The State of Digital Experience: Trends, Insights, and Strategies for 2025
Kassandra Swenson: Welcome everyone. It is one o'clock. So we are going to get started. I'm gonna go through some housekeeping as people start coming into the webinar again. Welcome for those of you that are here. We are so excited that you're joining us for today's webinar, the state of digital experience 2025. Kassandra Swenson: So before we jump in, a couple of housekeeping items to get us started first, st today's session is being recorded. So all registered participants are going to receive a copy in the coming days. So you don't have to worry about capturing all the details in the moment. Kassandra Swenson: Second, we're gonna save some time at the end for Q, and a. So make sure you're typing in any questions in the Q. And a box at the bottom as they come up, and then we'll just address them in the order they come in. Kassandra Swenson: Also you can use the chat feature to share any comments or ideas throughout. I'll be putting in some questions throughout the webinar as well. So just make sure you set your messages to everyone so that we can keep that dialogue open and collaborative. Kassandra Swenson: So now a little bit about us, this webinar is brought to you by form one. We are a digital agency with over 26 years of experience partnering with mission driven organizations to revolutionize the way organizations achieve their missions. Kassandra Swenson: We serve as a trusted partner to social impact organizations like these on the slide, delivering expert strategies and innovative tools to help them overcome complex challenges. Our goal is empower organizations to achieve meaningful results and maximize their impact on the communities that they serve.
Kassandra Swenson: Leading us today is Brian Graves, our Vp of engineering, who has a rich background and a passion for helping organizations. Leverage technology. Brian is here to guide you through the innovative trends and key and key strategies that reshape the digital landscape as we tackle 2025. Kassandra Swenson: And I'm Sandra Swenson, senior marketing specialist here at Form one. So again, we're excited to have you here by the end of the session. You're gonna walk away with actual insights. To future proof. Your digital platforms hopefully, build stronger connections with your audiences and elevate your organization's impact through cutting edge strategies. Kassandra Swenson: Again, we're excited. You're here, and with that, Brian, the floor is yours.
Brian Graves: Awesome. Thanks, Jess. Brian Graves: so we'll just start by just running through what we'll be discussing today, and do want to try and keep the presentation here to about 45 min, and then leave plenty of time at the end for for questions like like Cass mentioned. So over the next 45 min looking to to cover 4 key areas, really, one, the future of of content management. And what we're seeing there 2, the the role of AI and digital experience. Brian Graves: And then 3. How to how to deliver on those 2 things in ways that are fast, secure and and sustainable Brian Graves: and then we're gonna finish up with with some actionable strategies like cash Brian Graves: Cass mentioned on on how you can think about future proofing. Your your tech stack as we go forward. And then, obviously like I said, wrap up with with a QA. So feel free, please to to drop your questions in the chat at any time, and we'll answer those at the end. Brian Graves: So to kick us off here the digital landscape in 2025 is one that's evolving at at really an unprecedented pace. So things like generative AI are leading Brian Graves: what's being termed is really a technology super cycle. So a period of rapid, disruptive innovation. So things are changing fast and only getting faster by the day, which can certainly be a challenge, especially for Ngos and and governmental organizations who can't necessarily
Brian Graves: follow the the move that fast and break things, or shouldn't necessarily follow the move fast and break things kind of ethos of Silicon valley. But your organizations are still having to to find ways to adapt to new ways of managing content. Of figuring out how to deliver more personalized experiences Brian Graves: and ensuring security while also doing things efficiently and thinking about things like sustainability and the digital carbon footprint you're leaving behind as well. So today, we're really seeing 3 major areas and shifts for mission driven organizations to be aware of that will really help you better engage with your audiences and users and and deliver on your missions. Brian Graves: And those are one. There's an ever greater demand for flexibility within content management systems. Brian Graves: 2, AI is really reshaping how we work, how we interact with technology and and how we think about the digital tools and products we're creating Brian Graves: and then 3 mission driven organizations, like, I said, have to think more critically than than their commercial counterparts about how to deliver their products in ways that are that are fast, that are secure and that are sustainable and and carbon friendly. So we feel that the organizations that understand and embrace these 3 things will really be in the best position to to thrive from a digital standpoint going forward. Brian Graves: So jumping right in here, the the 1st of those things flexible content management. And we see the need here for more flexibility and content management solutions stemming from things like increased expectations for websites and digital experiences when it comes to quality.
Brian Graves: an ever increasing number of channels and devices being used by your audiences, and in a lot of cases budgets moving elsewhere, needing to address a lot of the above with an increasing level of efficiency in a cost, sensitive way. So whether you're managing a single website, your organization, or if your organization is a complex kind of multi-platform Brian Graves: application. Or you're really thinking about how to prepare for the next wave of things like generative AI understanding where content management is headed, and the flexible options now available, we feel, is really critical. So Cms platforms have obviously been around and been the foundation of digital experiences for over 2 decades. Now, really 3 decades at this point, initially, Cms. Solutions were designed to make it easier to create, manage, and publish content without Brian Graves: needing technical knowledge to do so. But today, the way we think about content management really revolves around 3 key areas. And we see those as Brian Graves: the emergence of the concept of universal cms which we'll go into composable architecture. And then, low code, no code platforms and solutions. And these 3 trends within content management are really redefining how organizations build and manage their digital ecosystems. So I'm gonna hand it over to Cass here and start out with a quick survey before we dive in. Kassandra Swenson: Yes, hey, everybody! I am going to do a quick survey. I'm going to launch it now, and the question is, how familiar are you with headless or composable architecture.
