Articles

Brightspot Illuminates the Future of CMS with Human-Controlled, AI-Powered Storytelling 

matt-garrepy

<hr /> To borrow from poker: In 2026, AI is already becoming table stakes in the enterprise software game. And while many of the high-utility agentic capabilities I'm seeing are aimed at value, many features are converging – and in some cases, looking the same.One area that’s still nascent is the flourishing new class of app builders (think <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://base44.com/">Base44</a> or <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://replit.com/">Replit</a>). In the realm of vibe coding, they provide a great resource for prototyping by lowering the barrier for development. Now, almost anyone can build a software or business application with just an idea and a prompt, and that's becoming a popular marketing mantra.The problem? Many of these conjured experiments fall off the tracks before they ever reach production – stymied by underperforming code, poor maintainability, and a lack of alignment with enterprise data and security standards.During my recent keynote at the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">Boye &amp; Company CMS Kickoff 26</a> in St. Petersburg, I talked about the final frontier of adaptable UX in enterprise software – specifically in <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">content management</a> and digital experience platforms. We’re beginning to see this take shape as some platforms are giving users more control and customization over things like visualization. In certain tools, there's even the presence of handy app studios for building curated dashboards and experiences. At the same time, they’re leveraging a performant, scalable, and secure foundation of an authoritative platform – ensuring compliance and accountability where it matters. This is where <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.domo.com/app-catalyst">Domo’s new App Catalyst</a> is making waves. Most of today’s AI app builders are optimized for speed, but miss the mark when it comes to managing data, logic, and governance across multiple systems. App Catalyst is designed for what happens after – when applications must be maintained, trusted, and scaled across an enterprise.As Domo’s Chief Technology Officer and EVP of Product <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/darenthayne/">Daren Thayne</a> said, vibe coding showed us how fast ideas can turn into software. But speed alone doesn’t create the durable value that enterprises need. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:38%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769704595338.png" /></figure>Domo’s Chief Technology Officer and EVP of Product Daren Thayne “The next evolution is moving from raw code generation to composing applications that are governed by design and grounded in trusted data,” he said. “App Catalyst is an important step in that direction. It gives teams a production-ready foundation they can extend confidently, instead of starting from code that was never meant to scale.”App Catalyst is a reflection of Domo’s broader vision for the future of the intelligent enterprise, where AI does more than accelerate experimentation. It helps people and organizations compose scalable, governed applications that connect data, workflows, and people in a single, trusted platform. But AI is nothing if it can’t support the people using it. In my recent conversation with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/backoff-on-the-ai-layoffs-domos-chris-willis-on-the-future-of-work-in-2026">Domo’s Chief Design Officer, Chris Willis</a>, we discussed the importance of human judgment when using AI tools and technologies. “The hard part is judgment, and that's an essential human skill," he told me. "I don't see models as possessing that.”At least not yet. But until then, Domo is powering its users with AI tools that are designed to give them more domain than ever before while easing the journey.Here’s a bit more on how App Catalyst works.<h3 id="rapid-app-building-for-the-enterprise">Rapid app building for the enterprise</h3>Unlike tools that focus solely on raw code generation, App Catalyst is really designed for enterprise applications. It helps you compose production-ready app frameworks that integrate with your existing data, governance, and security standards – ensuring that your apps are scalable, compliant, and ready to grow with your business. It also avoids the trap of accruing copious amounts of tech debt or tapping additional engineering resources.To be clear, App Catalyst is Domo-centric, leveraging its performant backbone. Users can describe the kind of app they want to build using natural language and instantly generate a functional framework that runs directly on their existing data in Domo. The resulting app foundation seamlessly integrates with Domo datasets and is deployed through Domo’s <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.domo.com/automation/low-code-app-development">App Studio</a> – which is designed for building analytics apps with low-code, drag-and-drop tools. It automatically inherits Domo’s governance and security model, including per-user data access permissions. If real data isn’t available yet, App Catalyst generates placeholder data so teams can start building immediately.At 50,000 feet, App Catalyst is telegraphing a shift in how organizations are building with AI in 2026 and beyond. Early vibe coding approaches might have focused on generating raw code quickly, but real enterprise impact requires a move toward composition over generation. App Catalyst is a foundation for that future, one where AI helps teams assemble governed, production-ready app frameworks that align with data access, security, and operational standards from the start. This evolution moves organizations away from fragile experiments and toward scalable app building that can actually grow with your business.<h3 id="from-prompt-to-production">From prompt to production</h3>Rather than attempting to deliver a finished application in one step, App Catalyst provides a strong, production-ready starting point. Teams can iterate quickly with live code generation, preview changes instantly, and publish apps with a single click, then continue refining and customizing the application to meet evolving requirements.As you might guess, App Catalyst brings real AI efficiency to its building experience. It’s frictionless prototyping, allowing you to rapidly ideate and iterate using natural language prompts – and move an idea to a functional app framework in minutes.The entire experience is self-service, so you can build a pro-code app foundation without extensive upfront engineering to get there. That means almost anyone, even users with no technical skills, can bring an app to life.Most importantly, App Catalyst provides fierce governance. This is a big one, as most enterprises have to ensure that their apps meet their internal compliance requirements. With App Catalyst, whatever you create automatically respects user-level data access and security policies.<figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:86.2%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769703695369.png" alt="A screenshot of a computer

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure>Source: Domo website Getting started is super easy. Like other AI interfaces, you use a basic prompt to describe the app you’re looking to build. You’re then moved to a split-screen view as it renders before your eyes.On the left side, you get a breakdown of what App Catalyst generated. On the right, you can see what it created. And it's not just a dashboard or a view, but a true application – complete with models, text fields, and check boxes. Brass tacks: It usually takes two to five minutes to generate an app using App Catalyst, although times may vary. On <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.domo.com/app-catalyst">Domo’s website,</a> there’s a great demo video that walks you through the step-by-step process, but jumps over the rendering lag. So keep that in mind when you're test-driving the experience.  <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:78.12%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769703695361.png" alt="A screenshot of a computer

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure>Source: Domo website You can also expand and build complete Domo App Studio apps, which can fit in with any other Studio components. If you’re more technical and you’re looking to customize your app further, you can make edits using Pro Code, which gives you direct access to the underlying HTML. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:76.86%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769703695406.png" alt="A screenshot of a computer screen

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure>Source: Domo website The finished product (in this case, a marketing intelligence command center) reflects the speed and efficacy of the App Catalyst framework. By removing the need for complex setups – or starting from scratch – you can focus on delivering value and avoid the morass of complex logistics. And you can keep on optimizing and refining your layouts and visualizations using the same natural language prompts. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:82.27%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769703695336.png" alt="A screenshot of a computer

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure>Source: Domo website As I already mentioned, you can connect to live datasets in Domo or play with dummy data to experiment with the capabilities. App Catalyst ensures your apps are functional and compliant, and automatically respects enterprise-grade governance and security controls. This includes per-user data access permissions, row-level permissions, and column-level masking, ensuring your apps are compliant and secure from the start.App Catalyst might initially appeal to product managers, developers, and savvy practitioners – enabling them to visualize requirements, demonstrate concepts to stakeholders, and prototype digital products quickly. But over time, Domo plans to expand these capabilities to empower business users to validate ideas, test market hypotheses, and explore what is possible with data-driven applications, all while reducing dependency on IT teams.<h3 id="the-verdict">The verdict</h3>Domo has always understood the value of data and how we, as individuals and teams, use and experience it. Making it actionable is the key – and with App Catalyst, they’re moving beyond the barriers of studio-grade customization tools and into the realm of true AI app creation. You can describe your app vision in plain language, and the AI handles all the heavy lifting.My recommendation: While App Catalyst will likely appeal to more technical users (particularly those who are already customizing aspects of their Domo experience), its natural language interface will make it accessible to ambitious low-code/no-code users. That said, enterprise teams should build testing and experimentation paradigms to ensure performant outcomes – and develop general policies and best practices around app generation within their organization’s environment. The big upside: as Domo expands these capabilities, App Catalyst will likely become even more reliant and user-friendly for business users who want to build apps without burdening IT. Definitely worth a test-drive.  <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:40.76%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/open-source-cms-26.jpg" /><h4 id="open-source-cms-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26">Open Source CMS 26</a></h4>October 20–21, 2026 – Utrecht, NetherlandsJoin us for the first annual edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to making open source CMS better. This event is already being called the “missing gathering place” for the open source CMS community – an international conference with confirmed participants from Europe and North America. Be part of a friendly mix of digital leaders from notable open source CMS projects, agencies, even a few industry analysts who get together to learn, network, and talk about what really matters when it comes to creating better open source CMS projects right now and for the foreseeable future. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26/tickets">Book your tickets today.</a>

