Missed the Driesnote? You can watch it here.

Drupal, the open source content management platform that runs some of the most demanding websites on the planet, turned 25 in January. But while the community is celebrating what is a remarkable milestone for any open source project, it is actively strengthening its foundations to lead in the AI era and looking ahead to a future it intends to shape.

This week at DrupalCon Chicago, Drupal's creator Dries Buytaert delivered his annual keynote, the DriesNote, and it was one of the more honest talks you'll hear at a tech conference. A clear-eyed look at what's working, what's under pressure, and what the plan actually is.

AI is Disrupting Everything, But Deep Expertise is Irreplaceable

For more than two decades, the Drupal ecosystem has rested on three things: the platform itself, the agencies that build with it, and the community that maintains it. That triangle has survived waves of new technology and constant change. It's been remarkably resilient.

But what happens when AI disrupts all three sides at once? When anyone can spin up a decent-looking site in fifteen minutes, what does that do to the people who've spent years building something better? That’s what is happening at the moment, as the world is being flooded with AI-generated “average”. Average content, average code, average websites - average is easier to attain than ever.

What it means is that the only thing that will actually matter, to customers, to organisations, to the people trying to build something lasting on the open web, is genuine, hard-won, deep expertise.

What AI Actually Can't Do

Here's something worth understanding, because it gets lost in the noise.

AI can generate a beautiful website in about fifteen minutes. Tools like Lovable and Replit are genuinely impressive. You give them a prompt, they give you something that looks polished and professional. It feels like magic.

But a prototype is not a production system.

The moment you need structured content that editors can actually update, workflows that a real team can follow, permissions, governance, security, accessibility, multilingual support, compliance... you're not building a website anymore. You're building a system. And building systems is exactly what Drupal has excelled at for 25 years.

The demo at DrupalCon made this tangible. A beautiful event site built in Lovable in minutes, then migrated into Drupal CMS using AI coding tools, where the hard-coded layout became structured, reusable, editable content. Same visual ambition. Completely different foundation.

The pitch is simple: AI gets you to visual ambition fast. Drupal makes that ambition durable.

What's Actually Shipping

This isn't a vision talk. Things are being built and released.

DrupalCMS 2.1 landed at DrupalCon, built on top of Drupal Core 11.3. Over the last 18 months, core database and cache utilization have roughly halved, meaning every Drupal site in the world gets faster when it upgrades. That's not a minor thing. That's the compounding benefit of a serious engineering community.

Site templates and a marketplace are now live at marketplace.drupal.org, with more than ten purpose-built templates covering nonprofits, education, healthcare, events, government, and SaaS, built by agencies that understand those sectors. Free and premium options, with direct access to the people who made them if you need help.

Canvas, Drupal's new page-building layer, lets teams create and customise pages at speed without sacrificing the structured content underneath.

The Context Control Centre is a system for storing and managing your organisation's institutional knowledge (brand guidelines, content strategy, audience personas, live analytics) and it's moving from prototype to production. The idea is that AI tools are only as good as the context they're given. Without it, you get the average of the internet. With it, you get something that actually knows your brand.

And in the AI layer itself, a demo showed what it looks like when a marketer can drop a raw content brief into Drupal, have the system read it, load the right brand and strategy context, ask clarifying questions, and generate a production-ready page, with proper cross-linking, structured data for AI search engines, and an accessibility check built in.

That's not a concept. That's a demo running on real code.

One Developer, Six Weeks, 90,000 Lines of Code

The most striking moment of the keynote was a contribution from Jurgen Haas, one of the Drupal community's most experienced developers. He builds ECA, Drupal's automation engine, running on thousands of production sites.

Three years ago, he knew what ECA needed. He knew how to build it. He never had the time.

Six weeks ago, he started. With AI as a collaborator, handling scaffolding, generating tests, refactoring code, he shipped a completely rebuilt workflow editor: a new visual interface, built-in debugging and replay, in-context automation for non-technical users. 90,000 lines of code. Full test coverage. One person.

"This is what one Drupal developer can build in six weeks," he said. "Imagine what all of us can build next."

The key detail: Jurgen could explain every line. He could defend the architecture. He owned what he built. AI removed friction. It didn't replace expertise.

The Harder Conversation

Not everything in the keynote was product news.

