Fight the Cognitive Overload: Brightspot Lights the Way to Productivity with its Evolutionary CMS Release

“Cognitive overload is the silent killer of productivity for content teams.”

That’s what Raleigh McClayton, Brightspot’s CEO, recently observed. And he couldn’t be more spot-on. 

Lately, in my many conversations with vendors, agencies, and enterprise stakeholders, the sheer overwhelm of tools and data is also creating significant friction and resistance – at a time when brands and marketing teams need to be nimbler and more responsive.

AI is certainly presenting itself as a potential solution to some of these dynamics, but the value all rests with execution and delivery. And right now, as every CMS and DXP is flexing its AI muscle, it’s not always obvious where the AI washing is, and if these capabilities will enhance performance or make things worse. 

As industry luminary Jasmin Guthmann alluded to in our recent podcast episode, AI is like a filter. If we put garbage in, we get garbage out. To be fair, a lot of the pressure falls on the foundational models we’re harnessing, but it also speaks to the efficacy of the governance, guardrails, and overall user experience of a software tool. 

In fact, as cross-functionality with CMSes and DXPs becomes more commoditized, UX is becoming one of the biggest areas of differentiated value as platforms race to integrate native AI and agentic capabilities. 

In the end, the essential usability is a big part of the success equation: How easy is it for a user to navigate your ecosystem? Is the application of AI improving processes in a meaningful way? Can a content editor better focus on their work and reduce the cognitive overload?

Brightspot is answering these questions by tuning into its users – something it has always done exceedingly well. Founded in 2008, the Reston, Virginia-based CMS has evolved into a leading hybrid solution that serves global customers and notable brands like FedEx, Hallmark, and Wayfair.

When I recently spoke to Ravi Singh, the company’s President and Chief Product Officer, he reinforced how the company is aiming to differentiate by delivering real value to end users and maintaining a high retention rate for technology leaders. This emphasis on the voice of its customers is guiding the company’s continued success in an increasingly competitive matrix of CMS and DXP choices. 

Ravi Singh, Brightspot President and Chief Product Officer. Source: LinkedIn

“We're not fad chasers,” he said emphatically. “We don't chase our competitors’ roadmaps. What we do is stay true to what our customers need and want.”

That ethos is reflected in abundance across Brightspot’s most transformational release yet. Announced today, the latest version of its enterprise content management system weaves a core thread around speed, flexibility, and control – all achieved by removing the inefficiencies that stymie organizations and content operators.

I’ve been tracking Brightspot for quite some time, and the company has certainly carved a unique niche in the pantheon of CMS vendors, providing an enterprise-grade platform that’s easy to use, extensible, and offers a composable posture.

Horizontally, it provides a rich tapestry of features that support non-technical creators and advanced developers alike. But Brightspot also boasts broad and focused industry specializations, making it a beloved solution among corporate brand and marketing teams while appealing to the workflows of fast-paced media and publishing environments (think the AP or NBC Sports, both of which are Brightspot customers). 

To address the flood of demands and the wall of friction with managing content at scale, Brightspot has taken an evolutionary leap with this latest release. It’s lightening the load by reimagining the CMS experience so that every user – from CTOs and digital leaders to marketers and developers – can move from idea to execution with speed, confidence, and clarity.

Here's a breakdown of what to expect from this transformational new release. 

A clear focus on lightening the mental load

At the recent Brightspot Illuminate – the company’s first-ever virtual users’ conference – attendees were treated to a sneak peek of the company’s vision and roadmap, which outlined some of the features touted in this new version. 

During CEO Raleigh McClayton’s presentation, one slide emphasized how industries exposed to AI have seen a 286% increase in productivity growth, codifying how innovation is moving at warp speed. Meanwhile, the very real impacts of cognitive overload are wreaking havoc.

As I’ve already mentioned, this issue of cognitive overload has been permeating the zeitgeist. It was certainly a topic during several sessions at the Boye & Company CMS Connect Conference in Montreal over the summer, and while AI has certainly been an asset for addressing some of the burdens stemming from modern stacks, it’s also exacerbating the problem by amplifying the volume of content we’re producing. 

With the exploding number of tools in the digital marketer’s toolbox, it’s clear why people feel overwhelmed. Based on a joint study by Qatalog and Cornell University’s Idea Lab, it takes roughly 9.5 minutes to fully refocus after switching out of a single app or task. 

Now, consider how many times you make that switch each day. According to the Harvard Business Review, this phenomenon of “context switching” might be costing you as much as five lost weeks of work each year.   

This is where Brightspot is really shines with its vision. Its latest release provides an even cleaner user experience that’s focused on focus. The UI has been redesigned to minimize cognitive overload with more streamlined layouts, contextual collaboration, and simplified publishing to help teams – from content to engineering – stay in the creation zone and not meander with complex navigation. 

The new Brightspot release offers a more streamlined UI. Source: Brightspot

As Ravi explained, improving focus reflects what he calls a “Genie Moment,” where small, high-impact features can really delight users and make their work easier. This comes from a dedicated and continuous practice of connecting with their users.

“We hold a virtual Customer Advisory Board on an annual basis, where we bring customers in,” he said. “We also include our product and engagement managers and customer service folks, who are the heartbeat of where the customer data is coming from. We look at what the Gartners and Forresters are telling us about the needs and shifts in the market, and then we aggregate it all into a really compelling value proposition. That's how we stay connected to the true art and craft of product building with our CMS.”

In a world of push notifications and nonsensical features that can swallow your time, focus is a key area where Brightspot is fighting cognitive overload and helping creators be more productive.