Kassandra Swenson: Brian's gonna be talking a lot today as our expert. So we wanted to get a gauge of where you all are before we dive in. I'm gonna give you maybe 30 more seconds. Looks like half of you have responded Kassandra Swenson: alright. 10 more seconds. Kassandra Swenson: Anyone other any other votes in there. Kassandra Swenson: Alright, I'm gonna end the poll and show everybody what the results are.
Kassandra Swenson: Alright, Brian, you see that that 48%. This is their 1st time learning about it. 35. Kassandra Swenson: Need more information, understand its benefits. And then there's a couple there that are actively using it, and then have Kassandra Swenson: heard about it, but haven't implemented yet. Brian Graves: Cool. So, yeah, so I mean, it sounds like, for sure. A small small number of people actively using it. Number of people have heard for it heard about it. But a good percentage, or the the majority is is
Brian Graves: it needs more information there 1st time hearing about it. So that is good to know jumping into this Brian Graves: and so I really want to start. The question I know was more about like headless or composable architectures. But, we're really thinking about this more now, as Brian Graves: through the term universal Cms. So I want to start by kind of defining what we mean by that especially knowing 1st time. For a lot of people hearing about about concepts like this. So universal Cms is a relatively new but important concept in content management and traditionally to kind of break it down. Content management systems have fallen into one of 2 categories. So more traditional Cms is so platforms like Brian Graves: wordpress Brian Graves: drupal am, and site core on the kind of enterprise end have historically been kind of all in one solution. So they handle everything from content creation management to also the front end rendering. So we're doing what the actual site looks like. And the publishing of that and essentially that served as kind of the central hub for digital ecosystem. Brian Graves: And websites and digital experience have traditionally been kind of built around these platforms for sure.
Brian Graves: on the other hand, you have a headless cms. So for for those of you that's newer, newer concept to a newer term to you. We've seen solutions like contentful or content stack or sanity. Are the options out there in kind of the the pure, headless realm. That have really introduced a new approach by separating the content management from from the content delivery. So this means that you Brian Graves: that while content is still managed in the back end system. The front end can really be used built used using whatever you want. So it could be a framework like Brian Graves: Nextjs that that can lead to to better performance and security and flexibility, or it could be a mobile app or it could be both. Really, the the approach is kind of separating what the ultimate application users are seeing from the from the content management itself. Brian Graves: The the issue we've seen a lot with as people have deployed headless solutions is that kind of pure, headless solutions have historically lacked a lot of the the nice out of the box, visual editing tools and page building capabilities that a traditional Cms user expects and that they really find valuable. And this has really led to. What we're seeing is the rise of universal cms. So it's really the the next evolution. And it's not traditional. It's not headless. It's kind of in between. So it combines the strengths of both
Brian Graves: traditional and headless approaches without their weaknesses. So, instead of choosing between kind of a monolithic traditional system that that limits your front end. Flexibility, or a headless system that lacks some of the nice workflow stuff and visual editing tools. A universal cms can really offer the best of both worlds. So over the the past few years, what's gonna happen here is we've seen kind of some of the traditional Cms platforms like your drupals, your aems, your site cores really evolve and become Brian Graves: more api, first, st more composable and more headless, friendly. So, for example, like drupal, where you can now use things like Nextjs for Drupal and Graphql modules to really enable experiences while still maintaining a lot of drupal's robust Content management features, or on the site core and am side. They've really transitioned toward composable architecture and composable platforms, and really gone headless 1st there as well, allowing Brian Graves: greater flexibility in the in the front end technologies, but again maintaining a lot of their their visual editing and and strong workflow capabilities craft Cms is the other one we've seen here. I think they've kind of adopted really become kind of Graphql 1st platform. Well. Brian Graves: retaining kind of traditional Cms conveniences. So at the same time we're seeing that a lot of the pure, headless Cms platforms have evolved to address their weaknesses. So contentful has introduced contentful studio, which is a visual editor enhanced content, creation, sanity and content stack have added page building and layout management tools. So really become more user, friendly, focused on the content authoring
Brian Graves: experience in the headless platforms. And really, what that shift has meant is that traditional and headless cms as platforms have really kind of converged and making them them more alike than different honestly at the end of the day. And this new middle ground is what we're now calling kind of universal cms, or a model that provides both the structure workflow traditional Cms Brian Graves: and the front end flexibility of a headless solution. So why does this matter for your organization? Why is this important? I think if you're evaluating a Cms today. Brian Graves: the important thing is, you no longer have to kind of compromise between strong workflow and flexibility. Instead, you can choose a universal Cms approach that can provide you with visual editing tools, with a headless or Api driven architecture that is highly secure and performant, and that is scalable and has supports omni-channel. Well, so if you're an organization that that follows a create once publish everywhere, kind of
Brian Graves: approach or need to to put your content out to multiple different sources. Be it a website, a mobile app Brian Graves: AI solution, whatever it is these platforms can can do that with the the same kind of page building niceties that you used to. Brian Graves: And and this is where we suggest, for example, if you're building a a website on drupal, ensuring that the solution includes nextjs for drupal, drupal and graphql to to really gain the best of Brian Graves: the headless capabilities that are available on that platform. Or, if you're using contentful, do consider leveraging things like contentful studio to to bring some of those more traditional Cms like content authoring experiences that you're probably used to to that. So key takeaway here is no longer have to choose. If you're there were kind of 2 different markets. They've kind of converged into one. So if you're looking at selecting a Cms look for one that offers both strong workflows and Api 1st capabilities Brian Graves: and work with a team that understands how to implement both. This is really a shift
Brian Graves: and and a game changer like, I said, for organizations who are if you're an organization that that needs to do highly visual storytelling, or you need flexible and scalable content strategies. Or you have a lot of complex technical integrations. This is really a good approach to look at. So Brian Graves: again, universal Cms really represents kind of that, the future of content management. And it's the approach we we strongly recommend when kind of planning your next website or digital experience. Brian Graves: now, jumping into the composable architecture and think of composable architecture really as kind of a modular Lego block block. Approach to your digital ecosystem. And we did a webinar and had multiple posts published last year specifically on this topic. So if you're interested in a deeper dive on this, we've got plenty of content out there. But really composable architecture is an approach closely tied to the shift towards headless and ultimately universal cms. So, rather than relying on
Brian Graves: one all in one platform and a Cms. That does everything composable. Architecture is really the concept of allowing your content management system to do one thing and one thing well, which is to make it thinner and allow it to manage the content, and then Brian Graves: using best in class solutions for for other things. So, for instance, rather than relying on your Cms to be Brian Graves: a central hub that handles everything from content management to authentication. It can be deployed as that thinner layer that does what it does best. And meanwhile you can use a purpose built solution such as octa or 0 to handle authentication. Or we've had clients where they've used salesforce Crm for that for authentication purposes, and you can do that if you so choose. So composable architecture really boils down to Brian Graves: to Api 1st systems that are kind of plug and play.
