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Hungry for Composable? New Research Shows a Growing Appetite for MACH Technologies

matt-garrepy

<hr /> It wouldn’t be December without a Christmas story that warms your heart. Especially if it’s three sizes too small. Of course, every good holiday tale needs a protagonist who experiences some magnificent transformation. So let’s start with a little Scrooging before pouring the spiked egg nog.Our merry friends at <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/storyblok">Storyblok</a>, a headless CMS that has positioned itself simply as a “content management system,” recently published some sobering survey data. The big takeaway: 93% of marketers and developers say their current CMS is falling short of expectations, and a lot of the frustration stems from integrations.To that end, the consensus among survey participants is that platform integration failures could impact revenue this holiday season, a time when brands and retailers are banking on digital commerce to stuff their annual stockings. ‘Twas the nightmare before Christmas? Indeed. And it's likely to result in an urgent call-to-action to improve reliance on the stack – specifically the CMS layer – in 2025. Ho, ho, hold on a minute. It’s not to say that cheeks aren’t rosy in other areas of the digital marketing machine. The study indicated that businesses are spending an average of over $453,000 on martech per year. That’s healthy by any measure, but the effectiveness of that investment could be in jeopardy if <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">content management systems</a> aren’t living up to their fullest potential. So what’s a brand to do? It’s not as simple as asking Santa for a solution. According to <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/storyblok-is-writing-its-next-chapter-with-an-80m-series-c-heres-why-it-matters">Storyblok’s CEO Dominik Angerer</a>, whom I’ve spoken to multiple times this year, the core challenges can be traced back to legacy systems that lack flexibility and interoperability – and a move to headless could turn that lump of coal into a diamond.“This survey shows that many companies are hitting the limits of their current CMS,” he said. “They are dreaming of a CMS that’s keeping all their systems in sync without constant workarounds.”And dreaming of sugar plum fairies who deliver an easy transition, right? Therein lies part of the problem: moving to a new CMS can be costly and time-consuming, and embracing composable architectures (more the domain of large enterprises) can take years to fully realize. Time is also tight, and organizations need to move quickly, especially when the holiday blitz is a 'Blitzen. This is why many platforms have embraced a multi-CMS ecosystem – with a strong reliance on headless platforms – to roadmap a more holistic solution. But is headless really the panacea for all these challenges? Let’s unwrap some of the data that Storyblok left under the tree.<h3 id="deck-the-halls-with-integration-frustration">Deck the halls with integration frustration</h3>With customers like Adidas, Netflix, and Disney on its roster, Storyblok has cultivated deep insights around use cases and patterns for headless CMS at a global enterprise level. That was clearly a benefit when conducting the research, which reflects how some of the world’s biggest brands feel stymied by outdated legacy tech stacks that can’t keep pace with their evolving needs.For the research itself, Storyblok surveyed 300 IT and marketing leaders at global businesses, a third of which had stated revenues of over $100 million. Participants were asked a range of questions about their company’s CMS with an explicit focus on the arc for integrating new tools and applications as part of their existing tech stack. One important note, which speaks to the reality of the enterprise market and a smidge of headless bias: all surveyed companies in the report use monolithic CMSes. That’s not a shocker, but it’s a relevant assumption that the data might be telegraphed around inherent criticisms of large enterprise CMS and DXP platforms. To that end, 93% of respondents aired grievances, specifically around the limited integration options with other services and tools in their tech stack. Two in five also stated that they are constantly in need of a better integration experience, while a quarter found integrations “difficult,” illustrating the urgency for more flexible solutions.So much for the “seamlessly integrates” tagline that often accompanies the marketing around many platforms in the ecosystem. Humbug.<h3 id="all-i-want-for-christmas-is-up-to-date-content">All I want for Christmas is up-to-date content</h3>Outdated content is an epidemic, particularly for highly distributed global organizations – and it’s not just at the CMS layer. Maintaining up-to-date digital assets has been a precarious function as well, which is why we’ve seen significant investments in <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/cloudinary-assets-brings-new-ai-powered-features-to-its-api-first-intelligent-dam">AI-powered capabilities across DAMs and PIMs</a>. As Dominik Angerer stated in <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/storyblok-is-writing-its-next-chapter-with-an-80m-series-c-heres-why-it-matters">one of our previous interviews</a>, “A CMS can’t just be a place where your content is sent to die." And yet, it often is for so many companies – something the research also manages to codify. According to the study, frustration over outdated content continues to be a widespread problem. Most respondents reported that 20% to 30% of their CMS content is no longer relevant, with only one-third updating content on a monthly basis – or less. To make matters worse, 37% admitted to not having an audit or update process that works for them. Translation: there’s no reliable governance, which can result not only in poor experiences for users but also financial and even legal liabilities. <h3 id="jingling-with-marketers-and-developers">Jingling with marketers and developers</h3>The elves aren’t playing nicely in the workshop – a fact we’ve been abundantly aware of for quite some time. As headless CMS platforms rose in popularity, marketers were left in the cold, becoming more reliant on developers to modify their digital experiences. At the same time, monolithic CMS and DXP platforms inherited more complexity (often through acquisitions), resulting in a similar paradigm.I’ve been chatting about this with <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/uniforms-enterprise-visual-workspace-unifies-content-data-ai-and-technology-in-a-single-cloud-for-marketers">industry leaders like Darren Guarnaccia</a> for the last few years. In 2023, he noted that while composable headless technologies are a boon for developers and technical audiences, “it’s been kind of horrible for the businesses.” This reality underscored the mad rush to add visual building, previewing, and editing capabilities to CMS tooling – from <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/optimizely-introduces-new-saas-cms-with-visual-builder-for-marketers">Optimizely</a> to <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/agility-cms-web-studio-aims-to-streamline-content-creation-and-collaboration">Agility</a> – and nearly every platform now has it as an expected feature. But these new capabilities are still catching up, and technology isn’t the only sore spot. According to Storyblok’s research, the collaboration between marketers and developers continues to be strained, with 40% saying it’s either “ineffective” or “nonexistent.” That’s a big number, and likely reflects some of the cultural challenges that exist between marketing and IT functions.What’s at the core of this rift? Basic stuff, really. For example, a marketer might want to update a post or make fast edits across multiple pages. Unfortunately, in many legacy CMS deployments, that might require the help of a developer each time (Darren referred to these instances as “tickets,” which those of us with support experience know all too well). This is because certain types of changes in a CMS are often complex and can ripple across an entire site. Of course, this back-and-forth can create huge bottlenecks and delays, utlimately adding months and potentially extra zeroes to the cost of a project. But Dominik feels this is where a modern headless CMS can differentiate and solve the problem. “A headless CMS can eliminate these holdups,” he said. “These flexible, integration-friendly systems meet the needs of both marketers and developers.”<h3 id="last-christmas,-i-gave-you-my-content…">Last Christmas, I gave you my content…</h3>And the very next day? Well, at least some users start a slow, downward slide toward CMS regret. In fairness, the honeymoon might last a little longer. But when you’re sold on the potential of “seamless integrations,” only to find that things aren’t so seamless, it feels like Krampus coming down the chimney. At this time of the year, brands are under increased pressure to drive conversions and sales. Clearly, some teams are disillusioned by their experiences and most of the blame lands in the boots of the tech stack. And yet, the problems persist. Storyblok published a previous study that revealed almost half of all businesses are literally “embarrassed” by their website. Ouch. That same report also found that business leaders estimate a poor website UX leads to $72,000 in lost sales each year.To be sure, there’s some predictable marketer’s lament in all of this (every brand pro is on a quest for what they don’t have). But it does codify how disappointing a legacy CMS experience can be for many users and organizations – despite spending all that previously mentioned cheddar on martech. Looking ahead, integration will continue to scale in importance. This is due to the accelerating growth of new technologies and the persistent need to manage data from multiple systems. According to Storyblok, this must be prioritized – because what’s at stake is the continued erosion of time, money, and resources.There are many choices when it comes to CMS platforms. Most are solid in their own way, and it’s usually not just the architecture or functionality that makes them naughty or nice – it’s how they’re applied as part of a broader stack. In some cases, headless is an ideal solution. But when a decision about any CMS isn’t carefully approached, it can result in a less-than-satisfying outcome.In terms of reaching the limitations, some practitioners might be approaching their problems from the wrong vector – and certain strategies could be employed to resolve the bottlenecks and challenges. In this case, headless CMSes have an advantage when it comes to integrating with other solutions that displace the issues or extend capabilities in the right way. That said, large enterprise DXPs have made significant headway when it comes to delivering more modular solutions for their customers, which can offer some of the same benefits of interoperability and API-driven integration. Do you mine a lump of coal, hoping it keeps burning? Or do you make the leap to something new? This realm of optimization is something that many organizations will be wrestling with as they assess the 2024 holiday season and beyond. The good news: we’re talking about the challenges, and working to overcome them.Who knows? Maybe next Christmas will bring some cheerier numbers. Until then, we'll be making our list and checking it twice. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-storyblok?--talk-to-us.-">Looking for guidance on Storyblok?  <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to us. </a></h4><hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-2025"><a href=" https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25">CMS Kickoff 2025</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaMeet industry leaders at our third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global CMS event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">so secure your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:30.46%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/cms-summit-25.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">CMS Summit 25</a></h4>May 13-14, 2025 – Frankfurt, GermanyDon't miss the first European edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community! CMS Summit 25 will bring together top-notch speakers, our renowned learning format, and engaging social events. Hear from leading practitioners like Deutsche Bahn, Dr. Oetker, and more – and join customers, agencies, and CMS vendors as we discuss current trends and what's ahead for the content and digital experience fields. Connect and network at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference focused on CMS. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">so book your seats today.</a>