Making the promise of AI safer and easier

As a robust enterprise CMS, Brightspot offers an array of rich, built-in features. Its unified analytics suite provides quick connections to leading data tools and sources like Google (just one of the 7,000+ integrations they provide). Brightspot also sports drag-and-drop workflows that big retail brands like Walmart rely on, as well as collaboration and design tools that allow for no-code or full custom capabilities.

On the AI horizon, Brightspot has been steadily innovating. This includes some ready-made integrations with OpenAI and Amazon Bedrock that power specific features with their foundational models. As Ravi told me, the company’s product ethos has always been built on the right governance and security layers, and AI has been no exception. That means every AI interaction is governed to ensure brand voice on your content, while keeping creators firmly in the captain’s chair. 

“The goal is to let humans focus on storytelling while AI assists with repetitive or tedious work,” he said, reinforcing the irreplaceable role of creators. As you might expect, they have a content creation tool embedded directly in the editing experience, which helps users quickly gen up headlines and other text elements. But it’s there to enhance the creative process.  

With the new release, Brightspot is giving organizations even more confidence to grow their AI adoption with a built-in trust layer that makes every use of AI transparent, auditable, and safe. Expanding on its AI Usage and Tracking features, users will have access to configurable oversight, automated guardrails, and centralized logs that ensure outputs remain compliant, on-brand, and fully under human control. 

The new Brightspot release features access to a more robust Assistive AI. Source: Brightspot

Users will also be able to accelerate productivity with AI while keeping humans in the loop – and in control. Brightspot’s Assistive AI is designed to speed up creation, repurposing, and optimization while putting people in the driver’s seat. With this smart resource, teams can move faster, whether they’re inline editing, performing SEO and LLM optimization, producing social posts and author personas, and more.  

Expanding Experimentation

Optimizing performance is a key objective for marketers, and having on-board experimentation is a critical asset. Typically, this requires an amalgam of tools and steps, which can further entangle a user’s time and resources – and contribute to cognitive overload.

Now, Brightspot is endowing its CMS with approachable, built-in experimentation, enabling marketers to launch A/B/n tests directly inside the platform and eliminate those arduous and disruptive “swivel-chair” workflows. Creating new experiments is incredibly simple, and can be done on the fly with multiple variations. 

Brightspot's built-in experimentation offers rich control and easy-to-use features. Source: Brightspot

Marketers can adjust different dimensions of a test, starting with a target's demographics, behaviors, device usage, and other variables like events. Within an experiment, Brightspot users will also be able to control the overall traffic exposure and allocate it dynamically – and even auto-promote the winner in a test set. 

With its API-first and hybrid capabilities, Brightspot still provides the flexibility for building experiences and assembling your stack with almost any kind of integration. But having built-in data and experimentation features within arm’s reach – and reducing the complexity – could be a major win for marketers locked in an application juggling act. 

Bottom line: what once required multiple tools and teams can now go from ideation to production in less than five minutes, driving insights that drive dynamic optimization right where your content is created. 

Pricing and availability

Brightspot’s pricing is fully customized around your specifications. As such, you’ll need to talk to an expert about options.

Ideally, I’d love to see more foundational pricing transparency, but they do provide a nice comparison grid that breaks down what’s included in their Core, Premium, Enterprise, and Custom packages. It also covers the scope of their CMS features, infrastructure and managed services, and customer success and support. 

While Brightspot does have a partner ecosystem, they continue to provide turnkey migration and professional services as add-ons, which can be advantageous not just from a product knowledge perspective, but with cottage services like content strategy. 

They can also handle ongoing managed services around updates, security patches, and more. Think of it as another way to reduce your cognitive overload.

The new release of Brightspot is available immediately to new customers and as an upgrade for existing customers. For more details, you can visit the company’s website.

Why it matters

When I see the words “cognitive overload,” I keep seeing “cognitive overlord.” 

Without consulting Freud, this mix-up is kismet. Often, the most complex and convoluted systems end up controlling us – and we answer to them, not the other way around. 

Helping users break free is a central theme of Brightspot’s transformational release. AI and intelligence are the keys to unlocking the shackles, but having humans in control will ultimately keep them off. As Ravi told me, cognitive overload might be the challenge, but the response is what matters. And that requires understanding users.  

Brightspot continues to reinforce its unique voice in the CMS tapestry, and this latest release underscores its fervent commitment to customer intimacy. They’re really tuned in, and that’s helping to guide their product evolution in a solid direction. They’ve also cultivated a culture of innovation while keeping a keen eye on customer satisfaction with a mix of managed and professional services. While channel growth is a key objective, customer success is something their teams are deeply invested in from a turnkey perspective.

How are these transformational capabilities being received? That’s best reflected by Crystal Hudson, VP of Digital Marketing at Special Olympics and a Brightspot customer.

“The newest release is a total game-changer, dramatically improving our speed-to-market with content,” she said. “Contextual commenting means no more jumping between tools, and integrated A/B testing provides unlimited ways to increase conversions and awareness.” 

Cognitive overload (or the overlord, if you’re a bit more macabre) might be the silent killer of productivity, but you can fight back with the right mindset and the best tools for the job. That said, it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it problem to solve. As agentic AI continues to explode across our roadmaps, we risk the same challenges regarding complexity and moving at a frenetic pace.

This is where Brightspot might prove its greatest value. Not just as a vendor – but as a partner in the ring.

Looking for guidance on Brightspot? Talk to an expert.

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