Can we end the digital asset chaos? Canto says ‘can do’ with its latest AI-powered release

There’s just no way to soften the blow: we’re drowning in digital stuff. It’s a colossal problem of our own creation – and AI is making it worse by the day.

But hang on. It’s not all bad, right? With the advent of generative AI, brands can arm their marketing channels faster than ever with more assets and variants. It’s enabling greater scale and hyper-personalized experiences across more touchpoints.

The problem? Maintaining governance is still a bit like “The Wild West.” With so much stuff in so many places, it's brewing a stampede of digital asset chaos – and that’s creating a huge problem for enterprises as they try to wrangle control and consistency while meeting breathtaking expectations. 

And this is, without question, an important consideration for large brands and enterprises as they wrestle with the realities of exploding content. According to research in The State of Digital Content in 2025, only 19% of teams increased their content ROI in the past year. Meanwhile, content professionals currently waste over three hours a week searching for digital assets while managing four or more disconnected tools.

Like many of its DAM peers, Canto has been helping teams throw a lasso around the spreading herd. The pure-play digital asset management provider – which was founded in 1990, making it a true pioneer in the field – has shaped the landscape of DAMs and PIMs, which have provided control and confidence around digital assets and product information at enterprise scale.  

But no one expected just how dramatically AI would impact the game. Now, brands are adding assets exponentially in multiple media dimensions. That control and confidence is being tested like never before, and we need new ways – new thinking – to meet the demands of managing it all. 

Canto is doing just that. With its latest release, Canto XI, the company is launching the boldest reinvention of its platform yet, transforming its DAM into a true intelligent content hub that’s purpose-built for the AI era.

Canto XI consolidates content-lifecycle workflows while adding unique and powerful new products, all designed to address the evolving challenges brands face with managing assets across disconnected tools. It provides an intuitive, single source of truth for all creative and product content, enabling brands to launch campaigns faster with tighter coordination between creative assets and product data.

“The content landscape has fundamentally changed,” said Wain Kellum, Canto's CEO. “Brands are creating exponentially more digital assets while facing pressure to move faster and maintain consistency across every touchpoint. Our customers told us they need more than traditional DAM; they need agile systems that keep pace with today’s and tomorrow’s content demands. Canto XI now delivers exactly that. We’re excited to release a transformational platform where AI doesn’t just organize content, it accelerates every decision teams make.”

The robust, AI-powered features of Canto XI reflect the company’s fierce pace of innovation, buoyed by smart acquisitions. Last year, Canto united its DAM and PIM capabilities to streamline asset and data workflows, following the strategic purchase of industry rival Image Relay in mid-September of 2024.

Those moves were amplified along the AI vector with Canto’s acquisition of another competitor, MerlinOne, making way for some fairly impressive AI capabilities that provided an early foundation for its path into enhanced automation. 

Automating key workflows and eliminating ‘tool sprawl’

Canto XI helps make assets instantly discoverable and ensures brand consistency across all touchpoints. Alongside a modernized UI and embedded AI capabilities, the new release introduces four purpose-built products. Together, these work to unify brand and product content into one platform where AI powers every stage of the content lifecycle. 

First, the new Brand Studio empowers field teams and partners with on-brand templates while keeping design in control. Users also have access to an Approval Hub, which centralizes review and approval processes with annotations, version history, and audit trails so that teams ship faster and more confidently.

Canto XI’s AI Library Assistant. Source: Canto

Canto XI’s AI Library Assistant keeps content libraries instantly searchable with AI-powered organization, tagging, and enrichment. Easy to use and navigate, it makes the entire search process easier and more streamlined for users.

Canto XI’s AI Media Publisher. Source: Canto

Finally, Canto XI’s Media Publisher delivers optimized assets – including video – directly to websites, apps, and channels, eliminating the need for separate publishing tools. A huge timesaver that lightens the load.

Canto AI: Powering every stage of the content lifecycle

Many CMS and DXP platforms have introduced intelligent AI assistants and co-pilots across their composable products and ecosystems, which have been well-received by users.

Canto is doing the same with its Canto AI Engine, which is woven throughout its platform to power workflows from creation to analysis. Canto’s AI Visual Search, for example, now includes visual similarity detection, while AI Library Assistant introduces smart organization and categorization capabilities. AI also enhances Brand Studio’s template-based creation tools. 

As a whole, these AI-powered features automate tagging, suggest metadata, and provide content recommendations to keep libraries structured and instantly searchable. Combined with advanced integration capabilities that connect with existing martech stacks, its AI engine learns from usage patterns to help improve recommendations over time, giving users and teams the ability to move faster with greater control and confidence.

“Marketing teams are drowning in disparate tools from too many vendors that create more work instead of reducing it,” said Alan Beiagi, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Canto. “Canto XI gives them one platform where AI handles the heavy lifting and connects content to business outcomes. While many platforms layer AI on top of existing systems, we’ve built intelligence directly into the foundation of the Canto platform, so every action benefits from AI without teams having to think about it.”

Why it matters

Canto’s latest release is an evolutionary one, promising to help brands escape the yoke of content chaos with intelligent solutions. The pace of asset creation isn’t slowing down, and Canto XI is endeavoring to transform how organizations address the content management dilemma. 

By approaching all brand and product content as interconnected assets – rather than isolated files – Canto is rethinking the foundation of digital asset management. When evaluating DAM options for your use case, Canto continues to demonstrate that its wisdom is matched by its innovation, and its strong roadmap for its AI makes it worthy of consideration. 

Ending the digital asset chaos starts with a “can do” attitude. But it also requires some bold rethinking of our technology and practices. If you're ready for it, Canto could be your “can do” partner.

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