From AI idea to production-ready app in minutes? Meet Domo’s new App Catalyst

Delivering hyper-personalized B2B content with a modern CMS

contentstack

Hard? Hardly. Drupal CMS 2.0 evolves open source content management with AI, visual building – and simplicity

<hr /> When I spoke to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/coremedia">CoreMedia</a> CEO <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/soerenstamer/">Sören Stamer</a> back in December, we were waxing philosophically about the year ahead. He went deep into topics like data and digital sovereignty, a persistent theme at our recent <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">Boye &amp; Company CMS Kickoff</a> conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. Along with the anticipated (and explosive) growth of AI – where Sören sees big potential for agentic commerce and AI-powered interfaces – he also talked about the next wave of personalization and its impact on experiences.“Personalization isn’t new,” he told me. “What’s new is its velocity. Hyper-personalization means connecting intent, data, and content in real time, and anticipating needs before they’re expressed.” Personalization has certainly been one of the more elusive features for digital experience tools. Or, at least, doing it right – both sustainably and at scale. As Sören said, we’ve been talking about platform-centric and third-party personalization tools for the last two decades, but AI and new experience models are finally raising the bar. To realize the promise, CoreMedia has been busy innovating – and today, it launched a major evolution of its CMS that embeds personalization and real-time experimentation directly into the content workflow. This comes at a time when enterprises are swimming in oceans of customer data but struggling to transform it into relevant experiences for consumers. Simultaneously, users are opting for personalized experiences that are clear, transparent, and capable of solving real problems. It’s at this intersection that CoreMedia powers the potential of personalization by reducing or even eliminating the friction between insight and action.With its new native features, CoreMedia will give teams the ability to create, test, and optimize personalized content variants inside its industry-leading CMS. Armed with this added flexibility and insight, brands can now respond to customer intent in the moments that matter most – and turn relevance into measurable growth.“Enterprises don’t have a data problem – they have an action problem,” Sören explained. “Customer intent shows up in real time and needs to be acted upon instantly. When marketing teams are forced to work with disconnected tools and manual processes, they often miss the chance. By making personalization and experimentation native to the CMS, CoreMedia enables teams to respond in the moment intent appears. That’s where experiences are won or lost, and where relevance turns into revenue.”CoreMedia has been actively innovating at the edge of AI for quite some time. Case in point: its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.coremedia.com/coremedia-kio">CoreMedia KIO</a> assistant brings expansive tooling for content and journey experience orchestration. As part of its integrated ecosystem, it adds a bleeding-edge dimension of functionality to help craft CX in new ways – including a conversational interface that transforms user engagement.Along with its strides to make progressive, GEO-ready capabilities part of its elemental playbook, CoreMedia continues to offer foundational CMS features that rank strongly with global retailers that are hyper-focused on delivering world-class experiences. This includes the likes of The North Face, Vans, and Timberland from VF Corporation – as well as B2B stalwarts like Emerson and Sonepar.As Sören told me, one of the big bets CoreMedia is making is that the customer experience of the future will be unified. Clearly, personalization and experimentation will be vital to delivering on that holistic vision.Here’s a bit more detail on how CoreMedia’s evolutionary new capabilities work. <h3 id="bringing-native-personalization-to-the-content-workflow">Bringing native personalization to the content workflow</h3>Often, personalization has been a mixed domain of technologies, cobbled together to deliver a complete solution. But with CoreMedia’s native approach, personalization is no longer a downstream task handled in external tools. Now, content teams can create, manage, and optimize personalized variants directly inside CoreMedia’s CMS, harnessing the same familiar workspace they utilize for content production. CoreMedia already offers an elegant UX, and users will find the addition of audience insights, targeting rules, and variant controls all within arm’s reach. This promises to help teams move seamlessly – and in real time – from creation to activation. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:68.62%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769540029544.png" alt="Image" /></figure> Personalized content variants are created, tested, and optimized in real time directly within the CMS. Source: CoreMedia One of the biggest benefits is the speed and efficacy. Using the CMS, teams can produce tailored versions of any text block, banner, promotion, or other content asset. In seconds, they can deliver focused messages to the right audience at the right moment – all without duplicating content or managing different versions.There’s also a composable and extensible framework supporting the engine. Segments can be created directly in CoreMedia or synced from CRM, CDP, and other systems, ensuring teams work with the most complete customer profiles. CoreMedia’s targeting also supports real-time signals, including lifecycle stage, browsing behavior, or location. Personalization and performance data can be exported to stay consistent across business intelligence tools, data platforms, and the wider enterprise tech stack of tools and services. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:83.14%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769540029597.png" alt="Image" /></figure>Segmentation and personalization are integrated directly into the content workflow. Source: CoreMedia For users and teams, having everything in one intuitive platform can ease the personalization challenges while accelerating time to market. Your content variants and targeting rules are all managed in a single, uniform workplace. This eliminates the potential for fragmentation across tools and simplifies the creation, launch, and optimization of personalized experiences at a global scale.<h3 id="a/b-testing-and-real-time-experimentation-–-right-where-content-decisioning-lives">A/B testing and real-time experimentation – right where content decisioning lives</h3>Without question, A/B testing has become a critical asset for marketers. There's a bevy of third-party tools for facilitating test paradigms, but having a solution close to your content workflows is a key advantage. That’s why CoreMedia has embedded A/B testing directly into its CMS, allowing teams to validate ideas and optimize experiences as part of their standard cadence of content production. Instead of exporting content to external testing utilities and waiting for reports, editors can compare variants, monitor performance, and act on results in real time – without ever having to leave the CMS. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:82.21%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769540029604.png" alt="Image" /></figure>Test ideas, measure impact, and decide faster with CoreMedia’s A/B testing. Source: CoreMedia One of the clear advantages of CoreMedia’s A/B testing is having side-by-side comparisons of variant performance. With quick go-to insights, you can determine which content resonates with customers and make quick, evidence-backed decisions.Live experiment data also shows you how users interact with each variant, enabling fast adjustments when a challenger outperforms the original. There’s also continuous optimization in context, so editors can refine content directly inside the CMS. This leads to a smoother production flow and consistent momentum in experience optimization.<h3 id="semantic-search-delivers-control-and-scalability-to-content-operations-">Semantic Search delivers control and scalability to content operations </h3>We’ve already mentioned CoreMedia’s investment in AI edge innovation, and search has been a key area of focus. And rightly so: as AI accelerates content creation and personalization, enterprises are grappling with the relevance, reuse, and governance associated with rapidly expanding content libraries. Personalization is promising. But without precision, control, and clarity, it can quickly devolve into a slow and inconsistent morass. That’s where CoreMedia’s Semantic Search comes in. Leveraging a natural language interface, it helps teams find, assess, and reuse content efficiently – even as volume and complexity increase.<figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:80.56%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769540029638.png" alt="Image" /></figure>Natural-language search enables teams to quickly find, assess, and reuse content directly in the CMS. Source: CoreMedia For users, this is a godsend. Imagine conducting searches using everyday phrases like “winter campaign images” – all without relying on just exact keywords. This makes discovery faster, more intuitive, and more contextual than traditional search.CoreMedia’s Semantic Search also brings a layer of calm to handle your content chaos. When prompted, it automatically surfaces similar or redundant assets, reducing clutter and reinforcing brand consistency. There’s also fierce governance surrounding discoverability, enabling teams to reuse assets, avoid duplication, and maintain structured libraries as content volumes expand.<h3 id="the-verdict">The verdict</h3>The CMS and DXP landscape is both wide and deep, but there’s a growing convergence around features – particularly those imbued with AI or agentic systems. This, in turn, is creating confusion, particularly when it comes to assessing AI features within the broader corpus of capabilities. The fact that CoreMedia is enriching its CMS with onboard personalization, experimentation, and search is building on its strong heritage of foundational features, and it's addressing the real challenges teams face with the exponential growth of content assets.While composable stacks offer an array of third-party tools for things like A/B testing, brands need to move faster than ever – and having a performant, purposefully integrated solution provides a clear advantage for enterprises that are looking to accelerate. This is another check in CoreMedia’s column as a single, accountable, and trusted source that addresses critical requirements like governance and compliance. You’re not just buying enterprise software – you’re buying trust. In my opinion, a modern CMS should offer native testing and experimentation features to leverage content provenance and link marketers closer to actionable insights. To facilitate real-time journey orchestration, speed and efficacy are paramount. As such, CoreMedia is listening to the needs of marketers by providing built-in personalization and semantic search as onboard feature sets that accelerate time to vision. At the same time, offering a composable, hybrid headless posture allows a brand to onboard adjacent integrations that expand the core feature set.My recommendation: CoreMedia already has a strong commerce focus, but this added tooling should present a welcome win for users across a myriad of industries and use cases. If you’re considering a move, CoreMedia’s CMS is a solid platform, but pay close attention to how your various data sources will be handled relative to fueling your personalization. Also, as an integrated DXP, I would consider the scope of your roadmap to see if there’s additional alignment within the ecosystem.If you’re interested in seeing more, the company is offering a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.gqh-2BaxUzlo7XKIuSly0rC39ko2jEDIdJwxcolsDUNbznLFOa0iFUDItIE1EpE2CXIq1KKbIBA7b5SjV14h7GXA-3D-3DOgKO_LYRc62DeCgOg3NLqF-2FA1Nkc-2BB6iSCezTSr7cATVeIt7vbFxqkjj807TkbpGOsHdtP-2FHWYQ8hHG-2Bh0tJIgFVOZO69Re4Ks6syHse342AC9Gvw37kkXSVzTxWGuOeP3fGPq9EXOufW3jPOsSyNAntDgg5r76UG3z9WQ-2B4SeSP2Y8kH6B5Y36WENHz3zspHNwEaDRWiwk-2BO-2BTG1zhj7Gg2FzC7esWi6WuPWJcHfaxfp9-2BXuGLX-2FJVXfSBulQ-2B6jzs4qYy5l-2FNB-2FEN3ANt3TS1abOfO5-2F1nSYji-2B1uzrhzImhavcXNVxQhJVtjg05uNJ58INknrgYXWvk6RmDjmgdYsnJQ-3D-3D">“What’s New” Webinar</a> on January 28th. You can also request a free <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.gqh-2BaxUzlo7XKIuSly0rC39ko2jEDIdJwxcolsDUNbyskU8mw7dKQbCEOpEH5cJkd2DOv6VNuJe-2F1PSX1rYFlg-3D-3Dk5q-_LYRc62DeCgOg3NLqF-2FA1Nkc-2BB6iSCezTSr7cATVeIt7vbFxqkjj807TkbpGOsHdtP-2FHWYQ8hHG-2Bh0tJIgFVOZO69Re4Ks6syHse342AC9Gvw37kkXSVzTxWGuOeP3fGPq9EXOufW3jPOsSyNAntDgg5r76UG3z9WQ-2B4SeSP2Y8kH6B5Y36WENHz3zspHNwEaDRWiwk-2BO-2BTG1zhj7Gg2FzGmk97Kfhpo6s0O7iiDxES-2FnT64AeDLfLwh2LujHv8-2FF7mqpKpNdkb7luHlyXyxnQI9y3U9u34vRTWlFMl-2F7EAHhN6m1ZXhr3rxHa4ZBUPix0RS8yDqvq3Wu-2FvzC-2BTOzvA-3D-3D">demo</a>. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:34.15%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/logo_jday_hor.png" /><h4 id="joomladay-usa-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jdayusa.com/">JoomlaDay USA 2026</a></h4>April 29 - May 2, 2026 – Delray Beach, FloridaBe part of the Joomla community in one of the most iconic cities in the world! JoomlaDay USA 2026 is coming to Delray Beach, and you can join us for a dynamic event packed with insights, workshops, and networking opportunities. Learn from top Joomla experts and developers offering valuable insights and real-world solutions. Participate in interactive workshops and sessions and enhance your skills in Joomla management, development, design, and more. And connect with fellow Joomla enthusiasts, developers, and professionals from across the world.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jdayusa.com/"> Book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:36.69%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/open-source-cms-26.jpg" /><h4 id="open-source-cms-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26">Open Source CMS 26</a></h4>October 20–21, 2026 – Utrecht, NetherlandsJoin us for the first annual edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to making open source CMS better. This event is already being called the “missing gathering place” for the open source CMS community – an international conference with confirmed participants from Europe and North America. Be part of a friendly mix of digital leaders from notable open source CMS projects, agencies, even a few industry analysts who get together to learn, network, and talk about what really matters when it comes to creating better open source CMS projects right now and for the foreseeable future. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26/tickets">Book your tickets today.</a>