Legacy CMS leaving a lump of coal in your stacking? Research says the best gift could be headless

<hr /> During a recent <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/agility">Agility CMS</a> “Ask Me Anything” webinar, I was subjected to a trifecta of “dad jokes” – courtesy of <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/playing-to-win-in-the-headless-cms-game-interview-with-joel-varty-cto-at-agility">Joel Varty</a>. In addition to his part-time standup vocation, Joel is the Chief Technology Officer of the Toronto-based headless <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">content management system</a>, where he’s spent almost two decades innovating around digital experiences and supporting notable brands like Cineplex, Mitsubishi Electric, and ScotiaBank.As a comically blessed father myself (IMHO), I appreciated his technique and material – especially the closer about a sad math book that couldn’t solve its own problems. Insert rimshot.Dad jokes aside, Joel is as cool as they come on stage. I’ve seen him bake under the hot lights of the now-famous <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/blog/2024/8/kajoo-wins-cmsidol24-montreal">“CMS Idol” competition</a>, and from my perspective, he’s one CTO who keeps his demo muscle in solid shape (I’m sure there’s a dad joke in there). As advertised, Agility’s AMA session effectively “pulled back the curtain” on its new <a target="_blank" href="https://agilitycms.com/product/web-studio">Web Studio,</a> which promises enhanced features for customers to create, preview, and collaborate on web content. Web Studio reflects a tacit transformation we’ve been seeing across the headless CMS market, one where pure-play platforms have been bridging the visual gap. Content creators want a simple UI that enables them to see exactly what their stuff will look like when it’s live. At the same time, they need to collaborate with team members to preview, review, comment on, and approve their pages before publishing. Agility's Web Studio delivers the full monty and then some – with dynamite features already penciled in on the roadmap. The company has flown Web Studio with a few test pilots as part of what it calls its “Ambassador Program,” and the solution is getting solid reviews. As part of the AMA, I got a first-hand tour of Web Studio, and I concur. As billed, it’s a heckuva lot more than just a WYSIWYG editor. The entire experience feels intuitive, elegant, lightweight, and easy to navigate – and fits seamlessly into Agility’s clean, minimal framework while providing easy access to all the essential tooling. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:66.45%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/joel-brendan-headshots.jpg" alt="" /></figure>Agility's AMA presenters: Joel Varty, CTO (left), and Brendan Cooney, Senior Manager Joel conducted the webinar with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bmcooney/">Brendan Cooney</a>, Senior Manager at Agility. They showcased how content creation and teamwork are central to the new experience and woven into its new attributes.A bit of history on the genesis of Web Studio: It began as a feature called Preview Center, which made its debut at the <a target="_blank" href="https://aarhus25.boye-co.com/">Boye Aarhus 2023 Conference</a> and ended up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/blog/2023/11/agility-wins-the-2023-small-feature-award">winning the event's coveted “Small Feature Award.”</a> The achievement sparked some new thinking – both practical and blue sky – which Joel crystallized during the AMA.“What if Brendan’s typing in a field, and then I’m typing in a field? What happens there? That snowballed into ‘now we need Figma-style comments,’ [and] ‘now we need Google Docs style content editing.’ So it kind of turned into a whole lot of things, which is really exciting for us.”Here’s a snapshot of what I saw, and what you can expect as it rolls out.<h3 id="it’s-a-lot-less-lonely-with-presence">It’s a lot less lonely with Presence</h3>One of the coolest new features in Web Studio is the Presence Indicator, which visually displays an icon of who’s online in the system. With a click, you can jump to the specific page or asset that a person is working on and collaborate in tandem. It’s simple but super handy – and editors are sure to love it.  <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:83.64%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/agility-web-studio-presence.jpg" alt="" /></figure>The Presence Indicator (appearing at the top of the Agility UI) shows other team members actively working in the system As Joel and Brendan noted, Presence accentuates collaboration in a personal way, making the experience feel like hanging out with friends. By reducing the friction to share and connect within the system, Agility is offering a more human (er… humane?) experience – one that can reduce the challenges around communicating and collaborating.<h3 id="instant-field-locking-and-built-in-commenting">Instant field-locking and built-in commenting</h3>Content collisions are a pain, but version conflicts might be a thing of the past with Web Studio’s slick new field locking feature. Simply slide the lock button into place and you effectively control your session. At the same time, your collaborators can see what fields you’re working on and what changes you’re making in real time. Users can also leave comments with total ease. Just tag a team member with an “@“ and leave a notification, comments, or even reactions. You can also resolve the comment once you reply, making the function more like a task assignment or project management feature. You can also access a full history of comments. All around, it’s definitely a win for users and teams.Once you see the commenting and collaboration tools, it’s logical to thread the needle with other communication tools in the broader ecosystem. As Joel indicated, users can expect both email and Slack notifications in the near future.<h2 id="previews">Previews</h2>Out of the box, Web Studio provides both a staging and preview environment in addition to your live view. It’s all easily within reach. You can also leverage the <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/agility/web-studio-sdk">Agility Web Studio SDK</a> to decorate the fields and components. Previews also work with pages and content items. A big upgrade: you’ll be able to switch between multiple deployments, an action that's been less flexible in the past in Agility.  <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:86.64%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/agility-web-studio-preview.jpg" alt="" /></figure>Web Studio provides a seamless preview within Agility as well as easy-to-use commenting features You can also manually expand or collapse your window to preview and inspect different device sizes. That might sound like a simple expectation with most modern CMS UIs, but it's more fluid than you think. The word “silky” comes to mind, and it's worth seeing in action.One other cool benefit is the commenting mode, which allows you to click anywhere and leave comments on your preview. It's just another example of how collaboration has been baked into the foundation of Web Studio.<h3 id="decorating-components">Decorating components</h3>This is where developers can customize their components for editors. As Joel demonstrated in real time, you can access code in Agility to decorate your component fields, making it easier for developers to render changes and empower content creators to do their thing. Once his changes were complete, it was all pushed to <a target="_blank" href="https://vercel.com/">Vercel</a>, and… presto. Ready in minutes.As he noted, it takes a little more time to set up new components the right way, but doing so ultimately enhances the editor experience. Joel reinforced the importance of this vital relationship between developers and content creators, and how it can unleash greater value.  <h3 id="the-critic-consensus">The Critic Consensus</h3>Visual editing and preview capabilities have become an expectation for every headless CMS. But delivering the right mix of capabilities – wrapped in a simple yet satisfying experience – is the real dealmaker. Agility Web Studio offers a differentiated visual experience and a fantastic upgrade to the platform’s easy-to-use interface. With trick features like the Presence capability, users should find it intuitive and (dare I say) fun to interact and collaborate around content. And in the high-pressure, high-stakes world of accelerating your marketing content, finding more productive and rewarding ways to make the journey is a win-win.The collaboration enhancements are slick, and the in-app commenting and task resolution capabilities are sure to please marketers, developers, and content creators alike. The seamless ability to share, review, and approve within Agility should help reduce bottlenecks and laborious back-and-forth emails.From a broader market perspective, headless CMSes continue to appreciate steady demand as fixtures across many RFPs. That’s also why we continue to see new platforms entering the market. While the noise has dampened from the peaks of 2023 and early 2024 (I must have been talking to a new headless platform every week), opportunity and choice continue to drive persistent growth.Generally speaking, choice is good for buyers. But above all, they want confidence and trust – and that’s where platforms like Agility have a key advantage in a sea of sameness. As a veteran player, they’ve amassed a solid track record with globally recognized brands, powering workloads with mission-critical performance and compliance considerations. <h3 id="one-last-note-on-the-‘art-of-the-live-demo’">One last note on the ‘Art of the Live Demo’</h3>No one wants to code in front of other people. It’s a bit like using a public restroom – which, for many people, is fraught with anxiety. When Joel started to manually update a component on the fly, he demonstrated how easy it is to customize. That said, when a few tags went off the rails, he kept his cool and made the whole process feel smooth and authentic. Call it Murphy’s Law, but there’s always a bump or two in the road. The “agility” (see what I did there?) to keep rolling when things don’t go as planned is, in itself, a testament to the presenter. If you’re evaluating a CMS, I still stand by the impact of a live demo from a qualified practitioner – bumps and all. Yes, good documentation is a must-have; ultimately, we're trying to empower our users and get out of the way. But a solid CMS in your composable stack is a critical decision, and Agility is doing it right by emphasizing the human part of its proposition.Speaking of which, you can learn more about Web Studio <a target="_blank" href="https://agilitycms.com/product/web-studio">here</a>. Dad jokes not included. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-agility?--talk-to-us.-">Looking for guidance on Agility?  <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to us. </a></h4><hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-2025"><a href=" https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25">CMS Kickoff 2025</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaMeet industry leaders at our third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global CMS event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">so secure your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:30.46%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/cms-summit-25.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">CMS Summit 25</a></h4>May 13-14, 2025 – Frankfurt, GermanyDon't miss the first European edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community! CMS Summit 25 will bring together top-notch speakers, our renowned learning format, and engaging social events. Hear from leading practitioners like Deutsche Bahn, Dr. Oetker, and more – and join customers, agencies, and CMS vendors as we discuss current trends and what's ahead for the content and digital experience fields. Connect and network at the only vendor-neutral, in-person conference focused on CMS. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit25">so book your seats today.</a>

