As I await my flight back to London from Tampa, I find myself reflecting on another outstanding CMS Kickoff conference. Hosted at The James Museum of Western & Wildlife in St Petersburg, Tampa, Florida, the event brought together the industry’s most innovative minds to explore the ever-evolving landscape of content management. Despite Hurricane Milton forcing a change of venue from the usual St Pete Beach location, the conference still delivered invaluable insights into the future of CMS.
Day 1
The conference kicked off with insightful presentations from Matt Garrepy (CMS Critic) and Nicole France (Chief Evangelist at Contentful). Anyone who has had the privilege of seeing Nicole speak will attest to her unparalleled knowledge and engaging delivery. She offered a compelling perspective on the industry’s "race towards usability", highlighting the diverse stakeholder ecosystem involved in CMS implementations. Nicole stressed that effective systems must serve more than just content and marketing teams, underscoring the importance of an inclusive, cross-functional approach.
When addressing GenAI, Nicole raised a crucial question: "What are we doing and why?" While acknowledging AI's role in enabling personalised experiences, she maintained that the true breakthroughs will continue to come from human creativity.
Michael Spenceley (Leader, Learning & Content Standards at Johnson & Johnson), expanded on the GenAI conversation with his presentation, "How GenAI is Making Content King Again." Michael pointed out that AI's success depends fundamentally on accurate, well-structured content, sharing an example from J&J’s use of an AI-powered HR chatbot. He also outlined three key principles for content professionals:
Maintain momentum despite imperfection
Ensure key stakeholder engagement
Capitalise on available resources
Our Director of Strategy and Consulting, Nick Rudd, shared MMT’s innovative approach to content migration challenges. Nick outlined five key considerations when transitioning between CMS platforms:
Data integrity
Compatibility issues
User experience
Time and resource constraints
Training and adoption
Rather than viewing content migration as a challenge, Nick demonstrated how it can present a unique opportunity. Through our AI-powered tool, Nimbus, we’ve revolutionised content migration. This sophisticated solution automates the entire process, from fetching and analysing to preparing, delivering, checking, and reporting. Nick coined this as "intelligent content retention," transforming how we approach platform transitions.
Moving beyond AI implementation, several speakers offered diverse perspectives on the future of the digital experience. Makram Mansour (Group Produce Manager at Intuit) from Intuit showcased their approach to hyper-personalisation, demonstrating how real-time data enables pages to adapt dynamically to user behaviour—essentially "knowing the customer better than they know themselves."
Justin Cook (President of Internet Marketing & Dev at 9thCO) offered a refreshing take by focusing on non-AI technologies, particularly Islands Architecture, which promises to revolutionise web performance. This approach improves load times, crawlability, and scalability. Meanwhile, Joel Varty (CTO at Agility CMS) addressed the vital issue of truth verification in the AI era, urging the industry to take responsibility for maintaining content accuracy as search behaviours evolve with AI integration.
These varied perspectives reinforced a key theme throughout the conference: while AI offers powerful capabilities, success in digital experience requires a balanced approach, incorporating multiple technologies and human oversight. A highlight of the conference was the panel discussion on "Selecting the Right CMS in 2025," featuring experts from across the digital landscape. Mark Demeny’s (Tech Analyst at MACH Alliance) practical advice to "do some piloting, use sandboxes, and test out the platforms with real use cases" struck a chord with many. The panel unanimously agreed that understanding client needs is crucial, with JJ Toothman (President at Lone Rock Point) making the memorable point that "content creator UX is just as important as front-end user UX."
Petr Palas (Founder at Kontent.ai) challenged conventional thinking with his session on content governance at scale. He argued that the industry’s focus on "website-first customers" has led to the neglect of "content-first customers." His comprehensive framework for modern CMS requirements covered everything from lifecycle management to content reusability, demonstrating how AI could enhance these processes while maintaining strong governance.
One of the most entertaining sessions of the day was the infamous CMS Idol competition. Six brave contestants faced the traditionally tough judges, with Vojtech Boril (VP Global Marketing at Kontent.ai) ultimately winning over the audience with a stunning demonstration of their content review process tools. It was a fittingly dynamic end to a day packed with insights into the future of content management.
Day 2
Day two shifted its focus to interactive discussions, with working groups tackling pressing industry questions around building CMS businesses, future-proofing content, AI trust, and the fundamental purpose of CMS. These conversations, followed by insightful closing remarks from Nicole France, Carrie Hane (Digital Content Strategy Consultant), and Karli Santi (CEO at Blend Interactive), highlighted a compelling possibility: that future content may be primarily created for AI consumption rather than traditional websites.
Reflecting on the conference’s discussions and insights, three key trends emerge that will likely shape CMS platforms and content in 2025:
AI-Powered Content Operations within CMS platforms will become more sophisticated and practical, including:
Automated content generation and optimisation
Intelligent content tagging and categorisation
Personalised content recommendations
AI-assisted editorial workflows and quality checks
Automated translation and localisation
CMS platforms will need robust governance features, such as:
Built-in compliance checking tools
Automated content accessibility validation
Content authenticity verification systems
Enhanced audit trails and version control
Real-time collaboration and content orchestration will become paramount, with features like:
Real-time multi-user editing capabilities
Advanced workflow automation
Integrated content planning and campaign management
Cross-channel content orchestration
Enhanced content reuse and repurposing features
A huge thank you to Janus Boye for an exceptional two days! I’m already looking forward to 2026!