Brian Graves: and easily integrate with each other. So you can pick, pick, and choose the the best tool for the job. And if done right, this can also lead to to lower total cost of ownership. So overall kind of feature, rich digital ecosystem Brian Graves: and then, finally, on this front. Wanna wanted to speak about and discuss low code platforms. So these are solutions that allow non-technical users to build and maintain websites and digital experiences with minimal coding. So, platforms like webflow. We're seeing a huge demand for and Aqua also has a low code kind of drupal closely tied to drupal offering. These solutions empower Brian Graves: organizations to create visually rich functional websites while relying less heavily on developers for every change without relying on a ton of highly technical expertise. To stand these up and the advantages here are clear, low code platforms. Lower the barrier to entry. Brian Graves: They enable organizations that have potentially limited technical resources to manage their their digital project presence effectively. So it is, however, important to to recognize. That these platforms do have some some limitations, so they certainly do have their time in place, and a lot of really good use cases. They do provide speed, but they may not be the best fit for complex or highly customized projects that require advanced functionality or integrations Brian Graves: that said, we've helped a number of organizations successfully, leverage low code solutions for things like micro sites, campaign landing pages, and visually rich, but kind of low technical complexity marketing based websites. So, for example, we worked with
Brian Graves: the American Jazz Museum. That's located where I am here in Kansas City to use webflow to launch an interactive site that that highlights the history of jazz and really offers an engaging and dynamic experience that didn't require extensive development resources or investment. So typically we see these projects being most successful when they're implemented by a designer who has some amount of front end development understanding the experience. But it truly, it really can minimize total effort that goes into implementing a website like this. Brian Graves: The other example I can think of is, we recently stood up a website for Safepath, who's doing some really important work around humane migration policy. And it took less than 2 weeks to go from Project Kickoff to launch. Of that I mean, it was a fairly small site, so I don't know that that's necessarily the norm, but it does give. Give some idea of the timelines that are feasible, and that can be accomplished when you're talking about local code platforms like webflow and the benefits you can get from them. So another key area and concept when it comes to the Cms market. Brian Graves: So universal cms, composable architecture and low code platforms are invaluable concepts that that we feel mission driven organizations should be familiar with. But what about when it comes to Cms specifics. So what are we seeing there? And what should your organization be? Considering? If looking to to re-platform or stand up a new website? Brian Graves: We're still seeing open source solutions like wordpress and drupal, that have been really the foundation of digital content within the nonprofit and government space for years. They'll hold on to that number one and 2 spot when it comes to usage
Brian Graves: and while they've served organizations well, they do, certainly come with some limitations, particularly when it comes to flexibility and Brian Graves: case of some of them scalability and others, and total cost of ownership. So they're certainly still widely used, certainly still strong choices and ones that that we recommend to clients often and work with clients on often, but as a response to some of the limitations that they they do have. We're also seeing at the same time, platforms like contemptful sandy and craft really have high growth Brian Graves: and and continued growing adoption, particularly in certain sectors of the nonprofit space, such as arts and culture, and that sector is really leaning much more heavily into these newer platforms that make creating richer, highly visually engaging experiences possible. Brian Graves: They certainly can be pricey from a licensing standpoint, if if on some of them, not all of that's not true on all of them, but on ones like contentful, it can be more true. We have also seen cases where the total cost of ownership of these is is much lower than something like a drupal because it's a saas products. You don't have the Brian Graves: the a lot of the overhead of the back end maintenance, but which one is better from a cost standpoint. Really depends on on a number of things. One you're trying to achieve and and things specific to your organization how it's set up. Brian Graves: But what are some key trends and shifts we're seeing in the Cms market. The big one is that? Well, like I said. Drupal and wordpress do remain dominant players. They are seeing a steady decline year over year because of platforms like contentful sanity and webflow gaining steam like I like I mentioned
Brian Graves: drupal has long been the go to choice for kind of secure large scale government websites due to its open source, nature, strong security and and kind of content, governance, capabilities. However, it does have certainly a steep learning curve and the need for for specialized developers have have led to a really higher total cost of ownership there, compared to a lot of other cms, options. Brian Graves: and despite these, Brian Graves: a a lot of that drupal does like, I said, remain a dominant player in the in the Federal Government spec sector, where, agencies there really largely doubled down on the platform. However, there's obviously a lot of ongoing shifts and Brian Graves: federal priorities and budgets the moment and everything happening there. It's a bit unclear honestly, with the long term impact of any of that may have on the the larger drupal market. Unfortunately, the one thing I do know is is. There's now a lot of really talented people with expertise in the platform. That are on the job market. So if your organization is committed to drupal could be opportunity to bring a lot of deep expertise there at the moment. Brian Graves: The other thing that the drupal is looking to do and recently launched is drupal cms, and the drupal kind of previously the drupal darsoc project, where they are trying to reframe, drupal and rebuild it through things like recipes and and things of that nature and refocus it from kind of a highly technical Brian Graves: platform as their primary user base to a more marketer focus user user base. So interested to see how that shakes out. We are excited about drupal cms and and what it might offer. And looking at how we can deploy that to to make this easier and more cost effective for some of our clients.