Agility CMS Web Studio Aims to Streamline Content Creation and Collaboration

<hr /> When I spoke to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathias-biilmann-christensen-a5a3805/">Mathias Billman</a> recently, the word sanity popped up more than once during our conversation. It wasn’t an off-color reference to the chaos of our modern digital ecosystem, but the evocation of a content management tool that frequently rides alongside <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/netlify">Netlify</a> – a leading web development platform he co-founded. Of course, this is logical. <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/sanity">Sanity</a> (I'm referring to the application) offers a number of integrations and connectors for Netlify. But more importantly, Billman is an angel investor in the platform, a clear indicator that he sees Sanity as a transformative resource for composable stacks – where its novel vision as a Content Operating System is proving its value.To its credit, Sanity has carved out a unique position for itself, focusing on content as structured data and cultivating a tacit developer-centricity. It has also earned its place as a trusted solution for big global players like Figma, Puma, AT&amp;T, and Burger King, further validating its impact as enterprises strive for faster, more composable ways to power their digital experiences at scale. The run-up has been solid for Sanity. In 2021, the company <a target="_blank" href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/24/sanity-raises-39m-for-its-use-anywhere-approach-to-content-repositories/">closed on a $39 million Series B</a> that heralded its vision for extensible content repositories (and also brought its total raise to nearly $52 million). A year later, they were forging strategic partnerships with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sanity.io/blog/shopify-invests-in-sanity-connecting-commerce-with-content">the likes of Shopify</a>, nurturing its value across commerce channels. Competition has certainly swelled over the last two years, but Sanity has remained steadfast around its central mission while evolving its messaging. As Sanity proclaims, content is the competitive differentiator for brands, and its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sanity.io/">Sanity Content Operating System</a> is purpose-built to deliver on that proposition. The platform’s composition of composable APIs with a customizable workspace – along with its Content Lake storage and distribution – provides an elegant model that its peers don't offer (at least not in the same construct). Given the success of its longtail vision and the christening of its Content Operating System, the company is doubling down on the next phase of its evolution. Last week, Sanity announced that it has onboarded the complete team behind <a target="_blank" href="http://begin.com">Begin.com</a> – a company specializing in deploying full-stack web apps to <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/aws">AWS</a>. If you’re not familiar, Begin was also responsible for creating popular open source frameworks like Architect (<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/architect">go check it out on Github</a>).Buying Begin’s mindshare is a strategic move, one that reinforces Sanity’s mission to better enable developers and digital leaders. It also deepens its goal of helping customers rethink how they use content and technology to drive growth, particularly at a time when tech budgets are being heavily scrutized around the value quotient. Begin’s CEO, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianleroux/">Brian Leroux</a>, seemed bullish about his company’s synthesis with Sanity, and noted in the company’s press release that he sees “a lot of untapped potential in how content can be used.”Sanity's Content Lake, introduced in 2018, disrupted the content management landscape by providing a central hub for integration across channels and platforms. This ignited some early gains for the platform’s offerings, particularly as composability shifted into high gear. Despite the realization of content automation for many of its customers, the full potential of automation has remained, as Leroux pointed out, relatively untapped. With the addition of Begin, Sanity hopes to accelerate its innovation and attain new levels of performance. The Begin team brings deep experience in developing powerful compute and automation capabilities – attributes that will be critical to reducing manual workloads and streamlining content processes. I had a chance to talk with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/magnushillestad">Magnus Hillestad</a>, co-founder and CEO of Sanity, about his plans for Begin. It's worth noting that Hillestad is an ex-finance and private equity guy turned tech start-up leader, thus bringing more of the traditional commercial optics to the founder's role. This is a distinct advantage for the company, one that undoubtedly contributed to its successful capital raising. Aside from the foundational benefits of force multiplying Sanity’s innovation resources, it’s clear that a central impact for customers is greater resiliency and agility in the face of widespread technological change."The Begin team joining us marks a transformative moment for Sanity and for what our customers can expect going forward," he said. “By combining their expertise in compute and modern app deployments with our vision for an automated, resilient content operating system, we're redefining what's possible in content management. This powerful synergy will unlock unprecedented levels of efficiency and innovation for our customers, propelling industries like e-commerce, media and technology into a new era of content operations.”<h3 id="where-to-begin?-with-an-automation-end-game">Where to Begin? With an automation end game</h3>Sanity has been challenging the status quo of content management since coming online in 2018. Sanity’s core philosophy – reflected in its Content Operating System platform – flips the standard CMS narrative by treating content as data, and by connecting and automating systems beyond its central hub. This shift in perception also allows teams to treat content as a more strategic asset for their business.From a developer perspective, the addition of Begin’s resources will provide a number of benefits. This includes the addition of powerful compute resources, giving users the ability to scale extensible content distribution systems with embedded automation.Begin’s heritage as an AWS development house was certainly a key part of the acquisition appeal. By absorbing a cohort of expertise with proven success deploying web apps to the world’s leading cloud, Sanity hoped to imbue its features with next-level scalability – all while mitigating the headaches associated with deploying apps on Sanity.  “The Begin Team's experience building within a 'cloud hyperscaler' environment provides substantial value to our customers through the development of powerful compute capabilities,” he said, “which simplifies the way they build complex content automations. The goal is to enable our customers to easily deploy content operations applications directly on the Sanity Content Operating System, abstracting away much of the complexity.” Hillestad went on to explain that many of Sanity’s customers are setting up content operations applications in their own cloud environments. Given this vector, he believes Sanity can provide a better developer experience by offering an abstracted compute layer, giving customers the option to leverage Sanity for their automation and content ops needs while still allowing direct cloud integrations where needed. “Ultimately, by leveraging the Begin team's capabilities, we aim to empower the same developers who have become superstars at building content workflows in Sanity Studio to also excel at deploying content operations and automation on our platform,” he said. Another stated focus for the Begin team will be the delivery of content infrastructure as code. This will manifest in more powerful tools that help users develop, deploy, and manage advanced content pipelines with greater ease and efficacy.  <h3 id="what-about-content-marketers?">What about content marketers?</h3>As previously noted, Sanity has carved out a reputation for being “developer-friendly.” That might translate to “requires code” for the gaggle of CMS users hungry for less cumbersome, more drag-and-drop-oriented solutions with composable propensities. Many of the now “legacy” headless CMS tools are endeavoring to differentiate their value through visual editing tools. Sanity is already addressing this side of content ops ledger with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sanity.io/studio">Sanity Studio</a>, which enables a host of visual features like customizable components and block content editing, as well as collaboration and workspace capabilities. On the automation front, it even sports things like intelligent image cropping and scaling. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:72.78%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/11/sanity-collaboration-screenshot.jpg" alt="" /></figure>A mockup of collaboration features in Sanity Studio At the same time, the company maintains a clear pipeline back to the developers with Sanity Studio, allowing users to connect a production-ready content backend to an application. Studio’s customization framework allows for the development of unique content forms, workflows, validation, workspaces, and more – all built using modern web dev patterns that make the journey easier and more efficient. <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center">"The real win is in enabling tighter collaboration between developers and the rest of the content organization to deliver better digital experiences.”</h4><hr /> I wanted to know how Sanity’s investment in Begin would translate into greater value for the broader content operations model – vis-à-vis the marketers and editors driving the content itself. The amplification of compute resources and cloud dimensions are more the domain of DevOps; aside from impacting speed and productivity for editors, what other gains might be on the horizon?As Hillestad pointed out, the acquisition of Begin will take Sanity’s developer offerings to the next level, but the organizational benefits will be very tangible for non-developers as well. “While it's true that Sanity has always put a strong emphasis on being developer-friendly, the benefits of this approach extend far beyond the developer experience,” Hillestad said. “We believe that the most advanced organizations empower their skilled engineers to enable efficient, scalable content operations that drive impactful storytelling.”How will they deliver on this? By enabling content operations within the same system, thus reducing context switching between tools. As Hillestad explained, content strategists and product managers will have an easier path to integrating all related content and data directly into their single source of truth – enabling that richer storytelling potential. “So while speed and productivity gains are certainly part of the equation, the real win is in enabling tighter collaboration between developers and the rest of the content organization to deliver better digital experiences.”<h3 id="what-about-ai?">What about AI?</h3>While the acquisition of Begin is a big deal for Sanity, there’s been significant AI investment from all corners of the CMS landscape. Given its ambitions to evolve the Content Operating System to new levels of performance, I asked Hillestad how is AI playing into his plans – and if Begin’s proximity to <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/aws">AWS</a> and its <a target="_blank" href="https://aws.amazon.com/bedrock/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwvpy5BhDTARIsAHSilyn-dmseaMQpjDac_WRX0C1ov1es3fdfHFLRdjXEB0OHW_Z7dLGkATIaAjRmEALw_wcB&amp;trk=0eaabb80-ee46-4e73-94ae-368ffb759b62&amp;sc_channel=ps&amp;ef_id=Cj0KCQjwvpy5BhDTARIsAHSilyn-dmseaMQpjDac_WRX0C1ov1es3fdfHFLRdjXEB0OHW_Z7dLGkATIaAjRmEALw_wcB:G:s&amp;s_kwcid=AL!4422!3!692006004682!e!!g!!aws%20bedrock!21048268554!159639952735">Amazon Bedrock</a> or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.anthropic.com/">Anthropic</a> services might be an advantage.  “AI is indeed a significant part of our plans going forward, and the Begin team will play a key role in making AI capabilities more accessible to developers on our platform,” he said. “Sanity already offers several AI-powered tools for our users, leveraging services like <a target="_blank" href="https://openai.com/">OpenAI</a>, Anthropic, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pinecone.io/">Pinecone</a>. With the addition of the Begin team, we will make it even easier for developers to build their own custom AI functions and workflows on top of our platform.” As Sanity further develops its AI offerings, Hillestad forecast that it plans to support a wide range of AI services and large language models to give its customers maximum flexibility. “The Begin team's expertise in building developer abstractions will be invaluable as we work to make these powerful AI capabilities more approachable and integrated into the Sanity ecosystem.”<h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>In a marketplace of increasingly commoditized headless offerings, Sanity continues to establish differentiated value with its niche position as a Content Operating System. As it onboards the experience and resources of Begin, it is further investing in a growth angle that will enhance automation, scalability, and performance – perhaps in profound ways. Still, Sanity’s greatest strength could be its main detractor. Developer reliance is part of the resistance for marketing organizations when adopting new tools, and decisions are being driven by composable technologies that now offer a complete range of features that enable editor independence. This is where a developer-centric perception can be a limiting factor. That said, Sanity is effectively bridging the gap. Sanity Studio is the best example of its unification potential, and already provides robust capabilities that stand apart from a UX perspective. While Begin’s cloud and compute resources will inject more integrative fabric into the platform, it would be smart to see equal attention paid to further enhancing the editor experience.Partnering with Netlify and other development platforms is also a key benefit in Sanity’s favor. By expanding its connector libraries and reducing the barriers to entry, it can accelerate content velocity for users and brands as part of a go-to composable stack. Relying on these channels will be key to enhancing visibility and preference. Of course, choice is the biggest challenge for every player on the CMS chessboard. But Sanity has managed to build a solid foundation of differentiation, one that could serve it well as it looks to grow. Adding these new resources is a great way to begin its next chapter.  <hr /> <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-2025"><a href=" https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25">CMS Kickoff 2025</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaJoin us next January in the Tampa Bay area of Florida for the third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">so secure your tickets today.</a>

Sanity Acquires Begin Team, Aims to Accelerate the Evolution of its Content Operating System 

