AI-driven content and web development: an interview about the digital future

Reflecting on the evolution of web development in recent years, what significant changes have emerged, and what trends do you foresee shaping its future?

Sebastijan: From a technology perspective, recent years have brought a lot of game-changers. As a matter of fact, every year brings us new technology or methods that are shaping development approaches and what businesses actually look for. To name just a few: (Gen) AI and machine learning embedded into web apps, headless CMS, composable, and more. In a mix and match of these technological nuances, I see the future  in an AI-powered, personalised delivery of content.

How has the structure of the content transformed over the past few years, and what key characteristics or features are now essential for creating impactful content?

Charlie: Content has actually become less structured over time. The reason for this is the idea of content is based on the legacy CMS platform which takes a very linear approach to how content works: You put your content into the platform, you apply some layout, and webpages drop out the other side.

But it doesn’t work like that: Content exists in multiple different systems at various stages of production. With a modern content platform like Contentful, businesses can structure content in a flexible, composable way, pulling from different systems like Digital Asset Management, Product Information Management, and personalisation engines to create unique, dynamic customer experiences.

How do you envision the role of AI in shaping the future of web and content creation, and what break-throughs do you anticipate in the coming years?

Charlie: First of all, AI is not a silver bullet. In fact, if you have velocity problems getting your content through production in a timely manner then AI is only going to amplify those problems. However, the potential of AI is huge. Creating rich content and imagery from a few prompts is the new reality.

The smart money is really laying the groundwork now. Increasing content velocity and removing bottlenecks is the true gateway to unleashing the potential of AI. Structured content is the lifeblood of AI’s Large Language Models (LLMs). Companies who structure their content can then train tools like IBM watsonx with their own content – capturing not only the words and pictures, but the tone of voice, and also knowing that their AI is trained with their own intellectual property!

Sebastijan: It seems quite certain that speed will be the main advantage AI brings to the table in the short run to help workers operate as efficiently as possible. In the long run, AI should be able to tackle creative tasks that are completely on business and brand. So, as far as content is concerned, businesses will be (or already are) more efficent realeasing new products or just doing day-to-day operations.

For both time perspectives – short and long term – I believe businesses should strive to build massive databases decoupled from the delivery endpoints, so that AI can feed from coherent, contextualized data in order to produce top-notch brand-compliant content, without huge training/re-training or prompting intervals. If we take that as true, a few principles philosophies are a must – MACH architecture for MarTech, data-first strategy, strong asset governance models, and adopting change management as a constant business approach.

Can you share your insights on the intersection of AI, web development, and content management? How do these three elements complement each other in creating a seamless user experience?

Sebastijan: The intersection happens on different levels. AI is a tool enhancing the two mentioned strategic activities – web development and content management – by improving their efficiency and, hopefully, quality.

As far as content management is concerned, AI helps businesses foster content throughout all content operations out of which web development is just one link. Take these examples – in the MarTech, AI tools enhance and help digest agency creative briefs as a starting link of content operations; then – creative assistants find existing assets and/or co-create new ones; next – metadata stewardship is semi-automated via AI in PIM and DAM systems. As a next point in the chain, AI can go so far as to automate the creation of landing pages based on user profiles generated by analytics. So, basically, we could say that the outcome for the user is getting the right content fast, across multiple channels.

Charlie: Agree! I would also reframe AI as “Augmented Intelligence” – it really is a tool in the box. The role of platform vendors like Contentful is to make it accessible and useful.

People often think of Gen AI as the only thing that AI does, but in Content Management it opens up a world of possibilities around things like content metrics, localisation, segment discovery, and many more. The role of the developer becomes less about stitching things together, and more about combining the best tools for the best outcomes.

Can you give an example of an innovative use case of AI in web development and content creation that you have seen in the industry?

Charlie: One thing has blown my mind recently. It’s about a customer who has trained an AI chatbot using their own content, structured in Contentful. As they create content, the chatbot learns – but here’s the clever bit: If the chatbot cannot find content to help a user, it will make a suggestion to the content editors for new content. So not only is the chatbot helping customers, it’s creating a positive feedback loop helping content editors!

How do you think the evolution of AI will impact the future of personalisation and user engagement in web and content experiences?

Sebastijan: I think AI will drive true hyper-personalisation. It will enable businesses to deliver highly relevant content based on user behaviour. Machine learning will make user behaviour analysis more precise, and AI will create context-based content that enhances user engagement. This level of personalisation will redefine the user experience.

What role do you see AI playing in addressing issues such as content accessibility, inclusivity, and ethical considerations in the digital landscape?

Charlie: It will undoubtedly become the dominant force, certainly in terms of accessibility.

AI also gives the opportunity to open up a whole world for neurodiverse people since it’s extremely good at summarising and reframing content. Like a short summary of a page may be great for someone with ADHD. Content could be reframed for people who prefer more structure and less ambiguity. The possibilities are endless.

Ethical considerations are at an interesting inflection point. For example, Instagram allows you to mark content that has been created with AI. As chatbots become more and more like humans, there may be a need to make someone aware that they are not chatting to a human. Ethics in AI is a developing area and not even the leading scholars are in total agreement about what that looks like.

Looking ahead, what is your vision for the ultimate web and content experience, powered by AI, that can transform the way we interact with digital platforms?

Charlie: It is moving so quickly that predictions quickly become old news. However, the one thing that’s true is that we’re on the brink of something really exciting.

Customers who are structuring their content now, and moving towards MACH and composable tech stacks are the ones best set to start adding AI to their platforms. Customer experience is, and always will be, based on delivering the right content at the right time on the right device. AI won’t change that fundamental truth – but it will become a significant part of a business’s way of creating content, sometimes totally on the fly – to meet a customer need.

Sebastijan: It’s definitely exciting! Beyond that, I see the future of the web in an AI-powered, personalised delivery of content fragments. To make sense out of this buzzword salad, let me try to put it this way: content that brands offer to their customers is becoming ever-more personalised, and this trend should only go up. Algorithms for delivering personalised experiences based on what users has consumed online are getting better each and every day, and they span their reach across platforms.

I also vision search experience driven by user behaviour, and here AI comes into play as a contextual search assistant delivering content from the vast digital oceans of multimedia and text brands are putting online.

To accommodate this new behaviour, brands will have to shape their content into meaningful, high optimised fragments that AI assistants will be able to scan, contextualise, and deliver to end users.

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