Core Value: CoreMedia Adds Native Personalization and Experimentation to its CMS

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/nabilorfali">Nabil Orfali</a> is the founder and CEO of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.techguilds.com/">TechGuilds</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/kajoo">Kajoo.ai</a> and a CMS Critic contributor.<hr /> I walked into <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">CMS Kickoff 2026</a> expecting to talk about the future. Instead, both roundtable sessions I led ended up being about the present—and why it feels so uncomfortable. We weren’t debating whether agentic AI works anymore. That question is mostly settled. What we were really circling around was something harder to admit: Agentic AI is already delivering real value in CMS work, and we’re still operating like it isn’t. Across two sessions, with people who actually ship things for a living, a pattern emerged. Not optimism. Not fear. Something more pragmatic. A quiet acknowledgment that the technology moved faster than our operating models—and now there’s a gap. This “gap” matches what the macro research is now showing. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai?utm_source=chatgpt.com">McKinsey’s 2025 global survey</a> reports 88% of respondents say their organizations use AI in at least one business function, up from 78% a year earlier—yet most organizations still report they haven’t fully scaled it across the enterprise. That “use vs. scale” delta is exactly what CMS delivery teams are feeling: experimentation is easy; operationalization is hard. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Stanford’s AI Index </a>similarly describes business usage accelerating and investment continuing to rise, but with uneven ability to translate usage into a durable operating advantage.<h3 id="the-work-is-already-being-done-">The Work Is Already Being Done </h3>At some point during the first session, someone casually mentioned that their team was seeing over 70% acceleration on parts of CMS delivery. Another mentioned that entire categories of work—SEO metadata, image handling, accessibility checks, localization—were already largely automated. No one reacted. That’s when it hit me. If this were 2023, those statements would have stopped the room. In 2026, they barely registered. Not because they weren’t impressive—but because they were familiar. Agentic AI isn’t theoretical anymore. It’s doing the work. Quietly. Reliably. Often better than expected. And yet, no one in either session claimed they were running fully autonomous CMS delivery. Not because the agents failed—but because we don’t trust them enough to let go. Backing this up with measurable adoption and productivity signals: In real workplace data, generative AI has moved from novelty to routine. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.nber.org/digest/202412/workplace-adoption-generative-ai?utm_source=chatgpt.com">NBER reporting</a> on workplace adoption found 28% of employed respondents used generative AI at work, with 10.6% using it every workday (in the measured period).When AI is applied to repeatable knowledge-work tasks, controlled studies show consistent productivity lift. A widely-cited <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.nber.org/digest/20236/measuring-productivity-impact-generative-ai?utm_source=chatgpt.com">NBER field experiment</a> in customer support found a ~14% productivity increase overall, with much larger gains for less experienced workers.In software development specifically (relevant because CMS delivery is often engineering-heavy), <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-impact-of-ai-on-developer-productivity-evidence-from-github-copilot/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Microsoft Research’s controlled experiment </a>found developers using GitHub Copilot completed a task 55.8% faster.Why this matters to CMS work: the roundtable outcomes were directionally consistent with these results: AI can compress the “execution time” of repeatable tasks dramatically, while the remaining bottleneck shifts to review, governance, and decision-making—the parts of delivery we historically underpriced or treated as overhead. <h3 id="autonomy-isn’t-the-goal.-confidence-is.-">Autonomy Isn’t the Goal. Confidence Is. </h3>One of the biggest misconceptions I still see is that “agentic” means autonomous in the absolute sense. Push a button. Walk away. Come back later to perfection. That fantasy didn’t survive contact with real CMS work. What did survive were more grounded patterns: <ul><li>Agents owning clearly defined tasks </li><li>Humans approving approaches, not outcomes </li><li>Sampling instead of exhaustive review </li><li>Reports instead of blind faith </li></ul>In other words, the same way we already manage junior team members. Someone made an offhand comment that stuck with me: “We already trust interns with production changes—we just pretend we don’t.” Exactly. Agentic AI doesn’t need blind trust. It needs earned trust, built through visibility, constraints, and feedback loops. That’s not a technology problem. It’s an organizational one. The numbers behind “trust” and why verification becomes the new work: A recent developer survey <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.techradar.com/pro/devs-dont-trust-ai-code-but-many-say-they-still-dont-check-it-anyways?utm_source=chatgpt.com">summarized by TechRadar</a> reported 96% of developers don’t fully trust AI-generated code, and only 48% say they always check it before committing. This is a textbook recipe for “it looked right” failures—exactly what CMS teams fear when AI is allowed to change production content, templates, personalization rules, or SEO fields at scale. In enterprise workflow terms, verification isn’t hypothetical overhead. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.itpro.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/workers-are-wasting-half-a-day-each-week-fixing-ai-workslop?utm_source=chatgpt.com">A Zapier survey</a> (reported by ITPro) found that employees spend ~4.5 hours per week correcting poor AI outputs, and 75% reported negative consequences from AI errors. Translation to CMS delivery:  This is why the roundtable consensus emphasized guardrails like prompt templates, change reports, phased rollouts, and level-based verification (especially for higher-risk content domains like healthcare and legal). What teams want is not autonomy—they want confidence at speed.  <h3 id="the-orchestration-shift-most-people-miss-">The Orchestration Shift Most People Miss </h3>The most technical, and most important, insight came up when we started talking about migrations at scale. Twenty thousand pages. Fifty thousand content items. If your instinct is to point a language model at that problem and let it churn through items one by one, you’re already in trouble. The smarter teams aren’t asking agents to do the work. They’re asking agents to design how the work gets done. Generate the migration scripts.  Define the mappings.  Set the rules.  Hand execution to observable systems.  Review structured output. That shift—from execution to orchestration—is subtle, but it’s where agentic AI stops being expensive and starts being scalable. And it’s where a lot of hype-driven implementations quietly fall apart. Why this is economically and operationally rational (with numbers): LLM usage at scale has two costs: compute/token cost and risk cost (errors propagated across thousands of assets). The roundtable conclusion—“agent writes the migration script; observable automation runs it”—is how you avoid both the token burn and the untraceable failure modes. This approach aligns with what we’re seeing in broader enterprise patterns: organizations are pushing AI “upstream” into planning, generation, and decision support rather than letting it “loop” through massive execution blindly. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.deloitte.com/az/en/issues/generative-ai/state-of-generative-ai-in-enterprise.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Deloitte’s enterprise GenAI research</a> similarly emphasizes that scaling requires process redesign and operating-model shifts—not just model access.How to make this real in CMS programs (the practical layer CMS Critic readers care about): This is where sampling and evaluation become the safety valve. The roundtable examples were concrete: validate a statistically meaningful sample (e.g., 500 checks out of 20,000 pages) and perform deeper validation for high-risk assets, then feed results back into the implementation agent. That pattern is how you get scale without pretending perfection. <h3 id="why-enterprises-still-hesitate-(and-why-they’re-not-wrong)-">Why Enterprises Still Hesitate (And Why They’re Not Wrong) </h3>Despite all the progress, enterprise hesitation isn’t irrational. In both sessions, the same concerns came up again and again: Where does our data go?  Who owns the outputs?  Can we run this inside our walls?  What happens when our knowledge trains someone else’s model? These aren’t edge cases. They’re core to regulated industries, global brands, and anyone whose CMS isn’t just a website—it’s institutional memory. Agentic AI adoption doesn’t fail because models aren’t good enough. It stalls because governance hasn’t caught up. And governance, unlike prompts, doesn’t improve overnight. Hard evidence that enterprise concerns are structural, not “fear”:  <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/about/doing_business/trust-center/docs/cisco-privacy-benchmark-study-2024.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Cisco’s Data Privacy Benchmark Study</a> (surveying 2,600 security and privacy professionals across 12 countries) found: <ul><li>92% view GenAI as fundamentally different, requiring new techniques to manage data and risk </li><li>69% cite concern that GenAI could hurt the organization’s legal and IP rights </li><li>68% worry information entered could be shared publicly or with competitors </li><li>68% worry results can be wrong</li></ul>Why that maps directly to CMS:  CMS programs are high-leverage because they touch brand, legal disclaimers, product claims, regulated content, personalization logic, and customer data. That makes “data governance + auditability” not a checkbox, but the adoption gate. Your roundtable’s emphasis on self-hosting options and specialized models for regulated use cases fits what security leadership is explicitly signaling. <h3 id="the-conversation-everyone-is-avoiding:-pricing-">The Conversation Everyone Is Avoiding: Pricing </h3>Eventually, the discussion always comes back to money. Because once delivery gets faster—much faster—the old math breaks. If something takes five hours instead of fifty, but creates the same (or more) business value, what exactly are we charging for? This is where the room usually gets quiet. Hourly models don’t collapse because AI exists. They collapse because they stop making sense when execution is no longer scarce. The more honest agencies in the room admitted what many are thinking: delivery is becoming the cheapest part of the engagement. The value is moving upstream—strategy, discovery, integration decisions, governance, experimentation. AI didn’t take that value away. It exposed where it always lived. Evidence that pricing model pressure is real (and already underway): <ul><li>In professional services, pricing strategists are <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.simon-kucher.com/en/insights/generative-ai-and-price-model-revolution-professional-services-think-golf-not-tennis?utm_source=chatgpt.com">explicitly calling out</a> that GenAI will force changes to “decade-old pricing models” because automation erodes the link between effort and value. </li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.tsia.com/research/slow-transition-value-based-offer-pricing?utm_source=chatgpt.com">TSIA’s research notes</a> the transition away from cost-plus remains slow but is actively moving toward consumption/value models, largely driven by customer expectations and new delivery economics.</li><li>Mainstream business outlets have also <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisoncoleman/2025/06/06/in-the-ai-era-why-businesses-are-rethinking-their-pricing-strategies/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">begun documenting companies</a> rethinking pricing strategies in the AI era as automation changes what customers perceive as worth paying for. </li></ul>How this shows up specifically in CMS:  If AI compresses build time, agencies either (a) race to the bottom on price, or (b) reposition around outcomes: conversion lift, SEO gains, speed-to-market, governance maturity, experimentation velocity, localization coverage, and operational cost reduction. Your roundtables called out exactly this migration of value: strategy, discovery, roadmaps, SEO, integrations, A/B testing, conversion optimization. <h3 id="what-2026-is-actually-asking-of-cms-leaders-">What 2026 Is Actually Asking of CMS Leaders </h3>After two sessions, dozens of perspectives, and a lot of nodding heads, I don’t think the takeaway is dramatic. It’s uncomfortable, but simple:Stop asking whether agentic AI is ready.  Start asking whether your organization is. Because the teams succeeding right now aren’t the ones chasing autonomy. They’re the ones redesigning trust. And that turns out to be the hardest part of all. A final data point that frames the urgency:  <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.bcg.com/publications/2025/are-you-generating-value-from-ai-the-widening-gap?utm_source=chatgpt.com">BCG has quantified</a> the “agentic” moment as a measurable category of value creation—estimating AI agents account for ~17% of total AI value in 2025, projected to reach 29% by 2028, and noting that more “future-built” companies are explicitly allocating budget to agents and deploying them earlier. That’s the competitive reality CMS leaders are walking into: not whether AI exists, but whether you can operationalize it faster than your peers—safely, observably, and with a commercial model that survives success.  <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:40.76%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/open-source-cms-26.jpg" /><h4 id="open-source-cms-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26">Open Source CMS 26</a></h4>October 20–21, 2026 – Utrecht, NetherlandsJoin us for the first annual edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to making open source CMS better. This event is already being called the “missing gathering place” for the open source CMS community – an international conference with confirmed participants from Europe and North America. Be part of a friendly mix of digital leaders from notable open source CMS projects, agencies, even a few industry analysts who get together to learn, network, and talk about what really matters when it comes to creating better open source CMS projects right now and for the foreseeable future. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26/tickets">Book your tickets today.</a>

Agentic AI Didn’t Fail CMS Teams. Our Expectations Did.