<hr /> They say seeing is believing. And what I’ve seen in 2024 has made this “The Year of Visual Builders and Editors.”Hold your applause. I think the marketers in the room are fainting. But it's true. Going back a bit, we’ve seen the slow and steady march of tools that stitch together the missing visual threads for headless CMSes. The pace has picked up over the last 12 months. I won't debate the vicissitudes of “racing to the middle.” It's been conjured quite enough, thank you. Suffice it to say that headless platforms would inevitably introduce their own visual solutions to balance out the benefits. And why not? It allows them to deliver a more complete and connected experience that's closer to the source. In other words, it’s a good thing. Behind it, of course, is the unintended consequence of rapid innovation. It’s sad that our gushing, omnichannel exuberance for all things decoupled left “the marketing folk” in the dark. They were, after all, kind of essential to the whole content thing.But hey, that’s the beauty of modern technology, right? Even if you rush like Reid Hoffman, it’s never too late to update your product.I’ll hand it to <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/contentstack">Contentstack</a> for pushing the boulder uphill earlier in the journey. They’re always striving to lead, and the company’s drive to position itself as a “Composable DXP” was a progressive move – one that reflects a deep focus on translating the voice of its customers. I think it’s paying off in dividends, providing a decisive edge as they introduce more features that up the ante for modern enterprises. Now, the company is further mending the marketing fences with the launch of native drag-and-drop visual capabilities in its composable CMS environment. Contentstack’s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/visual-building">new Visual Builder</a> is an experience-crafting toolset, combining the benefits of its industry-leading headless CMS with a powerful slate of visual capabilities. Purpose-built for marketers, Visual Builder accelerates workflows, enabling creators to actually see their work – both present and future – in a headless environment. The announcement was made today at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentstack.com/contentcon-europe">ContentCon Europe in London</a>, which featured speakers from noteworthy brands like Paula's Choice, LADbible, Miele, and more.To be sure, other platforms across the headless and DXP spectrum are introducing an array of in-app builders and editors. As I said, this year has seen a flurried buzz of announcements surrounding this manner of tooling, which has recently reached a fevered pitch. But Contentstack’s visual tools are just the tip of its proverbial iceberg. Along with its <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">headless CMS</a> features, its new Visual Builder is augmented by brand-aware generative AI, personalization, and automation features that truly unlock the value for marketers. "I love that we're overcoming an obstacle for our customers,” said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nehasampat/">Neha Sampat</a>, founder and CEO of Contentstack. “But what I love even more is how this capability combines with personalization, automation, and GenAI to be true to our North Star: The world's best digital experiences run on Contentstack.”The new visual tools also promise a better authoring experience for users, giving them unmatched clarity around content creation while simplifying and accelerating each step of the process. Marketers stand to gain greater control and flexibility, armed with the ability to see, edit, and manage content with greater ease and accuracy. “We're not focused on one-and-done capabilities,” Sampat explained. “Instead, we work relentlessly toward complete solutions that allow brands – and the marketers and developers within them – to rise above the noise."<h3 id="natively-visualizing-the-possibilities">Natively visualizing the possibilities</h3>As more organizations embrace headless CMS and roll towards composable, the need for business users to visualize their work has increased. The emphasis on backend experience creation has been mired in a swell of complicated planning and trial-and-error processes, all of which impacted the marketer mindset around headless. Contentstack's new Visual Builder aims to solve this problem, offering a complete set of tools for users to create and see their work in real time across any persona. It’s also keenly focused on delivering flexibility and simplicity through a range of features. Perhaps most notable are the drag-and-drop blocks, enabling users to seamlessly create layouts by adding or rearranging predefined content blocks on a page – all without the need for developer support or resources. This can include things like content cards and other components, providing an on-brand, customizable experience that keeps design and brand elements inside the guardrails. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:69.76%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/09/contentstack-dragdropblocks.png" alt="" /></figure>Contentstack's drag-and-drop builder featuring card components The new toolset also offers live and in-line editing capabilities, allowing content creators to make quick edits directly to a page with role-aware permissions for control and accuracy. The contextual UI highlights editable areas like headers and text areas, allowing users to swap images, update copy, and make other changes without breaking format. This is something that traditional web CMSes have offered and has been missing from the headless mix.There’s also a trick timeline feature that provides a chronological view of your content, allowing you to compare versions side by side, collaborate around reviews, and improve the publishing workflow. Audience preview is another key benefit. It enables marketers to see content in real time to know exactly how it will appear in different campaigns or targeted activities. When combined with Contentstack’s Personalize capabilities, it allows marketers to see how content will appear based on customer behavior, experiment results, and other details. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:76.94%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/09/contentstack-audience-segments-2.png" alt="" /></figure>Contentstack's audience preview provides rich controls and personalization capabilities All of the new Visual Builder’s features are deployed on a foundation of strong governance, ensuring that team members have the right level of access and administrators have control over their teams with role-based permissions. <h3 id="powering-experiences-with-ai,-personalization,-and-composability">Powering experiences with AI, personalization, and composability</h3>Today’s announcement at ContentCon London amplifies Contentstack's previous introduction of premium capabilities, all designed to help customers reimagine personalization at scale. This includes the aforementioned <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/personalize">Contentstack Personalize</a>, which infuses a segmentation and testing engine directly into its CMS to address fragmented content production.On the AI front, Contentstack has already been blazing trails across its digital ecosystem. With its exclusive <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentstack.com/docs/content-managers/brand-kit/about-brand-kit">Brand Kit capabilities</a>, the company is solving the conundrum around vanilla AI-generated content by making it brand-aware and hyper-relevant to organizations. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/automate">Contentstack Automate</a> is another piece of the pie, thwarting the challenges of operationalizing and repeating large volumes of personalized content with greater efficiency. And then there’s the force multiplier of composability throughout the system. With Contentstack, marketers can pull content not just from their CMS, but from other sources like a DAM or PIM to power their experiences at scale. This is reinforced by the platform's MACH-centricity, which enables greater flexibility with open and scalable architectures that allow marketers, developers, and organizations to assemble the right stack for their needs and connect data from almost anywhere. Underscoring all of this innovation is Contentstack’s "no fail" promise to customers. This includes its unique <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentstack.com/academy/content/ai-accelerator">AI Accelerator program</a>, designed to guide customers from zero to fully deployed with AI in 45 days or less. Contentstack Academy is also part of the knowledge investment, arming business and technical users with the skills and resources they need to build superior content organizations.<h3 id="why-it-matters-">Why it matters </h3>When I last <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/contentstack-fires-up-brand-relevant-ai-powered-personalization-at-contentcon-2024">spoke with Neha Sampat and Conor Egan</a>, Contentstack’s VP of Product, they were prepping for ContentCon 2024 in Austin. In addition to the local lure of the event’s destination (also the company’s home base), we discussed their collective vision for AI-powered personalization, and how companies are prioritizing it amidst a brand relevancy crisis.Also stymieing that crisis: a lack of control for marketers to be more proactive and reactive. Despite the many developer-centric benefits of a headless CMS, these talented practitioners need the agility and nimble resources of robust visual building tools to realize their ideas and accelerate time-to-market – and ultimately attain the benefits of what Neha calls “Personalization Reimagined.” I’m not trying to demonize the developer here. Quite the opposite. While adding a visual builder to its feature set serves the marketer’s goals, the real gamechanger is the harmonization of capabilities for both developers and marketers alike – enabling them to collaborate around reusable components that set creators free with a visual drag-and-drop feature that is simple, elegant, and incredibly fast to use.  "Now marketers can build and see what they're doing, which will help them achieve the Holy Grail of personalized digital experiences at scale, faster," said Egan. “But this isn't just a story about enabling marketers. The headless world rests on the shoulders of the modern developer and we've assembled the best tools and learning paths to make that happen.”Now, we’re finally seeing in a headless world – and Contentstack is opening our eyes to what’s possible.   <hr /> <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-2025"><a href=" https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25">CMS Kickoff 2025</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaJoin us next January in the Tampa Bay area of Florida for the third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">so secure your tickets today.</a>

Seeing in a Headless World: Contentstack Introduces New Visual Building Capabilities for Marketers

