News Analysis
The Gist
- Headless CMS to a composable architecture pioneer. Contentful's facilitating enhanced content orchestration, seamless API integrations and agile digital experiences.
- Innovation in Contentful's composable architecture. Unveiling the Experience Builder and advanced AI tools, streamlining content management and empowering marketing teams.
- Contentful's strategic focus on composable architecture. Broadening enterprise allure with EU data compliance, efficient cross-space referencing and comprehensive external system integrations.
Over the past two years the Digital Experience Platform (DXP) space has been fascinating to observe with different tech providers continuing to attract investment, execute acquisitions introduce new features and evolve their marketing messages. It’s safe to say that DXP vendors have not been resting on their laurels.
A high-level observation to be made about the sector is that most vendors have continued to expand their offerings, seeking wider appeal, adding features and capabilities through both investment and acquisition. This means that some platforms that started life as a straight forward Web CMS, now resemble something more like a DXP.
Table of Contents
- Monolithic to Cloud: The Composable Architecture
- Enhanced Orchestration From Multiple Sources
- Enhanced Support for Content Reuse Across Spaces
- A New Experience Builder Rooted in No-Code, Low-Code
- Contentful's New GenAI Tools
- Additional Connectors and Governance
- Contentful's Composable Architecture and Future of Agile Digital Experiences
Monolithic to Cloud: The Composable Architecture
Another key trend is a move away from monolithic integrated platforms to cloud-based, composable and API-driven solutions that support headless publishing and composable martech architecture, better supporting agility in a fast-moving multi-channel world through a series of offerings that can be deployed independently.
Many vendors have positioned themselves as headless CMS solutions, or at a minimum have raised their hands as also headless, checking the functional box du jour.
Generally, the best-of-breed approach that the "composable DXP" approach supports also arguably helps marketers get more value out of their martech stack and helps them avoid paying for features they don’t need or won’t use.
Recent evolutions at Contentful, traditionally a headless CMS, reflect these megatrends in the industry.
Following a $175 million investment in 2021, Contentful has continued to evolve features and offerings that open up its appeal and makes them a viable option in considering a wider DXP with digital marketing features. It has also sought to support a composable architecture, positioning themselves as the "composable content platform."
The latest set of product announcements from Contentful — delivered via a slick presentation in early October — further broaden the platform’s appeal. For example, it delivers more low code interfaces so marketers are less reliant on technical teams and introduces EU data residency to appeal to enterprise customers with GDPR and other regulation sensitivities. Ramping up orchestration capabilities also supports Contentful’s brand positioning.
Unsurprisingly, there is also an emphasis on AI.
Let’s explore some of the specifics of the latest product announcement and what it means for the platform and the future of a composable architecture.
Enhanced Orchestration From Multiple Sources
Contentful continues to brand itself as a platform that can better enable teams to managing content in a composable DXP. In the new product update, there is additional support for what Contentful calls "multi-experience orchestration."
One of the ways this is being achieved is through support for external integrations:
- content from third-party sources such as an ecommerce platforms
- Digital Asset Management (DAM) integrations
- Product Information Management (PIM) integrations
...all to be accessed via the Contentful API.
This means that content from multiple sources via an expanding library of connectors can be integrated with the native content from the Contentful headless CMS, all within the Contentful UI. This provides a go-to place to manage content within a composable platform, providing the potential for Contentful to differentiate itself from its competitors.
Related Article: Monolithic to Modular: How Composable DX Is Transforming Digital Experience Creation
Enhanced Support for Content Reuse Across Spaces
Contentful has also announced additional support for “cross-space referencing," allowing content to be more easily reused across different spaces. This will support larger organizations for example with multiple sites in operation across different territories, and again helps Contentful to appeal to the enterprise market.
This additional support covers:
- A way to encode API keys to work across multiple sites
- A way to fetch all the referenced data via one API call
- A way to link entries across environments; for example, staging and live
- Enabling cross-space references within Contentful’s rich text editor.
A New Experience Builder Rooted in No-Code, Low-Code
Contentful announced a new “Experience Builder," that enables marketing teams to design templates and specifically one-off layouts using an intuitive no-code, low-code interface while ensuring everything is still on-brand.
This again is designed to make marketers and content contributors more self-sufficient and less reliant on IT or other constrained technical resources. The builder uses a drag-and-drop interface and can utilize elements from a design system.
This undoubtedly will be attractive to web and marketing teams who will appreciate the flexibility and control, and likely will have enough guardrails put in place to maintain brand consistency. The Experience Builder is currently available through Contentful’s Early Access Program and still has a few tweaks to be made before it will be widely available next spring.
Related Article: Headless Sitecore — Exploring the Many Options
Contentful's New GenAI Tools
The release of ChatGPT and OpenAI’s API to leverage the GPT Large Language Model (LLM) has seen many tech providers emphasize their AI-powered services when they to go market, as well as specifically developing integrations that allow users to leverage the power of ChatGPT within their solution.
Contentful is ticking both these boxes — positioning AI as a central pillar of its platform evolution — and releasing integrations, although these are dependent on a customer subscribing to OpenAI’s services. The emphasis on incorporating generative AI into Contentful clearly makes sense, meeting customer expectations but also to place the platform in a position of strength to develop other AI-related services.
In the product announcement three generative AI features are highlighted: an AI Content Generator that covers text, SEO and other aspects, an accompanying AI Image Generator and an AI Content Type generator that models content types with various different components based on a free text description.
Additional Connectors and Governance
Like other DXP vendors trying to enhance their composable architecture, the number of connectors and add-ons continues to expand. The latest Contentful announcements encompass some new integrations including one with AWS Amplify, as well as highlighting an add-on from Ninetailed that delivers personalization and A/B testing. The product announcement also includes some additional governance support: for example, through the introduction of EU data residency.
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Contentful's Composable Architecture and Future of Agile Digital Experiences
Contentful’s funding injection has put it in a position of strength and gives it the financial horsepower to focus on carving out its own market niche.
Expect to see the Contentful team pushing the product to evolve from headless CMS to a broader platform that supports a composable architecture, while retaining content management and content services at its core.