nabilorfali

Backoff on the AI Layoffs: Domo’s Chris Willis on the Future of Work in 2026

<hr /> SEO is a hard-fought battle. Marketers spend a lot of time – and treasure – on manual audits, digging through spreadsheets and poring over tables just to make an incremental dent in performance. Meanwhile, they’re wrestling with the cognitive overload of juggling multiple tools across the stack, forcing swivel-chair moments as they gaze into a swarm of data.Of course, the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joetoscano1/2025/09/03/ai-is-destroying-seo-rank-now-requires-answer-engine-optimization/">seismic shift to AI answer engines</a> is compounding an already precarious challenge. Keeping content accurate, structured, and discoverable across both traditional search engines and AI-driven discovery platforms like ChatGPT is haranguing teams in a vice grip as website traffic withers on the vine – and institutional metrics go out the window.  But this is where <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/kontentai">Kontent.ai </a>is building on its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/agentic-cms-why-kontentais-vision-for-the-future-of-content-management-is-inspiring">“Agentic CMS” foundation</a> to deliver some relief. Today, the company announced a set of new workflows that are purpose-built to impact the cost and friction associated with these challenges. They’re designed to enhance not only traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but the emerging and uber-critical practice of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_engine_optimization">Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).</a><h3 id="building-on-an-ai-vision-and-heritage">Building on an AI vision and heritage</h3>Kontent.ai has long embraced its artificial intelligence roots (it’s been part of the name since day one), but repositioning its value as an Agentic CMS speaks to its laser focus on AI and its impact on content management and operations. That gives it an edge for addressing the existential challenges that traditional SEO and GEO are presenting to brands and marketers.According to Kontent.ai’s VP of Customer Success, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukas-martinak/">Lukas Martinak,</a> something has changed in the CMS and digital world, and brands are feeling the heat. This came into crystal clarity at the recent <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">Boye &amp; Company CMS Kickoff 26. </a>“There was one topic that kept coming up in almost every session and every hallway chat: GEO. Generative Engine Optimization,” he said. “Traffic is down, AI answers are up, and GEO has moved to the boardroom.”He’s absolutely right. Unlike SEO, the C-Suite is hyper-focused on GEO, making it a mission-critical imperative as zero-click searches and crashing traffic become the status quo. This is where Kontent.ai’s new workflows are aiming to make an impact. <h3 id="optimization-without-the-manual-madness">Optimization without the manual madness</h3>Like an intern that never stops for coffee breaks, Kontent.ai’s autonomous agents continuously analyze content for a bevy of issues that can impact SEO and GEO – detecting things like missing or inconsistent metadata, unclear structure, outdated terminology, and weak internal linking. Users can also prompt for an SEO analysis and recommendations across content like blog posts. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:67.69%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/seo-analysis.png" /></figure>Source: Kontent.ai But the automation goes even further. Instead of simply surfacing issues for manual follow-up, these intelligent agents can recommend improvements or even apply updates directly within Kontent.ai, mitigating the need for repeated audits and manual rework.  <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:68.66%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image.jpeg" alt="A screenshot of a computer

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure>Source: Kontent.ai According to Kontent.ai, some early but compelling use cases demonstrate the success of these new agentic workflows. For example, a global organization managing more than 400,000 content items used them to automate SEO metadata audits and implementation, cutting optimization time by as much as 80%.There’s more. When applied consistently across editorial workflows, Kontent reported that teams saw palpable results – including a 30% increase in organic impressions and expanded keyword coverage, all without increasing paid media spending.  As GEO surfaces as a business mandate, brands are rapidly adopting practices and channeling resources towards optimizing for AI visibility. Many of the agent-driven principles for SEO also support GEO, as they share structural and foundational tenets. With Kontent.ai’s automation, teams can help ensure these content structures are clear and concise for AI systems to interpret accurately – particularly as buyers are increasingly turning to generative search and AI assistants earlier in their discovery. It's worth noting that, unlike most modern SEO tools that are used after publishing, Kontent.ai embeds its optimization directly into the content model and enforces it universally. The net effect is simplification: agent-driven changes are validated against editorial governance, enabling teams to scale optimization without increasing operational complexity or risk. “As SEO and AI-driven discovery converge, optimization can no longer rely on manual effort,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/iannorton/">Ian Norton,</a> VP Marketing at Kontent.ai. “By embedding agentic SEO and GEO directly into content operations, we help teams reduce cost, improve performance, and stay in control at scale.” <h3 id="the-verdict">The verdict</h3>Kontent.ai continues to impress with its clear, elegant, and high-utility application of agentic AI across its platform. While many tools are introducing complexity, Kontent’s focus on real-world use cases for applying its agentic capabilities is a winning position as brands scrutinize the value of their AI tooling and investments. Adding these workflows is yet another example of how it addresses real problems that marketers and content editors face when managing the minutiae of SEO – and the emerging morass of GEO. My recommendation: Since demoing Kontent.ai’s earliest foray into agentic territory, I was instantly drawn to its concise framing of the problem and how its focused application of AI is the solution. That concise delivery is one of the key reasons why it won our “CMS Idol” competition at the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">Boye &amp; Company CMS Kickoff 26</a>. With its headless heritage and composable posture, Kontent presents a great solution for enterprise-grade stacks that are leaning AI-forward and require speed and control at scale. During your demo, pay close attention to the real-world content management use cases that their agents are solving – it’s all the proof you’ll need. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:40.76%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/open-source-cms-26.jpg" /><h4 id="open-source-cms-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26">Open Source CMS 26</a></h4>October 20–21, 2026 – Utrecht, NetherlandsJoin us for the first annual edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to making open source CMS better. This event is already being called the “missing gathering place” for the open source CMS community – an international conference with confirmed participants from Europe and North America. Be part of a friendly mix of digital leaders from notable open source CMS projects, agencies, even a few industry analysts who get together to learn, network, and talk about what really matters when it comes to creating better open source CMS projects right now and for the foreseeable future. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26/tickets">Book your tickets today.</a>

Kontent.ai Adds AI-Powered SEO and GEO Workflows, Accelerating Content Optimization and Enhancing AI Visibility

<hr /> Over the years, I’ve built websites a-plenty using no-code builders, from stand-alone products to plug-ins for open source platforms. I’ve experimented with everything from <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/elementor">Elementor</a> to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/squarespace">Squarespace</a> to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/webflow">Webflow</a>, and had a mix of results up and down the scale. The devil, it seems, is always in the details.I remember seeing the first entries in what we’ll call the “modern” era of AI-powered tools that promise a “prompt and a dream” to a working site. In my early trials, I ran into the limitations of what was possible – but improvements have certainly been made over the last year.The current crop of vibe coding tools is now fairly robust. Watching laypeople conjure apps using <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://base44.com/">Base44</a> for example, is kinda magical. But it’s also a bit misleading. As I’ve <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/joyconf-stories-netlifys-matt-biilmann-on-the-power-of-the-storyblok-partnership">discussed with Matt Biilmann</a> of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/netlify">Netlify</a>, you wouldn’t run these prototypes across the finish line without a competent developer's eye, but they’re giving laypeople a solid starting point. Websites are a different bailiwick. While some projects might only require a static page, most need a backend to manage the concerns. In other words, you need a CMS to complete the equation. That’s where <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/strapi-casts-for-growth-in-the-headless-sea-a-conversation-with-ceo-pierre-burgy">Pierre Burgy</a> saw an opportunity to do it better with a new platform called <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://fimo.ai/">Fimo.ai</a> – which officially launched today.As Pierre explained, existing vibe coding tools are great for building apps, but websites have their own set of unique requirements. As the founder and CEO of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/strapi">Strapi</a> – the most popular open source headless CMS – he’s spent the last decade focused on a better backend experience. Strapi has amassed thousands of GitHub stars and contributors, and millions of downloads, winning the hearts of users across the globe. <figure class="media"><div data-oembed-url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKN3fbDE_Sg"><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56.2493%"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qKN3fbDE_Sg" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></figure> With this in mind, Fimo.ai positions itself as an AI-native CMS that focuses on the really important aspects of managing a website – things like translating and updating content with ease, accessing reusable assets, optimizing SEO/GEO, running A/B tests and personalizing pages, scheduling releases, and more. Already a fixture on <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.producthunt.com/products/fimo-2">Product Hunt,</a> Fimo.ai is a snap to get started with. I created an account using my GitHub creds and was playing around with a sample project in seconds. The UX is sleek, elegant, and incredibly easy to navigate. It all feels fluid. Even a novice will find it comfortable to get around.<h3 id="fimo.ai-is-rich-with-features">Fimo.ai is rich with features</h3>Fimo.ai has a bold roadmap, but it’s rolling out with a complete set of features that will allow you to build with intention and take your project live. For the purposes of my very first demo sample, I replicated an existing site and prompted a blog to be added. As billed, the process was quick – although the complexity of your task will likely impact your wait time. Still, it’s all like waving a magic wand to cast your project into existence.  <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:84.06%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769004638929.png" alt="A screenshot of a computer