Brian Graves: Wordpress, on the other hand, has traditionally dominated kind of the small to medium sized organization market offering. Certainly the most kind of user friendly aspects and a vast plugin ecosystem of a lot of the Cms. Is out there and a lower barrier to entry a lot of times. So I think what we're seeing there is a lot of. There's a lot of recent challenges, especially over the last several months in the wordpress ecosystem, particularly. Brian Graves: there's kind of a growing divide between. I don't know how much anyone on this call is following this but growing divide between automatic who kind of maintains wordpress.org, and and companies such as Wp engine that have have really raised some concerns about kind of long term platform stability and Brian Graves: ability of the community. So automatic, even kind of announced in January. They're no longer making a contribution to wordpress core until the lawsuit with Wp, so a lot of unknowns there and what we don't know yet how things are going to shake out when it comes to kind of the actions taking place in the community. It's certainly something that we're keeping an eye on, and that that we suggest others keep an eye on if they're invested heavily in the in the wordpress ecosystem, or evaluate it as a potential Cms option.
Brian Graves: And really, that's the the big story. Here is that drupal and wordpress have kind of long been the dominant players for mission driven orgs. But both have a lot of unknowns at the moment, as far as their futures go. Oh, so well. Neither are going to disappear by any means without say that for either. Now, if you're if you're kind of evaluating Cms market, it it. Brian Graves: There is a wider market out there. And now maybe the time to to look at newer things. So one of those things being sanity, which is which I mentioned earlier, is a headless cms that really prioritizes structured content, real time collaboration. Brian Graves: And it's kind of more Api first.st And it's it's seen strong growth and adoption in the nonprofit space, particularly within the arts and cults Brian Graves: within all arts and culture institutions like I've mentioned, which just really indicates a shift towards more flexible architectures in that space and sanity's appeal really lies in its ability to to do a lot of that stuff. Brian Graves: well, at the same time doing it at a lower price point than the more commercially focused offerings, such as contentful and content fact that can get pretty pricey pretty quick comes in at a much more reasonable price point. So it's certainly a platform to evaluate if you're looking in the space and and looking to evaluate platforms.
Brian Graves: So what does this really all mean for the future of content management. It's really about adaptability. The platforms and strategies that we choose must allow us to quickly respond to changes in technology and user expectations. Brian Graves: Universal Cms really provides a central hub for managing content across multiple channels. Composable architecture gives us the flexibility to integrate the best tools for the job, and local platforms are really great options that can empower teams to to build and iterate faster than ever on kind of kind of marketing focused websites. So a lot of really great options out there now. Brian Graves: the space looks a lot different than it did even 5 years ago. So if you're evaluating this technology space looking where to go. Those are a lot of key. Other key concepts that we suggest people keep an eye out and look for. Brian Graves: So the next major shift jumping ahead here, we're seeing in the digital experience, space is how AI is really reshaping the digital tools and products we're creating. So you're gonna go back to Cass here for a second and we're gonna do another quick. Poll. Kassandra Swenson: Yes, we give Brian a second to take a sip of water that was our biggest section there before we jump into the AI. Here is the poll. So what role does AI currently play in your organization's digital workflows? Is it fully integrated into your process? Are you experimenting with it in limited ways. Are you just starting to explore it where you're not using it, or you don't have any plans to use it at this time.
Kassandra Swenson: and I'll give you about 20 more seconds to answer. And, Brian, there's a couple of questions in the chat, but we will answer those at the end of Q with the QA. Kassandra Swenson: Don't have to worry about those right now. Alright! Kassandra Swenson: 5 more seconds, 3, 2, 1. Alright. Kassandra Swenson: Let me share the results with everyone. So about 60% are experimenting with unlimited ways. 30% haven't started using it yet. About 11 have no plans to use it. Brian Graves: Great. Yeah. And I think that that certainly aligns with with what we're seeing in general. Where?