Dries was honest about the pressure on Drupal agencies. When AI commoditises production, and it is, the business models that agencies have built over years start to look shaky. An agency leader named Aidan Foster, seventeen years into running a Drupal shop, described the feeling plainly: "AI had converted making things into a commodity. That shook the foundations I had spent 17 years building."

But Aidan's conclusion was interesting. The bottleneck isn't production anymore. It's creativity, strategy, and judgement. If you use AI without asking the hard questions, who are we, who are our audience, what makes us different, you get the boring average. The agencies that will win are the ones that get good at encoding expertise, not just delivering outputs.

There's also a challenge for the community itself. AI lowers the barrier to contribute code, which sounds good, until you realise the burden of reviewing that code falls on the same small group of maintainers. And when people use AI to skip the deep learning that used to come from contributing, the community gets shallower. A shallow community can't maintain what's been built.

Dries' response was a new mantra:never submit code you don't understand. It doesn't matter what tools you used to write it. If you submit it, you own it.

The Bet Worth Making

Twenty years ago, Dries was a bedroom inventor who collapsed from stress on a street in Belgium. He had a choice: take a safe job, walk away from the thing he'd built, or ask for help and become a deliberate leader.

He made the harder choice. The community that grew up around that choice is why Drupal is still here, still relevant, still running critical infrastructure for organisations around the world.

Now there's another crossroads. AI is both the flood and the drainage system. It destabilises the foundations and it can help rebuild them stronger.

Twenty-five years of Drupal is twenty-five years of expertise built patch by patch, merge request by merge request. A community that showed up not because it had to, but because it cared. That's not a liability in the age of AI. That's exactly what this moment needs.

DrupalCon Chicago runs through this week. The marketplace is live at marketplace.drupal.org. The Context Control Centre is approaching production. The Drupal AI initiative is moving fast.

Missed the Driesnote? You can watch it here.

Drupal, the open source content management platform that runs some of the most demanding websites on the planet, turned 25 in January. But while the community is celebrating what is a remarkable milestone for any open source project, it is actively strengthening its foundations to lead in the AI era and looking ahead to a future it intends to shape.

This week at DrupalCon Chicago, Drupal's creator Dries Buytaert delivered his annual keynote, the DriesNote, and it was one of the more honest talks you'll hear at a tech conference. A clear-eyed look at what's working, what's under pressure, and what the plan actually is.

AI is Disrupting Everything, But Deep Expertise is Irreplaceable

For more than two decades, the Drupal ecosystem has rested on three things: the platform itself, the agencies that build with it, and the community that maintains it. That triangle has survived waves of new technology and constant change. It's been remarkably resilient.

But what happens when AI disrupts all three sides at once? When anyone can spin up a decent-looking site in fifteen minutes, what does that do to the people who've spent years building something better? That’s what is happening at the moment, as the world is being flooded with AI-generated “average”. Average content, average code, average websites - average is easier to attain than ever.

What it means is that the only thing that will actually matter, to customers, to organisations, to the people trying to build something lasting on the open web, is genuine, hard-won, deep expertise.

What AI Actually Can't Do

Here's something worth understanding, because it gets lost in the noise.

AI can generate a beautiful website in about fifteen minutes. Tools like Lovable and Replit are genuinely impressive. You give them a prompt, they give you something that looks polished and professional. It feels like magic.

But a prototype is not a production system.

The moment you need structured content that editors can actually update, workflows that a real team can follow, permissions, governance, security, accessibility, multilingual support, compliance... you're not building a website anymore. You're building a system. And building systems is exactly what Drupal has excelled at for 25 years.

The demo at DrupalCon made this tangible. A beautiful event site built in Lovable in minutes, then migrated into Drupal CMS using AI coding tools, where the hard-coded layout became structured, reusable, editable content. Same visual ambition. Completely different foundation.

The pitch is simple: AI gets you to visual ambition fast. Drupal makes that ambition durable.

What's Actually Shipping

This isn't a vision talk. Things are being built and released.

DrupalCMS 2.1 landed at DrupalCon, built on top of Drupal Core 11.3. Over the last 18 months, core database and cache utilization have roughly halved, meaning every Drupal site in the world gets faster when it upgrades. That's not a minor thing. That's the compounding benefit of a serious engineering community.

Site templates and a marketplace are now live at marketplace.drupal.org, with more than ten purpose-built templates covering nonprofits, education, healthcare, events, government, and SaaS, built by agencies that understand those sectors. Free and premium options, with direct access to the people who made them if you need help.