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure> Once inside, I was able to peruse the various entities with little to no friction. Everything is logically within reach, so you can navigate anywhere in seconds. If I wanted to, I could invite users to work with me – and there’s also a sense of presence, so you can see what your team is doing in real-time. Prompting changes is a slam-dunk. Once my site was fully generated, I was able to start conversationally styling the mechanics. You can adjust content, elements, and even classes across the site. Like any AI generator, feeding it richer, more detailed prompts can improve your outcomes. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:82.98%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769004638907.png" alt="A screenshot of a video chat

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure> The live preview allows you to access any element to tweak styles and properties, and the built-in CMS lets you manage the content all in one place. As far as assets are concerned, there’s a media library for keeping everything organized and accessible.  <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:82.64%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769004639006.png" alt="A screenshot of a computer

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure> One thing I really like is the ease of toggling into code. There’s a split-view that really makes it comfortable to assess and modify components, and you have access to dependencies and resources at all times. After I added a blog, I was able to seamlessly access all of the entries and make edits on the fly. The whole experience was very easy to customize and update, and there’s plenty of runway for building this out as part of a robust content strategy – with the underlying structure and fundamentals to support your SEO and GEO goals.  <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:81.81%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1769004639029.png" alt="A screenshot of a computer

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure> Of course, you’re probably asking, “what if I screw up?” Like any good CMS or system of authority, there’s a content history you can access, allowing you to roll back to previous versions as needed. On that note: I intentionally created an error in my build (removing a wrapper div for an image), and Fimo not only detected it, but offered to fix it. Seven seconds later, I was back to a proper build and preview – and ready to rock and roll. <h3 id="hosting">Hosting</h3>Fimo.ai doesn’t require a lot of fancy DevOps footwork to bring your site to life. You can go live globally in one click with its secure, built-in hosting. Just click the button in the upper right and it builds and deploys the current preview state. Fimo takes care of everything. If you have a team, the obvious benefit is the ability to collaborate freely in the preview mode without affecting any visitors to your live production site. In other words, you have a staging environment with a one-click pathway to production.Every project is published by default under a free fimo.site subdomain. But you do have the option under a premium plan to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://docs.fimo.ai/publish/custom-domains">add your own custom domain</a>, which provides a fully branded experience. On the roadmap, you’ll soon be able to connect your Fimo.ai project to your GitHub account, so your code and history live in a repo. This will augment the benefits of controlling your version history, collaborating with other team members, syncing with changes, and managing granular code-based considerations like setting up CI/CD pipelines to manage the flow.<h3 id="documentation">Documentation</h3>Based on the quality of the documentation, it’s evident that seasoned content and development people were behind this project. From end to end, the guidance is clear, concise, and well-structured. There’s also a cache of learning resources on vibe coding, prompt engineering, and even how to optimize the use of your AI credits in Fimo.I particularly like how they’ve simplified many of the instructional posts with a quadrant of benefits, making the explanations much more accessible to laypeople without any coding or technical background. There’s also the presence of meetups, community, and even a referral program for earning credits – giving it all a grassroots vibe that could grow organically. <h3 id="pricing">Pricing</h3>As I just mentioned, Fimo is an AI website builder, so it’s devouring credits with every prompt. Being judicious and strategic about how you use those prompts is key – and I’m impressed at how proactive they are with advocating for solid prompt engineering. At launch, Fimo.ai is offering two simple options. The first is a Free plan that offers up to 3 projects and 2,500 monthly credits. That’s enough to trick out a basic site and experiment with the possibilities. The only downside with the Free tier is the presence of the Fimo platform badge, which makes the case for upgrading. Fimo’s Premium plan is just $25 a month and provides a lot more power. Along with 25,000 monthly credits, you get unlimited projects, 30 days of version history, and the removal of the platform badge. It’s pretty robust considering what you get.<h3 id="the-verdict">The verdict</h3>The market is awash with AI builders, so there’s plenty of choice if you’re looking for the “easier lane” for launching a project. But having a solid CMS baked into the recipe is a key differentiator, and something that’s only been available in certain platform offerings. I’ve long been a fan of Strapi, and their collective knowledge and experience have clearly been injected into Fimo. That gives it a content management framework and structural mindset that other builders might be lacking. As someone who also wants access to code – and potentially to a Git-powered solution – Fimo is also tracking in the right direction with its current features and broader roadmap. It really appeals to a wide range of users up and down the technical spectrum.There’s also a spirit of startup magic in this tool. I love how they tapped Product Hunt as a channel for marshalling grassroots momentum while inviting seasoned builders from the Strapi side into the mix. It feels fresh, even if it's entering a noisy segment of the building experience ecosystem.My recommendation: It's early days (um, day one, actually), so running a workload is still something I need to assess. With websites, there's a lot to explore in the way of forms, A/B testing, and other factors – as well as the ability to connect with other systems as part of an integrated, composable play. But based on what I've already seen, you should create a free account and give Fimo a spin. When I compare it to other enterprise-grade builders, it's achieving a simpler, more intuitive flow that most users will find satisfying. Be sure to check out the sample projects in the gallery to see just how far uses are pushing it. You might feel a little FOMO, but that should light a fire under you to create some beautiful sites of your own. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:40.76%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/open-source-cms-26.jpg" /><h4 id="open-source-cms-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26">Open Source CMS 26</a></h4>October 20–21, 2026 – Utrecht, NetherlandsJoin us for the first annual edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to making open source CMS better. This event is already being called the “missing gathering place” for the open source CMS community – an international conference with confirmed participants from Europe and North America. Be part of a friendly mix of digital leaders from notable open source CMS projects, agencies, even a few industry analysts who get together to learn, network, and talk about what really matters when it comes to creating better open source CMS projects right now and for the foreseeable future. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26/tickets">Book your tickets today.</a>

Vibe-coding FOMO? Fimo.ai offers easy website building with AI-native CMS capabilities

Call Tracking + AI 

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

#ffffff

In the race to AI visibility, are AEO and GEO really delivering? 97% of digital leaders say yes 