Brian Graves: Where? Where most organizations are either like piloting things, experimenting with things and and just now beginning to kind of roll out AI into their business processes or functions. But certainly not something. I I see 0 people have fully integrated into their process. And I think that's kind of what we see typically across the board. We Brian Graves: do see in general that about 72% of organizations, have integrated AI into at least one business function. But certainly something that the people are still figuring out like I said, and how to take full advantage of Brian Graves: and it's surprising to a lot of people. But this is actually a space where nonprofits and and foundations are actually outpacing commercial and private sector companies in AI adoption. And this is important because a lot of times with technology. We see Ngos, or government
Brian Graves: kind of being 5 plus years behind the commercial sector, something comes out, and then Ngos Gov is playing catch up a lot of times. This hasn't held true at all, really, so far. When it's come to AI. I think everyone's figuring this out at the same time. But organizations Brian Graves: in the Ngo space and in the government space are are beginning to to test out how they can leverage AI to do things like analyze user data, anticipate needs and and create more personalized engaging experiences. So certainly a space, we're seeing our clients engage in Brian Graves: and have high interest in and are asking us more about and we think that's that's great, because this is a space that both nonprofits. And Brian Graves: we think it's great that this is based in both nonprofits and government keeping up in. Because we.
Brian Graves: while we do always urge clients to use AI responsibly, and we have Brian Graves: responsible AI frameworks. We can kind of take you through on that. Most of our client base locally is looking to do so. But it's it's important because we really do see generative AI as the next platform shift. Brian Graves: And we've seen shifts in technology waves like this before from the web to Mobile, to cloud computing. And now here we are at the next major shift to shift towards generative AI. Really the platform that everything is going to be built on and built around in the future. And really, what we think is important here. What we urge clients to do is to think through what this might mean for your organization, for your technology stack Brian Graves: and for how you engage with your users. And I want to be clear that we don't.
Brian Graves: One clients who think clients should be adding AI just for AI sake. That's not particularly useful most of the time. But but we do feel it's important to begin thinking about what generative AI will make possible, and to start to find some use cases for your organization where deploying an AI enabled solution will be a benefit. Brian Graves: and this certainly goes beyond just chatbots, which tend to be kind of the 1st thing people think of or ask us about when it comes to integrating AI with their websites. A lot of our clients realize the importance of AI, but aren't necessarily sure what is actually possible or what types of things they should be thinking about. And while chat bots and conversational AI are certainly one use case. Brian Graves: We really want to help organizations think bigger when it comes to AI, so start thinking about problems you want or need to solve, but couldn't before and really see the role of AI within digital experience, taking on a number of different forms. So everything from content generation, so semi-autonomous creation of things like faqs or Brian Graves: blog content, social media content to helping with things like accessibility. Meta tag generation, metadata generation to AI driven search to really think about how conversational AI interfaces can take the form of search and better helping users find things and find value within your website and using machine learning to help to just provide better results. But by far one of the biggest outcomes.
Brian Graves: As AI continues to advance, we start to integrate it more into our digital ecosystems is going to be the rise of Brian Graves: agents, the kind of buzzword here, a lot now, and hyper personalization and things like journalist marketing. So we're gonna see certainly the rise of of things like autonomous and semi autonomous AI agents. So these are essentially things that will handle tasks ranging from data processing to customer engagement. Kind of fundamentally altering how your organization may interact with your users Brian Graves: while a lot of that talk around agents right now kind of focuses on operations in the back of the house things like workflow automation data analysis, predictive modeling. We also see AI agents being leveraged for front end experiences, including kind of campaign creation, multivariate testing dynamic content creation. So you can kind of imagine an AI agent that can Brian Graves: instantly analyze user data and executed A B test scale without human intervention. Taking place. So these agents will will be able to kind of fine tune user experiences in real time, based on performance metrics making digital experiences more dynamic, responsive, and kind, of more personalized than ever.
Brian Graves: and as agents become more advanced. We really see us entering an era of journeyless marketing. So a shift away from predefined user journeys and towards real time kind of adaptive experiences tailored to individual users. So traditional marketing is kind of relied on kind of funnel based thinking. But with journey based marketing, AI agents can really dynamically create hyper personalized content, custom interfaces Brian Graves: unique user pathways on the fly in real time. This means AI can can generate content variations. Analyze user responses, things like that. So we do see a future where product owners will be able to kind of approve modifier to plot, deploy AI generated campaigns and user paths with kind of push of a button. Brian Graves: and this really marks the paradigm shifts rather than crafting predefined journeys. The focus we see in the future is kind of on training AI models and setting parameters around those allowing the AI to handle the execution of the highly customized data-driven campaigns and user journeys. Brian Graves: And journalist marketing kind of naturally leads to another critical evolution. So generative, ui Brian Graves: AI where AI is really dynamically generating or adapting user interfaces in response to that real time, user behavior and contact context. So today, we're already seeing this and things like adaptive widgets within conversational AI and Llm interfaces the 1st cell AI sdks and a place where we've begun experimenting with this, I think production with it, where kind of AI determines what content to display and how it should be structured.
