How AI is transforming content management

Consumers expect more and more content online that entertains them and brings brands and products closer to them in an authentic way. According to a recent Deloitte study, demand for content increased 1.5-fold last year against this backdrop. The major challenge for marketing is to keep pace with this speed. This is because the demand for content creation is growing significantly faster than the number of content creators in companies. As a result, only every second marketing team is currently able to meet the huge demand for content. In addition to the sheer volume of content to be created, companies also have to cope with the growing demands on the customer experience. These include the desire for deep personalisation, which requires numerous variants optimised for individual target groups when creating content. The unabated increase in the number of channels and touchpoints, for which customised content is also required, should also be mentioned here. The good news is that artificial intelligence can make content management in the relevant corporate departments much more effective, efficient and up-to-date, thus closing the content gap described above in no time at all. 

AI as the key to a new content era

Anyone who has ever used ChatGPT and Midjourney knows that generative AI can be used to create texts and images quickly and easily.But that's not all: AI can help marketers to better cluster target groups from existing data and/or identify new target groups that can be addressed with effective personalisation. At the same time, marketers benefit from improved content governance, e.g. when identifying and editing content or searching for content with certain (or missing) properties in the content management system or website. Content governance is particularly relevant with regard to regulated industries such as pharmaceuticals, medical technology, banking and insurance. 

More efficiency for better content 

Particularly important with regard to the content gap: AI helps editorial teams to produce much more and better content in less time. This is because instead of producing their own content, the editorial team only specifies (via prompts) what type of content is required. The generative AI takes over the actual creation based on its language model (Large Language Model, LLM). It can also create optimised variants from existing content, e.g. to address specific target groups in a personalised way. Smart AI tools offer internationally active companies the opportunity to machine-translate their content or generate it in several languages at once. This simply saves time-consuming translation processes. 

At a glance: Generative AI supports content production in the CMS through automated...

• Content generation

• Text classification

• Generation of images

• Tagging of images

• Creation of content variants for the personalisation and enrichment of website metadata

• Translations 

Another advantage: the faster creation and translation of content increases its topicality. With this freshly published content, marketers can draw more attention to their content in relation to hotly debated and current topics. 

CMS solutions with proprietary AI 

AI has long since found its way into common CMS solutions - so far mainly as proprietary or 3rd party AI. Large manufacturers with a comprehensive portfolio in particular prefer to rely on their own AI engines, which are emphasised as a USP by marketing. The advantage of proprietary AI solutions such as Adobe Sensei and Salesforce Einstein is that all of the manufacturer's components can be optimally combined with one another. However, the prerequisite for this is that customers buy the relevant product range from the same manufacturer - which rarely happens in practice. One reason for this is that a single AI solution is not yet very effective if you have to solve different tasks, such as generating texts and images, classifying texts, recognising image content and tagging images, segmenting users and forming target groups. 

Integrate AI from third-party providers 

Smart plugins and extensions from specialised 3rd party providers, which can be easily integrated into the existing CMS, offer an alternative to in-house AI solutions. From content type generators (Contentful) to AI-driven search & merch solutions (FirstSpirit) and content management (Strapi): Individual AI components can be used to specifically improve your own CMS and create enormous time and cost benefits. Another option is the composable approach (Magnolia AI Accelerator), which can be used to put together the right solution for your own use case from suitable AI components. Third-party AI components such as ChatGPT can be exchanged for competitor products via configuration if they do not perform as desired. It is also possible to use your own LLMs, such as Ollama, which is particularly interesting for use with very specialised content requirements. 

Conclusion: AI is the next step in CMS evolution 

One thing is already clear: AI is conquering content management. By 2030, there will probably no longer be any content on the internet that has not been created with the help of an AI application. However, this has not yet really arrived in companies. At the latest with the growing spread of modern AI solutions in CMS, it would have been time to deal with their potential and impact on content strategy and structure and to build up expertise in this area. Surprisingly, this has very rarely happened in practice. Instead of making content more usable via intelligent AI structures, the author team has tended to be expanded in order to combat the content gap. A rethink is therefore urgently needed if content marketing is to remain successful in the future. This includes creating the necessary data basis - especially if proprietary AI is to be used. After all, every AI solution ultimately stands and falls with the data used to train it. If the data quality of the input is not right, no good content can be expected as output. 

When it comes to choosing the right AI solution, companies should bear in mind that many AI products from CMS/DXP manufacturers are still at an early stage of maturity. At the same time, the market is moving forward extremely quickly. Approaches that seemed forward-looking nine months ago, for example, are already cold coffee today and have already been overtaken by better concepts. This is where it can make sense to seek advice from experienced AI partners who have extensive market expertise and many years of AI experience.  

Despite all the hype, it is clear that the topic of AI will not disappear from content management. Companies that don't want to miss the boat need to act now and close the current content gap using AI. Our AI experts at diconium will be happy to support you in this endeavour. 

You can find more tips and information on the value-adding use of AI in your company here - or on 16 October 2024 at THE SESS10N, the event on the most important topics of digital transformation in Stuttgart.