<hr /> These days, marketers have more data than ever at their disposal. Too much? I'll let you be the judge. But that’s not the pressing issue. The problem is making sense out of the sheer volume and complexity. As humans, we can’t possibly weed through it all – which means we’re left with messy data, and even messier insights. It doesn’t take much to see an opportunity for AI to help mitigate these obstacles. But some of the same challenges exist: we end up with messy outcomes if the inputs aren’t clean and well-structured. On top of that, marketing data often exists in disconnected places, and that includes disparate platforms used to store data and run campaigns. Bridging these gaps requires some AI-juiced, Buzz Lightyear-level heroics, and that’s where <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/amplitude">Amplitude</a> comes in. The company already has a proven track record of helping companies build better products and digital experiences, imbuing its tools with AI agents to help teams analyze, test, and optimize UX faster than ever.Now, with the acquisition of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://infinigrow.com/">InfiniGrow</a> – a Tel Aviv-based AI analytics platform that helps teams measure, forecast, and optimize a marketing team’s impact on revenue – Amplitude is bringing a centralized platform approach to the problem by adding the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://infinigrow.com/company/">“new science of revenue marketing”</a> to its ecosystem. As I said, a big source of pain is that insights and decisions often live in separate places, but the combined resources of Amplitude and InfiniGrow will give stakeholders more actionable insights from their data. InfiniGrow’s agentic AI features can “fix” data foundations in a way that makes it more trustworthy, so it doesn’t sabotage your metrics, AI models, and decision-making.By unifying marketing, sales, and financial data, InfiniGrow can provide real-time visibility into what’s working – and why – across channels and customer journeys. Its analytics, attribution, and forecasting capabilities have been vital resources for understanding what drives results. It also provides a tableau for planning and optimizing budgets, evaluating scenarios, and making data-driven decisions with confidence.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://investors.amplitude.com/news-releases/news-release-details/amplitude-acquires-infinigrow-bring-revenue-analytics-marketers">According to the company’s press release,</a> InfiniGrow will help Amplitude evolve analytics from reporting on what already happened into insights that help teams measure, forecast, and optimize the impact of marketing on revenue. It brings both parts into a single, unified system, transforming analytics from a “backward-looking” snapshot to a “forward-looking” decision-making resource that turns data into actionable marketing recommendations. “InfiniGrow built AI to answer the hardest questions marketers face, and that’s exactly what Amplitude does,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/spenserskates/">Spenser Skates</a>, co-founder and CEO of Amplitude. “Together, we’re turning complex data into clear decisions teams can act on confidently."<h3 id="powering-session-based-analytics">Powering session-based analytics</h3>Part of Amplitude’s stock in trade is its focus on session-based insights. Last year, it launched enhanced features like its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/replay-it-again-sam-amplitudes-session-replay-everywhere-rocks-with-analytics-visualizations">Session Replay Everywhere,</a> which builds on its solid Session Replay capabilities. It closes the gap between quantitative and qualitative understanding, allowing users to go beyond a funnel and unpack the why behind the metrics to diagnose product issues and improve conversions. Within an enterprise marketing team’s DNA, analysts play a critical role in defining sessions, connecting customer journeys, and maintaining trust in the data. To strengthen that foundation, Amplitude is reinforcing its session-based analytics by elevating sessions to first-class citizenship across the platform and preserving session context over time. This ensures marketing actions are fortified by accurate insights and clearly tied to real business outcomes – which further eliminates the guesswork. With InfiniGrow, Amplitude can now provide marketing teams with more enhanced session-based analytics, starting with improved insights into context around user sessions – which provides the clearest view into customer behavior. Armed with this clarity, marketers can move faster and more confidently.InfiniGrow’s AI-powered marketing analytics will build on Amplitude’s foundation, helping teams measure, forecast, and optimize how marketing drives revenue. With advanced “what-if” analysis and scenario modeling, marketers can explore tradeoffs, test assumptions, and iteratively plan and allocate budgets using AI-driven forecasts. “We built InfiniGrow to apply AI to the real decisions marketers face every day, grounded in clean and contextual customer journey data,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmeler/">Daniel Meler, </a>co-founder and CEO of InfiniGrow. “Joining Amplitude allows us to scale that work and contribute to a broader AI analytics vision that empowers teams to act with confidence.”<h3 id="the-verdict">The verdict</h3>Amplitude continues to make sage moves in the battle for better insights. InfiniGrow’s AI-powered offering is a slick complement and builds on Amplitude’s session-based capabilities in a potentially meaningful way. By smoothing out the hard data challenges, the combined power of both tools gives marketers even more control and confidence over the value of their data – and in a more proactive way. Analytics tools can’t be passive anymore. They have to be decision engines that help marketers move with confidence. Together, Amplitude and InfiniGrow are bridging session data with revenue outcomes, modeling future scenarios, unifying disconnected datasets, and empowering marketers to make choices based on informed predictions – not just guesswork.Amplitude was on a tear in 2025. Last July, the company <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://amplitude.com/press/amplitude-acquires-kraftful">acquired Kraftful,</a> which culminated in the introduction of its new <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/read-the-feed-amplitudes-next-gen-ai-transforms-customer-feedback-into-actionable-product-insights">AI Feedback service</a> – which also pairs with its Session Replay capabilities. The company also introduced new <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/amplitudes-new-web-experimentation-upgrade-gives-marketers-3x-faster-testing-and-more-control">Web Experimentation features</a> and a new <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/amplitudes-new-mcp-server-and-open-beta-for-ai-agents-bring-behavioral-data-into-ai-tools">MCP server and open beta for AI agents</a> in October, giving companies access to its trusted behavioral data from within the AI environments they're already using.My recommendation: Sure, there’s always buzz with any new acquisition. But the value of this one isn’t lightyears away. Data volume will continue to explode, and making sense of it all is an enterprise imperative for 2026 and beyond. Teams need the best insights possible to make crystal decisions, and revenue analytics are fast becoming a key component. If you’re looking to better unify your insights and unlock the potential of revenue marketing, keep an eye on how this combined offering unfolds.  <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a>

To InfiniGrow and Beyond: Amplitude’s Latest Acquisition Promises Intelligent Revenue Analytics for Marketers