Brian Graves: But this concept will move beyond just chatter interfaces we feel, and into kind of more traditional websites and applications. So you can imagine a homepage that adapts its layout and content, based on user preferences and browsing situations and stuff like that, and that are due to kind of real time engagement. And this really make digital experiences more fluid and tailored than than ever before. So the other place, I think we're seeing this is in kind of rapid prototyping tools. So things like V dot 0 that generate Brian Graves: the designs and react components simply through natural language instructions. And I think all these tools are currently certainly best suited for prototyping. I I don't think there's any Brian Graves: today that we would not be like deploying that code immediately live on a website. We're we're heading toward a feature where some of that AI driven Ui generation becomes more viable. And will become more viable and kind of a live production environment. Brian Graves: So this means that the design and development will kind of shift from a static human driven workflow to more AI augmented and iterative and automated systems and really human AI collaboration. Brian Graves: So both of those things also point to a kind of fundamental shift. We see one where creativity is no longer about kind of static assets or predefined components, but really thinking of it as creativity as a system, so rather than thinking about
Brian Graves: design in terms of individual elements. We feel that organizations will need to kind of embrace design systems more that are modular, adaptive, and kind of can continuously evolve. So this shift extends beyond design and and really into products themselves. But we feel that companies must. Brian Graves: and organizations must start to view products not as fixed entities, but as dynamic frameworks that can kind of adapt in real time to user behavior and cultural shifts and contextual inputs. So for example, a digital platform shouldn't just launch with a single fixed feature set, should be designed as a as more of an evolving system that's capable of expanding or refining itself. Brian Graves: Based on kind of real world usage and data. So ultimately, organizations. That kind of embrace this creativity as a system mindset will be, we feel, better positioned to kind of innovate, innovate and iterate and stay relevant in an environment that's gonna Brian Graves: be be rapidly changing and continuously changing over time.
Brian Graves: And from a technology perspective, the introduction of AI habits, and even even more, the need for a kind of a flexible content management layer. So the the model here, I'm showing, is from real story group. If you're not aware of them, go check them out. They do a lot of really good work when it comes to technology and platform evaluation in the kind of digital experience ecosystem and what they highlight here is really what a future technology stack may look like. And it being based on a foundational layer of insights. Brian Graves: decisioning, and generative AI solutions as kind of foundational capabilities that really drive the rest of the stack. So things like content management, Martech and omni-channel Content platforms being a thinner layer higher up, and AI really living outside of any of those but driving, decisioning, and solutioning across your entire tech stack. And this is certainly enterprise scale here that I'm showing that everyone's tech stack is gonna look like this. And some of this. Brian Graves: maybe more or less relevant to your particular organization, but it does give a general model of where things are and where things are headed, and how you should be thinking about approaching the integration of AI into your digital ecosystem Brian Graves: and then the last kind of important point. When it comes to AI, I want to make sure to point out is data which is a key piece of all of this I love this quote from who leads Ibm's AI platform that AI is 10% of the problem, the other 90% of data and adoption within organizations. And we have found this to be true. And in organizations we worked with on
Brian Graves: AI initiatives. The AI Tech is underlying infrastructure that's getting cheaper by the day, and it's going to be more highly accessible to everyone. But without really having your data in order being able to drive adoption within your organization. It's hard to get the value out of the AI models themselves. So 2 things we see being key Brian Graves: with any organization looking to adopt AI is to think about your data processes, how and where your data is being stored. What data is valuable. And also think about the change management and change management processes. You may need to get in place to drive adoption, especially if you're a larger enterprise, level organization. Brian Graves: cool. So 3rd and final area here to be to be thinking about it when it comes to the state of digital experiences is, how do we do all the above deploy flexible content management and deploy AI enabled solutions out while really delivering products in ways that are fast, secure and sustainable. And by sustainable I mean kind of low carbon footprint.
Brian Graves: and there are a handful of things we're seeing that will allow you to do that, including edge computing, 0 trust security pass keys and sustainability toolkits that we all have written up in the State digital experience report. If you read that, but before we wrap up I wanted to take a quick look at each of those as well. But we will jump to cas really quick for the last survey before we do so. Kassandra Swenson: All right. Last survey getting a gauge on how important sustainability is in your organization's digital strategy. Is it a top priority? Are you still trying to figure it out, something you hope to focus on in the future. Or it's not currently part of your strategy at all. Kassandra Swenson: Let's see where everyone is today Kassandra Swenson: give you about 1015 more seconds to answer alright. Looks like
Kassandra Swenson: handful of you don't know what to put. So I don't know if that helps Brian. When you're going into the rest of the content here. Kassandra Swenson: couple more responses coming in. All right, I'm going to end the poll in 3, 2, 1. i'll share these results. It's kind of a mix here with still figuring it out. But it is important being leading at 43% and then not part of the strategy being second at 36%. Is that surprising to you, Brian? Brian Graves: No, I mean, I think that is it's certainly something that that is newer that people are looking at like obviously organizations. Brian Graves: in general to care about kind of carbon footprint for sustainability, but thinking about it in the context of of digital footprint, I think is a newer concept taking hold. The W. 3 C. Has just recently come out with standards on this. It's become a lot more imperative with things like AI. So it not being a part of strategy, currently isn't surprising, or that people finding it important, but still figuring out how to do it or where to start. I think, aligns pretty well with how we what we've seen here. Brian Graves: Well, we will jump more into the sustainability at the at the end of this, so I'll get back to that in a second. But 1st wanted to to start out with ensuring that we're delivering solutions that are performant. And and 2 of the key technologies we're seeing there are edge computing and the use of front end cloud. So edge computing is really the concept of kind of bringing data closer to users. Which which can improve site performance but