Canvas, Drupal's new page-building layer, lets teams create and customise pages at speed without sacrificing the structured content underneath.

The Context Control Centre is a system for storing and managing your organisation's institutional knowledge (brand guidelines, content strategy, audience personas, live analytics) and it's moving from prototype to production. The idea is that AI tools are only as good as the context they're given. Without it, you get the average of the internet. With it, you get something that actually knows your brand.

And in the AI layer itself, a demo showed what it looks like when a marketer can drop a raw content brief into Drupal, have the system read it, load the right brand and strategy context, ask clarifying questions, and generate a production-ready page, with proper cross-linking, structured data for AI search engines, and an accessibility check built in.

That's not a concept. That's a demo running on real code.

One Developer, Six Weeks, 90,000 Lines of Code

The most striking moment of the keynote was a contribution from Jurgen Haas, one of the Drupal community's most experienced developers. He builds ECA, Drupal's automation engine, running on thousands of production sites.

Three years ago, he knew what ECA needed. He knew how to build it. He never had the time.

Six weeks ago, he started. With AI as a collaborator, handling scaffolding, generating tests, refactoring code, he shipped a completely rebuilt workflow editor: a new visual interface, built-in debugging and replay, in-context automation for non-technical users. 90,000 lines of code. Full test coverage. One person.

"This is what one Drupal developer can build in six weeks," he said. "Imagine what all of us can build next."

The key detail: Jurgen could explain every line. He could defend the architecture. He owned what he built. AI removed friction. It didn't replace expertise.

The Harder Conversation

Not everything in the keynote was product news.

Dries was honest about the pressure on Drupal agencies. When AI commoditises production, and it is, the business models that agencies have built over years start to look shaky. An agency leader named Aidan Foster, seventeen years into running a Drupal shop, described the feeling plainly: "AI had converted making things into a commodity. That shook the foundations I had spent 17 years building."

But Aidan's conclusion was interesting. The bottleneck isn't production anymore. It's creativity, strategy, and judgement. If you use AI without asking the hard questions, who are we, who are our audience, what makes us different, you get the boring average. The agencies that will win are the ones that get good at encoding expertise, not just delivering outputs.

There's also a challenge for the community itself. AI lowers the barrier to contribute code, which sounds good, until you realise the burden of reviewing that code falls on the same small group of maintainers. And when people use AI to skip the deep learning that used to come from contributing, the community gets shallower. A shallow community can't maintain what's been built.

Dries' response was a new mantra:never submit code you don't understand. It doesn't matter what tools you used to write it. If you submit it, you own it.

The Bet Worth Making

Twenty years ago, Dries was a bedroom inventor who collapsed from stress on a street in Belgium. He had a choice: take a safe job, walk away from the thing he'd built, or ask for help and become a deliberate leader.

He made the harder choice. The community that grew up around that choice is why Drupal is still here, still relevant, still running critical infrastructure for organisations around the world.

Now there's another crossroads. AI is both the flood and the drainage system. It destabilises the foundations and it can help rebuild them stronger.

Twenty-five years of Drupal is twenty-five years of expertise built patch by patch, merge request by merge request. A community that showed up not because it had to, but because it cared. That's not a liability in the age of AI. That's exactly what this moment needs.

DrupalCon Chicago runs through this week. The marketplace is live at marketplace.drupal.org. The Context Control Centre is approaching production. The Drupal AI initiative is moving fast.

Great digital experiences don't happen by accident, they're built with intention, inclusion, and users at the heart of every decision. At DrupalCon Rotterdam 2026, the UX, Accessibility and Usability track is bringing together designers, developers, content strategists, and decision-makers to explore how Drupal powers truly user-centred digital products.

We're looking for speakers with real stories to tell. Whether you've transformed an accessibility audit into lasting organisational change, built a design system that scaled beautifully across channels, or used user research to completely reshape a development roadmap — we want to hear from you.

          ^{Foto by Matthew Saunders}

We're particularly interested in sessions covering:

·    Accessibility beyond compliance - embedding WCAG and ATAG into everyday workflows

·    User research that drives real development decisions

·    Design systems and collaborative design-development workflows

·    Usability improvements backed by evidence and data

·    Content design and strategy, including practical uses of AI

·    Digital sustainability - designing for efficiency and longevity

This track is for anyone who believes that inclusion, usability, and good design aren't nice-to-haves — they're essential. Whether you're sharing a case study, a practical toolkit, or a freshperspective, your session could help Drupal practitioners everywhere build better, more inclusive digital experiences. 