<hr /> The mantle of “CMO” is a bit of an albatross. Much like the ancient mariner, anyone fuddling in this C-level role might find the journey replete with danger.  To be sure, it’s an important job, shouldering the massive responsibility of driving revenue and swimming in the deep end of a vast data pool. It also has the distinct reputation of being the C-level position with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.marketingweek.com/cmo-tenure-falls/">the shortest tenure</a>.There are numerous reasons for this, one of which is burnout. It’s not for the faint of heart, as Chief Marketing Officers are often saddled with breathtaking responsibilities and expectations – the kind where sleep might be an elusive dream. While the CMO was once considered a less important position in the pantheon of corporate leadership, it has certainly earned an essential role. <a href="it’s%20not%20for%20the%20faint%20of%20heart,%20often%20saddled%20with%20breathtaking%20responsibilities%20where%20sleep%20might%20often%20be%20a%20luxury.">According to one study</a>, significantly more CEOs are ranking their marketing departments as “best in class,” a perception driven by CMOs who deliver on business imperatives. As enterprise leaders rely more on visibility powered by analytics and data, CMOs are also taking on a new role as Chief Data Officers. This is thrusting their value into the stratosphere – and their pay packages to boot. The hiring or transition of any C-level leader is a bonafide big deal. But there’s a strong signal being sent when a CMO is enrolled, particularly one with a high-caliber skillset and proven pedigree. It’s a throat-clearing moment that prepares the market for visible change, particularly around how a brand positions itself in an increasingly dense field of competition.  That’s what Storyblok’s hiring of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/markwheeler/">Mark Wheeler</a> represented this week: a full-speed-ahead, no-holds-barred investment in growing its market share. If the CMS’s <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/storyblok-is-writing-its-next-chapter-with-an-80m-series-c-heres-why-it-matters">recent $80 million Series C</a> represents a beachhead for planning its strategy, Mark is the general arriving on the scene to take the castle. Can he do it? Ah, only time will tell. There are certainly major headwinds: cooling economic conditions, tighter IT budgets, and upstream and downstream competitors that continue to befuddle buyers with a confusing morass of messages. Oh… and that pesky U.S. presidential election. Talk about instability. Still, if Mark’s history is any indicator, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominikangerer/">CEO Dominik Angerer</a> should have plenty to look forward to. In my recent discussion with Dominik, we talked at length about Storyblok’s next chapter, which includes ambitious plans to grow its U.S. market footprint. This was underscored by a shift towards a “modern content management system” as a positioning foundation. By doubling down on this clarity, the company could have a key advantage in staking its market differentiation – something a CMO will need to harness, and only a seasoned and successful one can unleash with the right strategies to cut through the noise. Given Mark’s history, proximity to the CMS industry, and immersion in the category of content, he might be the right person for the job. “Having experienced leaders who can help us navigate the opportunities and challenges of our next phase of growth is critical to our success,” Dominik said. “Mark knows the CMS industry inside out and has already been on the part of the journey we’re about to embark on. His experience will help us properly educate the market on the transformative impact Storyblok has throughout the entire content lifecycle.”<h3 id="leaning-on-proven-success-at-adobe-and-sitecore">Leaning on proven success at Adobe and Sitecore</h3>It seems that (almost) all roads lead in or out of <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/sitecore">Sitecore</a>. That speaks to the platform’s longevity and omnipresence, and its undeniable impact on the shape and course of the CMS industry at large.A big part of Mark’s origin story was forged at Sitecore, beginning as VP of Marketing and establishing a reputation as a leading B2B tech marketer in Europe. He later assumed dominion over EMEA and APAC, ultimately running the worldwide field and partner marketing out of London and San Francisco.This encompassed four years, all at a time of significant change across the CMS landscape. Prior to his Sitecore heritage, Mark also ran EMEA marketing at <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_EMC">EMC (Dell),</a> accelerating growth across mid-market, enterprise, government, and via the service provider community with the EMC portfolio of products. Before that, Mark spent seven years at the goliath that is <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/adobe-experience-manager">Adobe</a> in a marketing director role. During his tenure, he achieved some innovative outcomes like establishing an in-house demand gen team and leading a channel transformation strategy that significantly impacted sales bookings.Most recently, Mark was VP of Marketing at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nutanix.com/">Nutanix</a>, a cloud infrastructure software provider. That was followed by his first CMO stint at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.leanix.net/">LeanIX</a>, which was <a target="_blank" href="https://www.leanix.net/en/company/press/leanix-is-now-part-of-sap">acquired by SAP</a> during his tenure. That led to a transitional CMO role under the SAP banner, and ultimately to a break before taking the CMO job at Storyblok.Without question, Mark has a stellar resume – one that would make any tech company anxious to lock down this talent. It’s worth noting that he has also been recognized as a <a target="_blank" href="https://hottopics.ht/awards/cmo-100">Global B2B CMO 100</a> Award Winner in 2021, 2023, and 2024. Add this to his long tenures at both Adobe and Sitecore, and he is well-positioned to drive the marketing and business objectives at Storyblok.<h3 id="the-continued-struggle-to-serve-both-developers-and-marketers">The continued struggle to serve both developers and marketers</h3>Go ahead. Do a drive-by of every major DXP or CMS website, and you’ll see this line somewhere: “Finally, a platform that unites both developers and marketers…”It’s one thing to say it, and quite another to deliver on it. And in an era where <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">headless CMS</a> platforms are still working to mend the fences with content editors and marketing professionals, a lot of these statements still feel hollow. And it’s not for a lack of trying: many platforms are making headway on appealing to marketing folk with a bit of “visual editing fairy dust," and the results are beginning to speak for themselves. If only it was a simple as solving a technology problem. As Mark noted in the company’s press release, the CMS industry has come a long way, baby – but that struggle between devs and marketers is still palpable. Collaborating from concept to completion remains elusive in many systems and organizations (it’s not all on the tech), and Mark has a clear line of sight on where the breaks can be bridged and futureproofed for things like AI. “The market requires solutions that dismantle silos, optimize workflows, and accelerate the content lifecycle, making it more adaptable and ready for the era of generative AI,” he said. “Storyblok is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this by offering a platform that empowers businesses to create, manage, and deliver content at unprecedented speed and scale. By focusing on these advantages, we can drive substantial revenue growth and market share.”It won’t be easy. We’ve been struggling with this for many years, and while other challenges like interoperability have been trimmed with APIs, the human challenges of working together on experiences seem like the ever-present last mile to success. This seems to be a core focus for Mark as he takes the reins. “I'm ready to amplify these strengths by demonstrating how Storyblok empowers teams to achieve extraordinary things,” he further noted. “By truly understanding the challenges faced by content creators and developers, we can position Storyblok as the go-to platform for building exceptional digital experiences.”<h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>As I mentioned a few paragraphs back, the hiring of a CMO is a bellwether moment. It’s a sea change that can prime the engines for a company’s brand, and I think we can expect to see some clear signals right out of the gate.This is a pivotal moment for Storyblok. When I saw their demo competition at the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/">Boye &amp; Company CMS Kickoff</a> in 2023, I was blown away by the quality of the product UI and its intuitive simplicity – something they have continued to build on. It has also remained tacitly composable in its posture, allowing for more expansive growth within MACH-architected stacks (the company has been a MACH Alliance member since 2021).Despite everything it’s doing right – including a staggering Series C windfall led by U.S. investors – Storyblok’s greatest challenge might be around choice. With significant competition across the market, including DXPs that are now selling their product in a more composable fashion, the CMS needs to double down on what makes it unique. Some of that is wrapped up in AI and automation, as well as novel new features like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.storyblok.com/docs/guide/in-depth/ideation-room">its Ideation Room.</a> For my money, it's what they've always done well: understanding the customer and expressing that through their product experience. It's a big reason why Dominik Angerer claims he's never lost a customer to churn. Focusing on these attributes is where marketing can be a force multiplier. The other red flag is the persistent and lingering confusion on the headless battlefield. While it all feels less like a “race to the middle” and more like a widespread evolution (heck, we even have a “Universal CMS” entering the fray), I think it’s smart that Storyblok is reinforcing its core sediment as a modern content management system. The market desperately needs sage guidance, and cutting back on the over-engineered experiences and marketing lexicon is the best way to see the forest through the trees and deliver some much-needed clarity to buyers.As Mark Wheeler takes the wheel (sorry, it had to be done), driving that clarity will make all the difference.  <hr /> <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-2025"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">CMS Kickoff 2025</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaJoin us next January in the Tampa Bay area of Florida for the third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, so secure your tickets today.

Storyblok just hired a CMO with Adobe and Sitecore pedigree. Here’s what it signals for the future

