cms">Boost the effectiveness of your CMS</h3>Your CMS is only as effective as the ecosystem around it. By integrating tools like Moosend, Constant Contact, and other email marketing platforms, you can craft beautiful emails, enhance your brand's presence, and make data-driven decisions. That way, you can optimize your email campaign strategy and boost both performance and engagement. <hr /><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/tealia">Téa Liarokapi</a> is a Senior Content Writer for Moosend and a CMS Critic contributor.  <h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <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>

The 5 best email tools to integrate with your CMS in 2025

tealia

<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 /> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/adobe-experience-manager">Adobe Experience Manager's</a> transformation from its open source foundations to today's composable enterprise platform reveals compelling insights into where digital experience platforms are heading. Having observed AEM implementations across global brands for thirteen years, including Nissan-Renault, Twitter, Ford, and Jaguar Land Rover, the platform's trajectory points toward a fundamental shift in how enterprises approach content management.  <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:84.25%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/06/image-1750016427416.png" /></figure>Graph source: builtwith.com<h3 id="beyond-traditional-cms-thinking">Beyond Traditional CMS Thinking</h3>AEM's unique architecture – built on open-source foundations including <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jackrabbit.apache.org/jcr/index.html">Apache Jackrabbit</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://felix.apache.org/documentation/index.html">Felix</a>, and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://sling.apache.org/">Sling</a> – has always enabled modular deployment. Today's 35,000 active implementations demonstrate this composability in practice, but Adobe's strategic direction suggests something far more transformative: an ecosystem approach that transcends traditional platform boundaries.<h3 id="the-ecosystem-revolution">The Ecosystem Revolution</h3>Adobe has introduced three innovations that signal this transformation: Franklin (Edge Delivery Services), the Universal Editor, and AEM Document Authoring. These aren't incremental CMS features – they represent a complete rethinking of content workflows.<ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-manager-evolves-franklin-launches-next-gen-composability-feature">Franklin </a>represents perhaps the most radical departure from conventional approaches. Content creators can write in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, then publish directly to Adobe's edge network as fully rendered web pages. The entire frontend becomes open source – downloadable, modifiable, and customizable without backend dependencies. This acknowledges that content creation often happens outside traditional CMS interfaces. Quick fact: Named after <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin">Rosalind Franklin, </a>who helped discover the helix structure of DNA, the initiative aligns with Adobe's tagline of “Creativity is in our DNA.” </li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/implementing/developing/universal-editor/getting-started">The Universal Editor</a> takes a complementary approach, enabling in-browser editing of live websites regardless of the underlying CMS. While proprietary, it can connect to any content system with appropriate markup, creating intriguing cross-platform integration possibilities.</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.aem.live/developer/da-tutorial">AEM Document Authoring (DA)</a> bridges the gap between document-based editing simplicity and full CMS capabilities. Recent implementations demonstrate its viability – Cognizant Netcentric launched the first client website using DA for <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.netcentric.biz/insights/2025/04/edge-delivery-services-aem-document-authoring">Bimota</a> motorcycle brand in just three weeks from concept to DNS switch. DA functions as "the rocket engine accelerating Edge Delivery Services," providing enterprise-grade features like versioning, localization, and workflow management while maintaining streamlined content creation.</li></ul>More significantly, Adobe positions these tools as part of a broader digital experience ecosystem rather than CMS features. The AI-powered Firefly system integrates across Photoshop, Lightroom, AEM, and Franklin through Adobe I/O – itself built on <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://github.com/adobe-apiplatform/incubator-openwhisk">Apache OpenWhisk,</a> an open source serverless platform. Creative professionals can save directly from Photoshop into AEM, while developers compose workflows across multiple Adobe services through standardized APIs.<h3 id="industry-transformation">Industry Transformation</h3>This revolution carries profound implications beyond Adobe's product roadmap. Traditional boundaries between content management, digital asset management, and creative tools are dissolving. Organizations increasingly need flexible integration points rather than comprehensive suites.The Bimota implementation exemplifies this shift. Rather than requiring months of traditional CMS setup, the motorcycle brand achieved complete digital presence in three weeks by combining document-based content creation with enterprise-grade delivery infrastructure. This speed-to-market advantage becomes particularly valuable for brands launching new products or entering new markets.AEM's trajectory illustrates a broader industry pattern: success in enterprise software now requires balancing proprietary innovation with open standards and community contributions. Adobe maintains core differentiators while contributing to shared infrastructure that benefits the entire ecosystem.Document Authoring's positioning between simple document editing and full CMS complexity addresses a persistent industry challenge. Many organizations struggle with tools that are either too simple for enterprise needs or too complex for content teams. DA's approach – combining familiar editing interfaces with backend enterprise features – suggests a middle path that could influence how other vendors design content creation tools.<h3 id="the-path-forward">The Path Forward</h3>Enterprise content management appears headed toward greater modularity and specialization. Organizations will likely assemble solutions from best-of-breed components rather than selecting monolithic platforms. This creates opportunities for both established players like Adobe and emerging specialists focusing on specific workflow elements.Adobe's investment in open-source infrastructure suggests the company understands this dynamic. By providing solid foundational technologies while competing on higher-level integration and user experience, Adobe positions itself as an ecosystem orchestrator rather than a platform vendor.The Universal Editor's cross-platform capabilities hint at even more interesting possibilities. If content editing becomes platform-agnostic, the competitive landscape shifts from CMS features toward content workflow optimization and delivery performance.Looking ahead, successful digital experience platforms will likely share certain characteristics: API-first architecture, headless capabilities, strong integration ecosystems, and the flexibility to work alongside rather than replace existing tools. AEM's journey provides a template for this transformation.<h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it Matters</h3>The future belongs not to platforms that try to do everything, but to those that do specific things exceptionally well while enabling seamless integration with complementary tools. Adobe's current direction – rearchitecting while maintaining operational continuity – suggests they understand this principle and are building accordingly.The shift from monolithic platforms to composable ecosystems represents more than a technical evolution; it's a fundamental reimagining of how enterprises create, manage, and deliver digital experiences. Adobe Experience Manager's transformation offers a glimpse into this future, where success comes from orchestrating ecosystems rather than controlling platforms. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-adobe?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Adobe? <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: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>