Brian Graves: with how it distributes workloads essentially across the network of servers. So we've seen growth in and adoption a lot of success with our own clients by deploying their their front end applications on solutions like Aws, lambda, or cloudflare workers, or Vercell and their edge workers is another place. We've done this quite a bit, and it can be a huge benefit when it comes to really delivering Brian Graves: highly performance sites, and, if done right, can also delete lead to dramatically decreased infrastructure costs which we've seen as well. So I will note to take advantage of this type of setup, you do typically need a headless or kind of Api first, st universal Cmf solution in place. But if you've got that, certainly something worth investigating or to kind of speed up performance and or lower infrastructure costs. Brian Graves: The major concept we're seeing major adoption of when it comes to security, especially within the Gov space is the 0 trust security framework. So 0 trust security is essentially a framework that requires kind of continuous authentication and verification Brian Graves: of users and devices, unlike traditional security models that may assume once you're in a network or within a system that you're allowed to be there. 0 trust really operates on the principle of never trust, always verify, so reduces vulnerabilities, and it really minimizes attack surfaces, and with kind of cyber threats increasing, adopting a 0 trust approach can certainly help ensure that sensitive data remains protected and aligns with kind of modern security Brian Graves: compliance requirements. There's a ton we could unpack on this one. That was a very high level as we're just going through a lot of stuff quickly at the end here, but certainly something to look at into adopting if you're looking at your security posture posture, and how to improve that. On the other end of security. One thing, that we're seeing quickly. Growing
Brian Graves: popularity is the adoption of passkeys. So you may have run across these for different websites or applications that you use for work or your personal life. But essentially, passkeys are kind of a modern authentication method that replaces traditional passwords with biometric or device based verification. So things like fingerprint place id Brian Graves: things of that nature that can be encrypted on the user's device and provide a more secure and user friendly login experience. Brian Graves: And while traditional passwords are are kind of prone to phishing. It's credential theft. Theft pasties Brian Graves: eliminate some of that risk by leveraging those credentials that can be device bound, and they can't be easily stolen or compromised. So if you've got a website or application only accessible by the login, there is a kind of general shift towards passwordless security. The other way. We see this is kind of like email based logins that that is now an option. So certainly can enhance both security and convenience. Look at some of these options. Brian Graves: and something that we feel can be a valuable tool for organizations looking to kind of modernize how they're working on their authentication practices or acting users to authenticate with their sites.
Brian Graves: And then finally back to compatibility. Which is the what the question the poll is about it's becoming. Really, we feel kind of an essential part of digital transformation. So as organizations continue expanding their digital footprint and deploy deploy things like AI solutions. Really feel, it's kind of imperative that they also consider the environmental impact of their technology choices. So emerging digital practices. Brian Graves: certainly focus on optimizing infrastructure, reducing energy consumption and really making conscious choices that align with both Brian Graves: performance and environmental responsibility. And as part of this, we suggest that organizations deploy a sustainability toolkit when designing and building new applications. So a sustainability toolkit is an approach that looks at key metrics like energy consumption page weight Brian Graves: data, transfer image optimization, server efficiency, things like that. And we can also ensure that that. Brian Graves: like I mentioned earlier, there's newer kind of W. 3 C. Recommendations around this that are springing up the toolkit can make sure those are being met that product requirements and architecture guidelines are aligned with low carbon emission processes and that validation tools and processes are in place to ensure you're actually kind of hitting your digital sustainability goals. So again, another kind of newer emerging concept. But we do feel that by making
Brian Graves: sustainability a core part of your digital strategy organizations want to not only reduce their carbon footprint, but also build more efficient and future-proof digital experiences. There are small changes such as like optimizing. Brian Graves: content, delivery, or or what? Who you're hosting provider is streamlining some of your AI processes that they can really have a significant long term impact. So a concept, we, we think, is important for everyone to be aware of Brian Graves: cool. Well, now that we we've covered kind of key trends, let's focus on some actual actionable strategies real quick, and then we'll wrap up and go to QA. So the goal here is to ensure really that your organization is not only aware of these trends, but also a quick, practical steps to to implement them effectively. So whether you're optimizing your Cms, you're strengthening security or looking to leverage new technologies taking the right steps can really help set your organization up for long term. Success. Brian Graves: So let's look at at a couple of ways and a couple of the takeaways from what we talked about here today that can do that. Brian Graves: And and we really feel that kind of future proofing. Your digital experience starts adopting adaptable and scalable Cms, solutions that grow with your needs. So working to identify do you have high security needs, complex workflows, highly technical integrations. What does that look like, or do you have different needs that would benefit from a from a thinner Cms or a more focused Cms that just handling content, and that kind of all in one approach. So look to adopt Cms platforms that that both fit your needs today and then scale with you over time.
Brian Graves: And if you're not looking to re platform, or already have a Cms in place, there's still things you can do to to kind of migrate to some of these newer options over time. So if you've got drupal in place today, you can look at getting nextjs for drupal in place, for instance, and then, kind of taking a Brian Graves: strangler thing or other technical architecture approach where you can kind of Brian Graves: create new functionality in the new approach. Leave Old Functionality old and kind of migrate over time. So there are some approaches that you can take to if you're not looking to totally rebuild or re-platform. 2. Strengthen security. So cyber threats of all organizations need to be prioritizing security. So, looking at frameworks like 0 trust security models or passwordless authentication are good places to start a strong Brian Graves: security foundation is gonna protect both your users data and your organization's digital assets. So it's a really key concept and and something that people need to be thinking about. Brian Graves: generative AI is going to be another game changer. So organizations that prepare now to integrate AI into the workflows will be in kind of the the best position possible. As things continue to move and shift in that direction. And and we really urge organizations to start exploring how AI can enhance operations, improve personalization and increase efficiency will remaining. Certainly mindful kind of ethical and regulatory considerations around it. And AI, certainly a space where Brian Graves: no one's figured it out yet, and everyone's kind of figuring it out. So. No, you're probably you're probably less behind there than than you than you may think.