<hr /> In today’s competitive business environment, delivering dynamic experiences across multiple digital channels is becoming increasingly important. In the past, a traditional monolithic CMS was the go-to solution for managing website content in bulk, offering a comprehensive approach with integrated frontend and backend functionalities.However, as the importance of web channels for media distribution grew, developers within larger enterprises recognized the limitations of monolithic solutions in managing complex, structured content or delivering unique frontend capabilities. This led to the rise of custom, internal CMS solutions. Performance and extensive customization were possible but at huge engineering costs and time pressure to plan, develop, and uphold these systems.Since 2007, the rise in smart devices has welcomed a new era of content consumption across diverse channels. The move significantly burdened both monolithic CMS technology and content teams.The need for a multi-channel content strategy and a modern tech stack made the limitations of traditional CMS more apparent. Even today,<a target="_blank" href="https://hygraph.com/resources/future-of-content"> 8 in 10 tech leaders</a> think their current CMS holds them back with inefficient developer or editorial experiences.<h3 id="elevating-tech-teams-with-cms-modernization">Elevating tech teams with CMS modernization</h3>The heavy burden developers face with maintaining custom CMS platforms not only leads to burnout – <a target="_blank" href="https://blog.jetbrains.com/team/2023/11/20/the-state-of-developer-ecosystem-2023/">experienced by nearly 73% of developers</a> at some point in their careers – but also acts as a significant restriction. Consequently, organizations are increasingly looking to modernize their CMS to alleviate these pressures.An in-house CMS requires ongoing maintenance, like keeping an orchestra in tune and ensuring all musicians play harmoniously. It’s also less scalable as it’s often built by a small group of people, so they are the only ones who can access and make changes to the system. Subsequently, it’s hard to manage as the project scales, and the small group of developers who built the solution will be stuck maintaining the code base. Modern headless CMS platforms can greatly enhance the capabilities and efficiency of tech teams, freeing them from the constraints of maintenance around custom platforms and empowering them to focus on driving innovation. There are many other benefits to consider, too: <h4 id="1.-increased-developer-velocity">1. Increased developer velocity</h4>Accumulated technical debt from maintaining custom middleware can reduce developer velocity, slow release cycles, and hinder an organization's ability to maintain a continuous release schedule. <h4 id="2.-improved-app-performance">2. Improved app performance</h4>Performance is a key indicator of your project's success. It's also closely connected to your business since you lose revenue when your performance is poor. A CMS failure can be detected by business metrics such as lost revenues, which are influenced by poor performance indicators such as slow page load speed and low core web vitals. <h4 id="3.-stay-current-with-the-latest-tech">3. Stay current with the latest tech</h4>The technology landscape is ever-evolving. Naturally, some of the latest technologies work better than outdated ones. The advantage of a headless CMS is that you can choose any technology you like and easily switch the front end without changing your CMS. <h4 id="4.-future-proof-technology-strategy">4. Future-proof technology strategy</h4>A tech leader should choose IT vendors that can adapt quickly to an unknown future. A headless architecture with content federation puts data in one place so teams can scale the digital experience. Developers get all the flexibility of headless without having to build, host, secure, and ensure the performance of custom middleware.   <h4 id="5.-talent-acquisition">5. Talent acquisition</h4>Legacy systems are hard to understand, making developers less productive and less attractive when recruiting new team members. It’s much easier to handle things in-house if everything needed to work with the CMS can be easily found in any tech stack. <h4 id="6.-heightened-security">6. Heightened security</h4>Unlike a traditional CMS, a modern headless CMS decouples the backend content repository layer from the frontend presentation layer. This separation allows for greater security because the content management layer is isolated and can be protected independently.<h3 id="why-headless-is-the-way-forward">Why headless is the way forward</h3>Adopting a headless CMS with content federation can offer flexibility, scalability, and streamlined content distribution across multiple channels. Furthermore, by separating the frontend and backend, this approach lays the foundation for organizations to meet their technical and content requirements swiftly, allowing technology teams to develop with any technology for any platform.At a time when content is king, your CMS needs to be a gateway to digital transformation rather than a barrier. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-conferences">Upcoming conferences</h3> <img style="width:29.67%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-connect-2024-logo.png" alt="CMS Connect 24 logo" /><h4 id="cms-connect-24---sold-out"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect24">CMS Connect 24</a> - SOLD OUT</h4>August 6-7, 2024 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present our first annual summer edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community. Join us this August in Montreal, Canada, for a vendor-neutral conference focused on CMS. Tired of impersonal and overwhelming gatherings? Picture this event as a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">CMS Kickoff 25</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaJoin us next January in the Tampa Bay area of Florida for the third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, so secure your tickets today.

 Roadmap to Digital Experience Success: Six Ways to Future-Proof Your CMS While Elevating Your Tech Teams