What's ahead for Adobe Experience Manager? An ecosystem revolution. Here's why

tom-cranstoun

<hr /> Hey, it’s Friday, folks! Queue the confetti!!!If you don’t already have a skip in your step, I highly recommend adding some music to your current situation. And if you happen to stumble upon a terrestrial ‘80s rock station or Spotify playlist, maybe you’ll <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_for_the_Weekend">get lucky and score some Loverboy.</a>As those Canadian crooners have maintained for almost a quarter of a century, everybody’s working for the weekend…Of course, “working stiff” anthems aside, Murphy’s Law is also a song on repeat, particularly in the digital world. We’ve all heard the macabre pipe organ play when a “503: Service Unavailable” message appears on screen where a website homepage should.Why on Friday? And why does stuff invariably hit the fan at 4 PM, just as Happy Hour starts calling your name?That’s the central premise of a fictional yet highly relatable blog series from <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelvarty/">Joel Varty,</a> CTO at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/agility">Agility CMS.</a> It’s called “The Incremental Approach,” and across four snappy installments, it weaves a sordid tale of haywire and hope – and how a leaked press release turned a Friday afternoon into a ring of fire (hats off to the OG loverboy, Johnny Cash).I won’t give too much away, but this engaging series reminded me of the many lessons we learn along the way, and how there’s no replacement for real-world experience. For those of us responsible for the uptime of high-availability website workloads, “game day” testing our infrastructure for unexpected traffic spikes, outages, and other scenarios is essential. But there are always things we can’t see or prepare for – even with the best runbooks and failovers in place. For those situations, we need human assets. Seasoned leadership. Teams that are ready to think on their feet and bring unconventional ideas to the table.As Loverboy might say, the trusted people who have a piece of your heart. If your Friday is dragging, inject it with a little fun! This story has everything you want: drama, intrigue, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/nextjs">Next.js.</a> All the trappings of a world gone mad, and how a headless CMS – and its intrepid team – saves the day.Tapping his signature humor, Joel traverses his own playlist of hits, from how a CDN can turn a sad song into a happy one, how running code at the edge can rock the room, and how incremental steps can rewrite the lyrics and take a whole new tune to the top of the charts. You can read the series here:<ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/blog/the-incremental-approach-go-to-market-in-less-than-half-the-time-part-1">Agility CMS: “The Incremental Approach” – Part 1 </a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/blog/the-incremental-approach-go-to-market-in-less-than-half-the-time-part-2">Agility CMS: “The Incremental Approach” – Part 2 </a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/blog/the-incremental-approach-go-to-market-in-less-than-half-the-time-part-3">Agility CMS: “The Incremental Approach” – Part 3 </a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://agilitycms.com/blog/the-incremental-approach-go-to-market-in-less-than-half-the-time-part-4">Agility CMS: “The Incremental Approach” – Part 4</a></li></ul> <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: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>