Submissions close 13 April. 

Submmit your session: https://events.drupal.org/rotterdam2026/program-glance 

Don't wait! Share your expertise and help shape the conversation at DrupalCon Rotterdam 2026.

Recap of Drupal 12 release windows

Our release schedule includes three potential release dates for Drupal 12.0.0, depending on when critical requirements are completed:

1. Week of June 15, 2026, if beta requirements are completed by March 27
2. Week of August 10, 2026, if beta requirements are completed by May 15
3. Week of December 07, 2026, if beta requirements are completed by September 11

Our new target release date for Drupal 12.0.0 is the week of August 10, 2026

Many great improvements landed recently. The main branch is on Symfony 8 and most deprecated modules are removed already. With only a few days remaining until the March deadline of the first release option though, we are confident that not all critical requirements will be completed by March 27. Therefore, we are officially announcing that our new target release date for Drupal 12.0.0 is August 10, 2026, and the beta deadline for critical requirements is May 15, 2026.

We need your help to complete requirements by May 15!

While there are other pending improvements that are not hard requirements for Drupal 12's release, these are the most urgent needs:

1. PHPUnit 12 support

   While our ultimate goal is to support PHPUnit 13 in Drupal 12, there are significant API changes in PHPUnit 12 that we first need to adopt. See #3527936: Introduce support for PHPUnit 12

2. Import maps API

   CKEditor 5 is changing their installation method in the near future. See #3527914: [PP-1] Use New installation methods for CKEditor5

   To support this, we need a JavaScript import maps API in core. See #3398525: Add an API for importmaps

3. Update path related changes

   To test update paths from Drupal 11.3.0, we need to generate new database dumps. See #3569127: Add new 11.3.x database dump fixtures, without modules deprecated for removal in 12.x

   Remove older upgrade paths. See #3580877: [PP-1] Remove updates added prior to 11.3.0 from 12.x

4. Remove tests from release packages

   To reduce the size of core, we are excluding tests from core release packages, and offering them via a different namespace. This is a disruptive change and should only be done in a major release.
   See #3067979: Exclude test files from release packages.

5. Deprecate and remove libraries, modules, themes and dependencies

   The Toolbar Module needs to be removed from core now that the Navigation module is stable and in the standard profile. See #3484850: [PP-1] [meta] Deprecate Toolbar module

   There are more dependencies, modules and themes that are still possible to remove. See #3466088: [meta] Deprecate dependencies, libraries, modules, and themes that will be removed from Drupal 12 core

6. Move from Claro to Gin as admin theme

   Gin is in core as an alpha experimental extension. Help make it stable and so it can replace Claro.
   See #3576488: [meta] Admin theme: path to stable.

7. Update to ESLint 9

   The coding standard checks are using the unsupported ESLint 8. We need to update to version 9. See #3440225: Update to ESLint v9 with standard rules.
   See #3440225: Update to ESLint v9 with standard rules.

The above list are the current highest priorities. We'll keep identifying and tagging Drupal 12 release priority issues. The up to date list can be found using the Drupal 12.0.0 release priority tag.

Recap of Drupal 12 release windows

Our release schedule includes three potential release dates for Drupal 12.0.0, depending on when critical requirements are completed:

1. Week of June 15, 2026, if beta requirements are completed by March 27
2. Week of August 10, 2026, if beta requirements are completed by May 15
3. Week of December 07, 2026, if beta requirements are completed by September 11

Our new target release date for Drupal 12.0.0 is the week of August 10, 2026

Many great improvements landed recently. The main branch is on Symfony 8 and most deprecated modules are removed already. With only a few days remaining until the March deadline of the first release option though, we are confident that not all critical requirements will be completed by March 27. Therefore, we are officially announcing that our new target release date for Drupal 12.0.0 is August 10, 2026, and the beta deadline for critical requirements is May 15, 2026.

We need your help to complete requirements by May 15!