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/amber-bar">Amber Bartholomeusz</a> is the founder of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.abmarketedge.com/">ABMarketEdge</a> and a CMS Critic contributor.<hr /> In early 2025, CMS Critic published <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/in-a-fast-and-furious-tech-world-cms-kickoff-25-was-a-love-letter-to-slow-down">In a fast and furious tech world, CMS Kickoff 25 was a ‘love letter’ to slow down.</a> At the time, it felt like a thoughtful counterweight to an industry that rarely pauses long enough to reflect.A year later, that message reads less like a cultural observation and more like a warning that many organizations chose to politely acknowledge – and then ignore.Instead of slowing down, the industry accelerated. AI became the headline, the shiny penny, the roadmap bullet, the board-level talking point. Every LinkedIn feed or technology blog suddenly had its own take on AI. Companies rushed to prove they were “doing AI” before they had decided what doing it well actually meant, driven by a quiet panic about being left behind.And a lot of the fundamental work was skipped. That is why an AI reckoning feels imminent. Not eventually. Not hypothetically. Very likely in 2026, when expectations collide with reality and the tools, workflows, and promises made start to fall apart.<h3 id="ai-tactics-outran-strategy,-governance,-and-standards">AI Tactics Outran Strategy, Governance, and Standards</h3>The first and most obvious fault line is that AI adoption became a tactic before it was ever a strategy.In many organizations, AI showed up as a response to pressure. Competitive pressure. Board pressure. Market pressure. But it was also a cultural pressure, amplified by social media posts, conference keynotes, event themes, and industry commentary delivered with total confidence and authority. The signal was subtle but clear: if you were not already doing it, you were behind.The result was predictable. Tools were implemented before anyone slowed down to ask the uncomfortable questions, the ones that are actually hard to answer, and don’t fit neatly into a demo or a LinkedIn post. Questions like:<ul><li>What does success actually look like beyond “we launched something with AI in it”?</li><li>How does this align with our overall business strategy, not just this month’s roadmap?</li><li>Who owns the decision when AI output is wrong, and who is actually qualified to pass judgement?</li><li>What data is acceptable to use, and what gaps are we pretending not to notice?</li><li>Where is human judgment required, and where are we quietly replacing actual expertise because AI feels faster?</li><li>How is risk measured, documented, and revisited once the novelty wears off?</li></ul>(And no, asking ChatGPT or Claude to figure this out for you is not a strategy.)In far too many cases, the answer to those questions is still unclear.Instead, AI has been treated like a checkbox. If it exists, it must represent progress. If it is deployed, it must be valuable. If it produces output, it must be working.That assumption holds until it doesn’t.Without a clear operating model, AI initiatives turn into collections of disconnected experiments. Without standards, quality and trust are impossible to measure. Without strategy, organizations automate confusion and call it momentum.You can’t scale what you don’t control. And right now, many organizations do not actually control their AI programs. They are running them, watching the outputs, and hoping the gaps do not surface.<h3 id="interoperability-was-always-an-organizational-problem-first">Interoperability Was Always an Organizational Problem First</h3>There is a persistent belief that AI readiness is primarily a technology problem. It never was.Long before AI entered the picture, most organizations struggled with interoperability for a much simpler reason: alignment. Teams operated in silos. Goals conflicted. Some departments were rewarded for outcomes produced by the whole, even as the machine itself remained deeply fragmented and no one seemed to be accountable for fixing it.AI did not resolve that tension. It exposed it.Models trained on fragmented inputs produce fragmented outputs. Tools introduced without cross-functional buy-in struggle to gain adoption. Systems that lack transparency generate mistrust, especially among the people expected to rely on them day to day.Before interoperability was about APIs, it was about people.That truth did not disappear when AI arrived. It just became easier to ignore. Technology offered an illusion of mass progress. It felt easier to buy a tool than to align teams. Easier to automate than to clarify. Easier to move fast than to build shared understanding.AI amplifies whatever organizational dynamics already exist. In cohesive organizations, it can accelerate progress. In fragmented ones, it accelerates friction.<h3 id="unsexy-fundamentals-were-skipped,-and-ai-is-about-to-punish-that">Unsexy Fundamentals Were Skipped, and AI Is About to Punish That</h3>The third issue is the least exciting and the most consequential: data fundamentals.Data connectedness, consistency, taxonomy, and context are deeply unsexy. They don’t demo well. They don’t create buzz. You don’t see technology influencers chasing mainstage speaking slots by talking about data hygiene, and budgets rarely materialize for work that does not look impressive on LinkedIn.So they are postponed.Then AI gets layered on top.Fragmented data sources produce inconsistent outputs. Poorly defined schemas lead to confident but incorrect results. Missing context turns into misleading answers delivered at scale, often with far more confidence than accuracy.There is a growing body of research, including work out of MIT, that points to the importance of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/to-help-improve-accuracy-generative-ai-add-speed-bumps">deliberate friction</a> in complex systems. Small constraints, checkpoints, and moments of pause are not inefficiencies. They are what allow humans to apply judgment, verify assumptions, and catch errors before they compound.In this scenario, data fundamentals are that friction.When they are skipped in the rush to automate, AI does not compensate. It accelerates and often amplifies the failures. Outputs become harder to explain, harder to trust, and impossible to trace back to reliable sources. At that point, the problem stops being technical very quickly. It becomes operational, reputational, and much harder to dismiss. And that is usually when the finger-pointing starts.The irony is that the most important work enabling effective AI is the work least likely to be prioritized because it is not flashy. But those fundamentals are the difference between AI as leverage – and as liability.<h2 id="why-2026-is-the-‘collision-year’">Why 2026 Is the ‘Collision Year’</h2>Taken together, these patterns create the conditions for a reckoning.Not because AI is experimental. Not because the technology does not work.But because much of what has been built has not yet been tested under real pressure.Tactical adoption without a clear strategic throughline. Organizational fragmentation reframed as technical complexity. Foundational data gaps obscured by polished interfaces and confident demos.For a while, that can look like progress.In 2026, it starts to look like exposure.This is when it stops being theoretical. Boards want real answers, not roadmap slides. Regulators get clearer about standards and governance. Customers notice when things don’t add up. Internal teams push back on systems that create more friction than value. And claims made in 2024 and 2025 start getting measured against what actually happened, not what was promised.And to be clear, this is not an argument against AI. It is an argument against assuming readiness. The organizations that struggle will not be the cautious ones. They will be the ones that moved fast without thinking through how this would actually hold together. The ones that mistook visible activity for progress and assumed technology would somehow make up for the structural gaps they never addressed.CMS Kickoff 25 talked about slowing down as a cultural counterpoint to nonstop acceleration. Looking back, it reads less like commentary and more like advice some organizations were too busy to take.The next phase of AI will not be decided by speed alone. It will be shaped by clarity, alignment, and whether the fundamentals underneath were ever solid, especially when that work was unglamorous and easy to overlook.The gap between hype and reality is closing fast. When it does, it will be clear who built something that can actually hold up and who just moved quickly.The AI reckoning is coming.2026 might be when it stops being theoretical. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a>