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<hr /> When I spoke to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/patelnishant/">Nishant Patel</a> last week, he was floating on cloud nine.You might assume it’s because the company he co-founded, <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/contentstack">Contentstack</a>, just announced the addition of <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/google-cloud-platform">Google Cloud Platform</a> to its offerings. This puts the headless CMS-turned-composable-DXP in the unique position of providing deployments across all three of the major cloud providers.For those of us who work extensively in the cloud, we know it's a complex morass – and managing service architectures for diverse infrastructures like <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/aws">AWS</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/microsoft-azure">Azure</a>, and GCP can present quite an entanglement. We’ll get into more of the “why,” but suffice to say that choice is driving much of the calculus.No, Nishant’s lighter-than-air status was less banal and more sophistiquée in nature: he took my call whilst strolling the streets of Paris, absorbing the springtime air. I asked if he could spot the Eiffel Tower from his vantage point.“I can't see over the buildings, but it's beautiful here,” he remarked. “It's awesome. Just an amazing day.” C’est la vie.There seems to be a persistent positive vibe going around at Contentstack these days, whether it’s along the Champs-Élysées or elsewhere. The company continues its charge beyond headless as a full-featured ecosystem for powering omnichannel experiences. This includes the <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/contentstack-launch-aims-to-simplify-front-end-hosting-interview-with-dean-haddock-senior-product-manager">addition of Launch</a>, a front-end hosting solution, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentstack.com/automation-hub">Automation Hub</a> for composing stacks, and a <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/a-closer-look-at-contentstacks-ai-features-with-christine-masters-senior-product-manager">bevy of AI capabilities</a> that offer more than the usual pre-fixe menu of generative content features. This evolution towards a more complete vision beyond CMS also garnered the attention of analysts, catapulting the company onto <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/forrester-dxp-wave-2023-vendor-commentary">Forrester’s 2023 Wave Report</a> for DXPs as a Strong Performer – outpacing a number of traditional players and chief rival <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/contentful">Contentful</a>. As CTO, Nishant is focused on more than just Contentstack’s capabilities. He’s also concerned with how enterprises can deploy it, particularly on their cloud of choice. When we connected in March of 2022, the company had <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/contentstack-offers-microsoft-azure-becomes-only-multi-cloud-saas-cms-qa-with-cto-nishant-patel">just added Azure</a> to the mix, making it the only multi-cloud SaaS play in the CMS category. The new partnership with Google Cloud presents a strategic opportunity to expand the addressable market for composable digital experiences, providing enterprises with even more options for how they create, manage, and deliver their products. This includes making its composable DXP accessible via the <a target="_blank" href="https://cloud.google.com/marketplace">Google Cloud Marketplace</a>, which offers production-ready apps, services, and solutions for quickly deploying on GCP."We're excited about how this new partnership will elevate digital experiences for both Contentstack and Google Cloud customers," Nishant said. “Brands will get even more flexibility, scalability, and security in their content and digital strategies. They can also take direct advantage of Google Cloud's AI models.”That last part about the AI models is key. In our discussion, Nishant got real about the challenges that Google has faced in deploying its ill-fated <a target="_blank" href="https://apnews.com/article/google-artificial-intelligence-bard-gmail-youtube-maps-1229638b82d19afb5226c913821fa1ad">Bard</a>. But as you’ll read, he juxtaposes that with some real-world perspective on picking up the fumble. He captured that sentiment in a recent <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7184189745797681154/">LinkedIn post</a>, and in my opinion, it tells you everything you need to know about why he’s successful:“Failure is not the enemy of progress – it’s complacency.”<h3 id="expanding-the-value-of-the-cloud-">Expanding the value of the cloud </h3>While there are numerous pros to the cloud, Contentstack’s new partnership with Google offers three unique benefits for users. The first is support for <a target="_blank" href="https://cloud.google.com/gcp">Google Cloud Hosting</a>, which enables Contentstack customers to tap into a comprehensive cloud solution platform that is both secure and scalable for hosting their Contentstack data and applications. Another is access to the <a target="_blank" href="https://cloud.google.com/partners">Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program</a>, where Contentstack has achieved Google Cloud Partner status for the “Build” engagement model. They joined this program to support and enrich customers with the latest innovative digital transformation capabilities – and to speed time to value through seamless integrations with Google.Finally, as I’ve already mentioned, there’s the all-important listing on the <a target="_blank" href="https://cloud.google.com/marketplace">Google Cloud Marketplace</a>, which simplifies the experience for Google Cloud customers to discover and procure Contentstack as part of their existing Google Cloud account and billing invoice.According to Nishant, a big part of the move to add GCP was about listening to the voice of the customer and following their lead. That meant going to where they find and purchase cloud services and SaaS software and joining those marketplaces across all major cloud providers.“A big percentage of SaaS buying will happen in the [cloud] marketplaces in the next two to three years,” he said. “Azure, AWS, and GCP all have this quota relief for sales folks if their customers buy through their marketplace. So, for the SaaS provider, this optionality makes the buying process a lot simpler. And for the customer, whatever cloud they've chosen, it just makes it a lot easier in terms of managing vendors.”There are compelling reasons for investing in a multi-cloud strategy. Sure, hosting might seem like a commodity, but of the Big Three cloud providers, some are just better at specific functions than others. Companies that are all-in with certain cloud providers are often driven by efficiency, and perhaps a modicum of loyalty. If they already have workloads running on Azure, it’s much easier to consolidate everything in one place and even optimize overall performance with greater control. Another consideration: they might only have DevOps teams that are skilled or have experience with a specific infrastructure. And then there’s “brand optics.” While AWS was the first big cloud for Contentstack, the albatross of Amazon.com still creates tacit friction for retailers who aren’t fans of Bezos Effect. When that resistance is a challenge, having alternative options means not having to compromise. “We just wanted to be the CMS of choice,” Nishant clarified. “And if you're committed to GCP, no worries, you can buy us from the [Google Cloud] Marketplace and deploy completely on GCP. And same thing for Azure and AWS."<h3 id="challenging-the-‘brand-relevancy-crisis’">Challenging the ‘Brand Relevancy Crisis’</h3>In my recent connection with Contentstack’s new CMO, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/gurdeepd/">Gurdeep Dhillon</a>, we touched on the rising phenomenon of what he calls a “Brand Relevancy Crisis.” You can <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/contentstack-just-hired-an-ex-adobe-exec-as-cmo-heres-why-it-matters">read more about it here</a>, but the crux is that we’re battling a swell of saturation across channels, which is being compounded by increased noise and fragmentation, the deprecation of third-party data, and the exponential growth of AI-generated content. While not a marketer himself, Nishant conjured the same “Brand Relevancy Crisis” moniker when reinforcing the need for choice in a complex cloud landscape. In doing so, he doubled down on the advantages that GCP presents despite <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/is-google-adding-the-letters-crm-to-its-alphabet-soup-ask-hubspot">trailing AWS and Azure</a> with a mere 10% of the overall cloud marketplace – and how that could be an advantage for Contentstack to stand out.