While there are other pending improvements that are not hard requirements for Drupal 12's release, these are the most urgent needs:

1. PHPUnit 12 support

   While our ultimate goal is to support PHPUnit 13 in Drupal 12, there are significant API changes in PHPUnit 12 that we first need to adopt. See #3527936: Introduce support for PHPUnit 12

2. Import maps API

   CKEditor 5 is changing their installation method in the near future. See #3527914: [PP-1] Use New installation methods for CKEditor5

   To support this, we need a JavaScript import maps API in core. See #3398525: Add an API for importmaps

3. Update path related changes

   To test update paths from Drupal 11.3.0, we need to generate new database dumps. See #3569127: Add new 11.3.x database dump fixtures, without modules deprecated for removal in 12.x

   Remove older upgrade paths. See #3580877: [PP-1] Remove updates added prior to 11.3.0 from 12.x

4. Remove tests from release packages

   To reduce the size of core, we are excluding tests from core release packages, and offering them via a different namespace. This is a disruptive change and should only be done in a major release.
   See #3067979: Exclude test files from release packages.

5. Deprecate and remove libraries, modules, themes and dependencies

   The Toolbar Module needs to be removed from core now that the Navigation module is stable and in the standard profile. See #3484850: [PP-1] [meta] Deprecate Toolbar module

   There are more dependencies, modules and themes that are still possible to remove. See #3466088: [meta] Deprecate dependencies, libraries, modules, and themes that will be removed from Drupal 12 core

6. Move from Claro to Gin as admin theme

   Gin is in core as an alpha experimental extension. Help make it stable and so it can replace Claro.
   See #3576488: [meta] Admin theme: path to stable.

7. Update to ESLint 9

   The coding standard checks are using the unsupported ESLint 8. We need to update to version 9. See #3440225: Update to ESLint v9 with standard rules.
   See #3440225: Update to ESLint v9 with standard rules.

The above list are the current highest priorities. We'll keep identifying and tagging Drupal 12 release priority issues. The up to date list can be found using the Drupal 12.0.0 release priority tag.

Join us THURSDAY, March 19 at 1pm ET / 10am PT, for our regularly scheduled call to chat about all things Drupal and nonprofits. (Convert to your local time zone.)

We don't have anything specific on the agenda this month, so we'll have plenty of time to discuss anything that's on our minds at the intersection of Drupal and nonprofits. Got something specific you want to talk about? Feel free to share ahead of time in our collaborative Google document at https://nten.org/drupal/notes!

All nonprofit Drupal devs and users, regardless of experience level, are always welcome on this call.

This free call is sponsored by NTEN.org and open to everyone.

Information on joining the meeting can be found in our collaborative Google document.

Join us THURSDAY, March 19 at 1pm ET / 10am PT, for our regularly scheduled call to chat about all things Drupal and nonprofits. (Convert to your local time zone.)

We don't have anything specific on the agenda this month, so we'll have plenty of time to discuss anything that's on our minds at the intersection of Drupal and nonprofits. Got something specific you want to talk about? Feel free to share ahead of time in our collaborative Google document at https://nten.org/drupal/notes!

All nonprofit Drupal devs and users, regardless of experience level, are always welcome on this call.

This free call is sponsored by NTEN.org and open to everyone.

Information on joining the meeting can be found in our collaborative Google document.

At Tag1, we believe in proving AI within our own work before recommending it to clients. This post is part of our AI Applied content series, where team members share real stories of how they're using Artificial Intelligence and the insights and lessons they learn along the way. Here, Stefanos Petrakis, maintainer of the File Upload Secure Validator module, shows how he used AI to modernize a small but widely used Drupal security module and prepare it for Drupal 12.

As we look ahead to DrupalCon Europe 2026 in Rotterdam this October, we invite organizations, agencies, and digital leaders to submit their stories to the Success Stories & Innovation track.

This track showcases how Drupal is used today to power far more than websites. Across industries, Drupal enables organizations to build digital platforms, integrate complex systems, automate workflows, and create scalable ecosystems that support real business needs. From AI-driven personalization to DevOps automation and composable architectures, we want to highlight real-world projects that demonstrate how Drupal drives innovation.

In today’s fast-moving digital landscape, organizations must continuously evolve to stay competitive. Digital transformation is no longer just about launching a new website — it’s about building connected systems, automating processes, and delivering consistent experiences across multiple channels. Drupal plays a key role in this transformation as a flexible, secure, and extensible open-source platform that adapts to complex enterprise environments.

         ^{Foto by Paul Johnson  https://flic.kr/p/2rzSoJP}

Why Drupal?

Drupal is not just a content management system. It is a powerful platform that can act as the backbone of digital ecosystems, integrating content, data, services, and applications into a unified experience.

Organizations use Drupal to power digital experience platforms, API-first architectures, multi-site environments, and enterprise integrations. Its flexibility, scalability, and strong security model make it a trusted choice for governments, universities, global companies, and nonprofits.