Hey Loverboy, Don’t be Heartbroken: Agility Offers Levity and Lessons in ‘The Incremental Approach’ 

<hr /> It's been an active year for DAMs, particularly as AI capabilities juice the value and performance of both pure-play and DXP platform offerings. As brands look for new ways to enhance and streamline their digital assets across global teams, having a reliable and scalable DAM has become an essential part of the enterprise stack.We've tracked multiple announcements (and even an acquisition or two) in the recent past. Most have focused on addressing key gaps in delivering a complete vision for a modern digital asset management platform.That was clearly the goal for <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/mediavalet">MediaValet</a>, which just announced its acquisition of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.gotbeam.com/">Beam</a>. Beam, which describes itself as the “heartbeat of your brand,” is a SaaS platform that enables brands to accurately and effectively represent themselves anywhere and everywhere they appear. Under the hood, Beam's unique Brand Center and Experience Portal capabilities provide a suite of enablement solutions designed to help organizations optimize their brand management and curate content experiences.This acquisition extends the functionality of MediaValet’s AI-powered <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-digital-asset-management-dam-system">digital asset management platform</a> with Beam’s brand governance and enablement capabilities. The offering aims to help marketing organizations achieve brand consistency at scale by empowering and educating every team to deliver on-brand content across every channel through engaging, interactive experiences.<h3 id="building-the-best-dam-with-a-focus-on-brand-and-portals">Building the best DAM with a focus on brand and portals</h3>Modern DAMs have a lot of responsibility in the stack, helping to manage the content chaos that many large enterprises are wrestling with. This requires best-of-breed features like search, asset proofing, and multi-media capabilities like video management.  But DAMs need work beyond organizational facets, giving creative teams more freedom and productivity while providing broad distribution capabilities that connect content to critical stakeholders, audiences, channels, and pipelines. Additionally, successful DAMs are concerned with delivering brand governance, enablement, and education – areas where marketing teams face significant challenges. To meet this need, MediaValet and Beam are providing a pathway to scaling brand consistency and control.One of the key distribution elements of DAM is portals: webpages tied to DAM content for rapid and broad sharing with key stakeholders. Portals accelerate idea-sharing and storytelling, and help securely build brand consistency – and Beam's Experience Portals make this feature even more streamlined for enterprise content teams.“With Beam’s Brand Centers and Experience Portals, we are taking this Portal capability to new heights – unmatched in the DAM and Brand industries,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-chase-b0845645/">Rob Chase</a>, President and CEO of MediaValet. “The combination creates a best-in-class solution for our clients to unlock the power of their content at scale, and to build engaging and experiential Brand Centers. Once integrated, it will also enable us to deliver Experience Portals for a multitude of use cases such as sales enablement portals, partner portals, and events management, with high brand fidelity and interactive experiences.”Beam was acquired from <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.monigle.com/">Monigle</a>, a U.S.-based brand consultancy with offices in New York and Denver. Monigle originally built the solution to help secure brand assets for their own customers, and ended up creating a curated, interactive, and engaging platform for brand enablement.“The Beam platform and their team’s expert brand-building knowledge is a formidable combination that is proven to deliver high-fidelity Brand Centers that are truly interactive, engaging, and experiential – the result of which is a platform that brings brands to life and helps clients to win in their markets,” Chase said. "That is why they are trusted by powerful brands like WTW and others. In addition, like us, they are known for their best-in-class support, aligning with a key pillar of our culture.”<h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>MediaValet continues to execute its mission to empower creatives and democratize content. Now, with the addition of Beam's Brand Centers and Experience Portals, it has expanded its core DAM capabilities to provide a more integrated and expansive solution – one that elevates brand enablement and governance. While many pure-play solutions exist on the market, MediaValet has acquired a strong position as a top content management solution in the G2 review-driven ecosystem, validated by global enterprise customers like SONOS and Experian. The company also has its fingers on the industry pulse, authoring and publishing a research index on DAM industry trends that <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.mediavalet.com/resources/dam-trends-report">you can read here. </a>From an AI perspective, DAMs are running hot and heavy – and MediaValet is definitely in the game. The platform's automation offers precision tagging of content with relevant keywords, as well as color recognition, smart image search, and even facial recognition. MediaValet also offers an open API for building custom solutions and a library of pre-built integrations with platforms like <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/contentful">Contentful</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/salesforce">Salesforce</a>. If you're evaluating pure-play DAMs for your stack, this is definitely worth exploring.  <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-mediavalet?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on MediaValet? <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: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>

MediaValet Acquires Beam, Aims to Evolve DAM with Brand Enablement and Governance

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