The AI Reckoning Is Coming. 2026 May Be the Turning Point

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<hr /> Umbraco is opening a new gift in this post-holiday season: a new office in Melbourne, Australia.This is just the latest in the open source CMS vendor’s global ambitions, beginning with the opening of a US office in Charlotte back in August of 2020. Since then, the company has expanded its regional hosting for <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://umbraco.com/products/umbraco-cloud/">Umbraco Cloud</a> users in both Australia and Canada – and most recently established a UK office in September of 2025.This is another big move, demonstrating Umbraco’s confidence as it looks to grow across multiple markets in the Asia-Pacific region. To get the job done, the company has tapped <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanueltissera/">Emmanuel Tissera</a> to create and lead a team of dedicated professionals tasked with supporting Umbraco’s partners and enterprise customers in Australia, New Zealand, and the APAC territory. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:37.85%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/image-1767719899828.png" /></figure>Umbraco's Head of APAC Emmanuel Tissera. Source: Umbraco Tissera comes from solid Umbraco stock. As the previous Technical Director at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.luminary.com/about">Luminary</a>, the first of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://umbraco.com/partners/find-a-solution-partner/?skill=&amp;sector=&amp;country=australia&amp;level=platinum">three digital agencies in Australia</a> to achieve Umbraco Platinum Partner status, he led and grew a team of developers building digital experiences for enterprise clients. He was also instrumental in establishing Umbraco’s regional hosting in 2023 to provide data residency for Umbraco Cloud users in Australia and New Zealand.“I’m genuinely excited about taking on this new role, which is the culmination of fifteen years working with the Umbraco CMS on both the client and agency side,” Tissera said. As the company framed in its announcement, a growing number of APAC partners are building highly scalable digital experiences on the Umbraco CMS platform for a wide range of organizations with enterprise-grade requirements. This includes <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.calicoagency.com.au/our-work/zoos-victoria/">Zoos Victoria</a> (which serves 2.25 million visitors a year), <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.koben.com.au/projects/australia-for-unhcr">Australia for UNHCR</a>, and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.remade.org.au/">ReMade in Australia</a>. To provide partners with essential local support for RFPs, technical demos, and PoCs, Umbraco decided to open an office in Melbourne's central business district.According to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mats-persson-296a66/">CEO Mats Persson</a>, the addition of Tissera is a key part of the success quotient, providing seasoned leadership and broad industry expertise – all underscored by a strong Umbraco foundation.“We are thrilled to have someone with Emmanuel’s depth of technical expertise, business acumen, community involvement, and interpersonal skills to lead, grow, and strengthen the Umbraco APAC team,” Persson said. “He brings more than two decades’ experience of guiding strategy, implementing technology, and shaping solutions architecture for leading enterprises. Clients, colleagues and the community can be reassured that they are in safe hands.<h3 id="a-deep-heritage-of-cms-expertise">A deep heritage of CMS expertise</h3>As a member of Umbraco's Management team reporting directly to Persson, Tissera will lead the strategy and execution for growing the Umbraco footprint across the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on the development of high-value relationships with partners, clients, and the open-source community. Leveraging his breadth of hands-on experience – crystallized by earning Umbraco MVP status six years in a row – Tissera plans to demonstrate the power of Umbraco as a scalable, performant, and friendly CMS for businesses and developers in the region. During his decade-long tenure at Luminary, he built enterprise-scale websites for leading Australian brands, including Snooze, Metricon, and the Melbourne Airport. He also provided solutions architecture for Schneider Electric and Netwealth, and led discovery projects for the New South Wales Government and UNICEF.Tissera brings proven insight to this new role. For the last 23 years, he has worked as a software engineer, building experience across the market’s leading content management systems. From the client perspective, he has worked with a bevy of notable organizations, including Emirates in Dubai and the Australian Associated Press. Tissera’s success is built on a solid Umbraco foundation, and he credits the company for helping to unlock his personal journey into the development field. He continues to pay that forward as a highly regarded contributor to the open source community, organizing regular meetups with fellow Umbraco developers across the APAC region. “My Umbraco expertise helped me to land my first web developer role in Australia, and I’ve been organizing developer meetups for the past eight years,” Tissera said. “The opening of the Melbourne office demonstrates Umbraco HQ’s commitment to APAC. I’m proud to be leading and growing the team to provide boots on the ground for Umbraco partners, enterprise customers, and the wider Umbraco community in Australia, New Zealand, and the Asia-Pacific region.”<h3 id="the-verdict-">The verdict </h3>Umbraco is opening 2026 with a strong commitment to its global strategy, building methodically and mindfully. By tapping a proven talent with Tissera, the company is leaning on a local expert with a worldwide reputation – someone who can help frame the benefits of the open source platform and its roadmap as it edges further into AI, orchestration, MCP, and other initiatives. There’s wind in Umbraco’s sails, and for good reason. In my <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/the-right-person-to-lead-umbraco-appoints-mats-persson-as-ceo-reflecting-growth-ahead">previous conversations</a> with Persson – including a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3EYipUWEPc&amp;t=102s">recent webinar we co-hosted</a> on the future of composability – the company is harnessing its differentiated value to enable enterprises with a complete ecosystem of capabilities. Much of the innovation and traction is coming from its highly engaged community of more than 250,000 open-source contributors and an international network of digital agency partners, with trust being reinforced by the Umbraco commercial organization – which ensures the platform remains supported, updated, and resilient.As 2026 blossoms, agentic AI will undoubtedly be a critical requirement for enterprises. But it must demonstrate value. Umbraco’s roadmap continues to drive innovation in key areas, and its open source posture gives it a unique angle when it comes to customization and experimentation. Further, as digital sovereignty becomes a more central topic for organizations, having options for localized cloud hosting provides an added dimension of confidence and trust. These are all points in its value equation. Umbraco has always been smart, patient, and intentional with its strategy, and this latest expansion demonstrates an intelligent focus on reinforcing support for people and partnerships – which is always the best place to activate growth. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:31.44%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/cms-kickoff-2026-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">CMS Kickoff 2026</a></h4>January 13-14, 2026 – St. Petersburg, FLMeet industry leaders at our fourth 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" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">so secure your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a>

Umbraco Accelerates Global Growth with New Melbourne Office, Appoints Emmanuel Tissera Head of APAC

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