“You know, I think the Google Cloud folks have done really well with up-and-coming brands and even tech companies,” he shared. “They're very much focused on Silicon Valley. So we're hopeful we can tap into the latest and greatest brands as well as legacy brands that have committed to GCP.”As he noted, it’s weird thinking of Google as the “underdog,” but in the cloud world, that’s their current lot – and in some ways, it’s creating more of a culture that’s conducive to working with tech brands that are mid-market and building momentum. “Their technology is great, and it feels like they want to work with vendors like us,” Nishant surmised. “So we're excited to have them as a good partner. And then, of course, some of the e-commerce partners we work with, they've been on GCP for a long time. And you know, we can do some joint selling and stuff like that together. So that's also pretty exciting.”<h3 id="more-possibilities-for-ai">More possibilities for AI</h3>Like its competitive cloud brethren, GCP has its own discrete AI initiatives. In fact, Google proper was early to the game with its bumbling Bard chatbot (adroitly <a target="_blank" href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/what-can-google-ai-chatbot-bard-now-gemini-do">rebranded to Gemini</a>), right around the time that Microsoft was touting its partnership with <a target="_blank" href="https://openai.com/">OpenAI</a>.AWS waited, launching late in 2023 with its Bedrock LLM and lining up with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.anthropic.com/">Anthropic</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://stability.ai/">Stability.ai </a>to make up ground. We’re already in a sort of “AI Cold War,” with startups struggling to reach revenue and major models fighting to prove their performance in an increasingly skeptical landscape. It’s all had a chilling effect on investors, and they’re scrutinizing which technologies are delivering the AI goods. It's worth consulting <a target="_blank" href="https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/what-s-new-in-artificial-intelligence-from-the-2023-gartner-hype-cycle">Gartner's AI Hype Cycle</a> to reaffirm where we might be on the arc (although I can't be sure if their diagram is hallucinating). In its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/composable-dxp-leader-contentstack-announces-new-partnership-with-google-cloud-302111266.html">press release</a> announcing the Google Cloud partnership, Contentstack indicated that customers would be able to take direct advantage of Google’s Cloud AI models. I asked Nishant what that meant for users – and why GCP presented an AI advantage over other clouds.“I think it's a very good question,” he said. “Obviously, with AI, there were a lot of different changes along the way, but we jumped on it. I think our first release was last January with the AI Assistant. I want to say we were first in the market, at least in the CMS world. But the way we architected it, we didn't just pick one service to ‘catch up.’ Our AI assistant and all the stuff we're doing with AI is more about optionality and giving our customers the ability to configure whatever LLM they want to bring to the table.” There are lots of choices out there for models, but hosting and training still present significant challenges for brands looking to tap the potential of AI. Google’s multimodal flexibility is a key benefit, and one of the reasons why Nishant is bullish on GCP. It’s also aligned with Contentstack’s pursuit of greater scalability and automation. “I think Google is an exciting one,” he continued. “They kind of fumbled in the beginning, but they keep iterating and making it better. We were one of the first ones to work with them to enable our customers with an option. On the content side, we built a full-on integration platform alongside Contentstack where you could automate and create content on the fly, get it approved, and launch it live. So you could create some really powerful workflows. And of course, Google's Gemini will be awesome for that.”<h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>Cloud infrastructure is a lot like plumbing. It’s obscured, living mostly behind walls and under cabinets. At times, you get your hands dirty dealing with a clog or a busted joint. One might say it’s ennuyeux – but at the same time, it’s absolutely vital to the modern software delivery experience.As someone who’s worked closely with AWS since 2016 (I’ve even given a few Tech Talks on subjects like serverless), I can say first-hand that the cloud ain't easy. It’s a minefield of madness, with problems always lurking in shadowy corners. Given the complexity involved with managing DevOps, authoring AWS Marketplace AMIs and CloudFormation templates, and defining licensing parameters, managing the considerations of one cloud is hard enough. But all three? Is it worth it?The answer is: yes. If you can dedicate the resources and support all the requirements. And there are many. To that end, it seems like Contentstack is committed to covering its bases and maximizing flexibility across the clouds.To Nishant’s point, more of the future sales motion will be focused on all three of the big cloud marketplaces, where SaaS procurement will continue to grow. By showing up universally, Contentstack is increasing its discoverability and preference. By further aligning with partners in each ecosystem, they can potentially offer more solution selling (which we’re already seeing in places like the AWS Competency programs).The cloud can be a decision-maker for customers. For brands that already have an established footprint with GCP and require a headless CMS or composable DXP, their first stop will likely be the Google Cloud Marketplace. Being available at the moment of need and deployable in an existing account greases the wheels and accelerates the buying journey. But rounding out the trifecta is just part of the competitive crucible for Contentstack. By making itself available across all three of the big cloud players, they’re sending a clear message that choice matters, and they’re committed to delivering on that. Finally, from an AI perspective, Contentstack has already been blazing trails. This just adds more fuel to the fire. Forget Google's initial faux pas – bringing Gemini to the fold could enhance a wide range of capabilities when integrated with tools like Contentstack, improving the search experience for customers as they engage with a brand’s digital experience. For Nishant, the value of investing in new technologies is clearly reinforced by his deep roots in headless and composability. There’s an ethos guiding the company’s innovation roadmap, and it has everything to do with the customer.“It'll be interesting to see where all this stuff goes,” he said. “I think from a Contentstack perspective, we just want to make sure we provide the kind of tooling and the right choice for our customers to go in whatever direction they want. We shouldn't block them from trying out new technologies, using our services, or even using someone else's services. You should be able to compose the experience you need, right? That's how we think about composability, and it's the whole difference with our company.”If I was standing below the Eiffel Tower, I might be inclined to say:C’est bon. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-conferences">Upcoming conferences</h3> <img style="width:29.67%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-connect-2024-logo.png" alt="CMS Connect 24 logo" /><h4 id="cms-connect-24"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect24">CMS Connect 24</a></h4>August 6-7, 2024 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present our first annual summer edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community. Join us this August in Montreal, Canada, for a vendor-neutral conference focused on CMS. Tired of impersonal and overwhelming gatherings? Picture this event as a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">CMS Kickoff 25</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaJoin us next January in the Tampa Bay area of Florida for the third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, so secure your tickets today.

Contentstack ‘Reigns’ on Cloud Choice with Addition of Google Cloud Platform

CMS Summit 25

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

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