Brian Graves: and of course sustainability, like, I said, must be at the forefront. Brian Graves: We have to think about digital infrastructure and designing in a way with sustainability in mind. So opting for green hosting providers, optimizing our resource usage and really just assessing the environmental impact of our websites, our AI solutions and cloud-based services in general. So the key here take away here is that future proofing isn't just about adopting new technology. If it's about making smart strategic choices that align with your mission and long term goals Brian Graves: and if you need help with any of this form. One offers a number of solutions to help you both optimize your tech stack and ride Brian Graves: ideate and strategically plan your your path forward. So we've got elevate 360. Our framework. That kind of evaluates your tech stack across 6 critical areas. So tech stack optimization site speed app security devops infrastructure and sustainability. With the goal of just really ensuring. That your platforms are running efficiently, securely and in alignment with with your goals and also industry best practices. And then, additionally, we've also
Brian Graves: got an AI impact accelerator. So because AI is transforming digital experiences. Brian Graves: it's something that's important to get caught that important people to think about but not get caught up in the hype and we have partnered with exchange design. Who are who are really key experts in this space Brian Graves: to help organizations kind of cut through some of the noise and then help identify real, meaningful AI opportunities that drive impact. And we've done these workshops and run this accelerator with a number of our clients. And the feedback's been great, and I've been involved with them, and I can say it really does help open up and unlock the possibilities of AI. And what that might look like for your organization. It takes people beyond just the
Brian Graves: throw, a chat about it, mentality honestly to kind of defining solutions that solve real, meaningful problems. So if you're interested in either of those please reach out for sure, but with that I will take us to questions. Kassandra Swenson: Thank you so much, Brian. All right. We got 10 min for Q. And a Kassandra Swenson: there, I said. There were some questions already put in the chat for anyone else. If you want to put it in the Q&A. Box or I will just go through and ask your ask these questions to you, Brian. So 1st one is. Kassandra Swenson: what are examples of organizations that use headless and universal cms for their websites. Brian Graves: Example. So in in the mission driven space, I think. So. Brian Graves: I think there's a couple of different spaces. We're seeing this one like I mentioned is kind of the arts and culture space. We're seeing a lot of those institutions move in this direction. Sanity is seeing kind of huge growth there. So it's crap. And really, organizations like that that are looking for visually rich or highly engaging
Brian Graves: experiences that that where you can use something like a Nextjs to deliver that a lot better and a lot in a lot more engaging way than maybe a traditional kind of front end setup we're seeing a lot of use there. The other place is kind of enterprise level Brian Graves: organizations that have potentially needs beyond Brian Graves: just a straightforward website. And they may need to deliver content to multiple locations and kind of Api first, st or have, listen. Universal systems really do that. A lot better kind of that omni-channel approach than a traditional platform as well. So I I think in the mission driven space like those are the those are the 2 Brian Graves: big ones I've seen is like those Brian Graves: enterprise, level organizations and arts and culture. It's been really big. I think, in general Brian Graves: Trend has been that way as a whole. But those have been the the 2 areas where it's kind of gained. Most steamer had the most growth. Kassandra Swenson: Great Brian. You answered 2 questions with one answer. There the next one was, are any of these enterprise solutions? So? The next question it? Well, statement questions. I'm curious if there is. If there's human work or intervention involved in properly formatting and prepping content in order to render well in AI, or can we just literally dump a lot of unstructured content into a repository? And AI will make it work and make sense.
Brian Graves: There is human work involved. Certainly. And that's kinda on the one slide around, AI is 10%. And the other 90% is data work and change management. Certainly. There, when we've worked with organizations on this, a good percentage of the work is in collect is in figuring out what those data sources are Brian Graves: pulling that that unstructured data into a system of some sort, setting it up and getting it to a place. Getting a tag. We have solutions that can automatically be tagged and things like that. But there is some amount of human work upfront to make sure the data is in a good place for sure. To to be valuable and be usable. So it is. It goes beyond Brian Graves: dumping a ton of content. Into a repository and pointing AI at it. There! There's certainly more data work that that needs to be done there upfront to to get the most value and use out of. Out of some of these solutions. Kassandra Swenson: Great. And the next question is, is sustainability even possible with AI right now, and the required amount of energy to be able to run it. Kassandra Swenson: It's a good question.
Brian Graves: It it? Yes, it that is one, certainly one of the challenges. In AI right now. I I think what we're seeing Brian Graves: that Brian Graves: is good is the energy efficiency is, it's getting more efficient. So it's going down. There's, I think, with like deep seek, which Brian Graves: probably you don't want to use for various reasons, just where it's coming from, but like how much more efficient that has been, and like Openai AI's models? And I think all the other models like learning from some of that how they're approaching that is, driving more efficiency in place, whereas, like open AI and some others have just kind of taking the the brute force approach of Brian Graves: throw energy at it. I I think they're they're getting a little more sophisticated. And how they're thinking about it. I've even seen there's a few companies out there are thinking about how to compact Brian Graves: that their models into something that can live within device, or be embedded within devices, instead of even like hitting the cloud, which is, is really exciting as well. So I I it is certainly a a concern and certainly a a challenge. And I think what we urge organizations to do is like, let's have the good use. Case is the the energy you're gonna use from this. Brian Graves: the the good that's gonna come out of what you're doing with the solution worth kind of the offset there of the energy that's gonna you that it's gonna use. But also the same time really excited about the the direction where these are becoming more efficient, efficient, hopefully through some advancements we can. We can make some leeway there or some headway there as far as the energy they're being used, but certainly still a challenge at the moment. I think the other thing is Brian Graves: yeah, primarily, primarily, those 2 2 things, but but certainly something to
2025-03-06 06:45