With the rapid growth of AI, automation, and composable architectures, Drupal continues to evolve. Teams are using Drupal together with modern DevOps pipelines, personalization engines, headless front-ends, and cloud platforms to create future-ready digital solutions.

Today, Drupal powers more than 1.6 million active sites worldwide and supports platforms used by governments, media companies, universities, healthcare providers, and global enterprises. 

         ^{Foto by Paul Johnson https://flic.kr/p/2rzSprX}

How organizations use Drupal for digital transformation

Drupal is used in a wide range of industries to power critical digital systems, large-scale platforms, and complex content environments. For many organizations, Drupal is not just a website CMS, but the foundation of a broader digital infrastructure.

Across sectors, Drupal supports platforms such as:

• Government and public sector services
  Secure, accessible, and compliant platforms used by citizens, agencies, and institutions.
   
• Higher education and research ecosystems
  Multi-site university platforms, student portals, research publishing, and internal collaboration systems.
   
• Enterprise and corporate platforms
  Global websites, intranets, partner portals, and multi-brand environments.
   
• E-commerce and transactional systems
  Commerce platforms connected to payment providers, product systems, and ERP integrations.
   
• Healthcare and life sciences platforms
  Secure, multilingual, and compliant solutions for hospitals, research organizations, and health agencies.
   
• Media, publishing, and content-heavy platforms
  High-traffic sites, editorial workflows, and multi-channel publishing systems.
   
• Nonprofit and international organizations
  Fundraising platforms, campaign sites, and global content networks.
   
• Content hubs and API-driven platforms
  Drupal as a central system connected to multiple front-ends, apps, and services.
   

In many of these environments, Drupal is part of a larger ecosystem that includes cloud infrastructure, external services, internal tools, and custom applications. We want to showcase how organizations are using Drupal in these real-world contexts. 

         ^{Foto by Paul Johnson  https://flic.kr/p/2rzR6US}

DrupalCon Europe 2026 Rotterdam: Share your success story

Join us at DrupalCon Europe 2026 in Rotterdam this October and present your case study in the Success Stories & Innovation track.

This track is designed for organizations, agencies, digital managers, CTOs, CMOs, product owners, and business leaders who use Drupal to build impactful digital platforms and innovative solutions.

Our sessions are aimed at decision-makers and teams who want to understand how Drupal is used in real projects — not just as a CMS, but as part of larger digital ecosystems.

Whether you are building enterprise platforms, integrating AI, automating workflows, or connecting multiple systems, your experience can help others learn what is possible with Drupal.

What can you showcase?

For the Success Stories & Innovation track, we are especially looking for case studies that go deeper into how Drupal is used, how projects were built, and what makes them innovative.

We welcome submissions that explore themes such as:

• Drupal as part of a larger ecosystem or platform architecture
• Using Drupal beyond traditional websites
• Composable, headless, or API-first implementations
• Using AI in Drupal projects, including content automation, personalization, or intelligent search
• DevOps, CI/CD, and automated deployment workflows
• Integrations with CRM, ERP, marketing, or data platforms
• Automation of editorial, content, or business processes
• Managing multi-site, multi-brand, or multi-product platforms
• Building long-term, scalable, and maintainable systems
• Security, compliance, and accessibility at scale
• Using Drupal as a content hub, data hub, or integration layer

We are particularly interested in stories that show how decisions were made, what challenges were solved, and what others can learn from the experience. 

Tell us not only what you built, but why you built it that way.

         ^{Foto by pdjohnson https://flic.kr/p/2rzLG3s}

Why participate?

Tell your story

DrupalCon is the perfect place to share how your organization uses Drupal to solve real problems — whether you are building platforms, integrating systems, improving workflows, or creating new digital experiences.

Give back to the community

DrupalCon is about learning, sharing, and connecting with one of the largest open-source communities in the world. Your experience can inspire others and help shape the future of Drupal.

Submit your case study: https://events.drupal.org/rotterdam2026/submit-your-session-proposal 

Are you ready to showcase your Drupal-powered innovation? Submit your proposal for the Success Stories & Innovation track at DrupalCon Europe 2026 in Rotterdam and share your story with the global Drupal community.

Let’s build the future of digital experiences together.

See you in Rotterdam!

Authors: Will Huggins, Jeremy Chinquist

Drupal AI 1.3.0 is now available, delivering the largest feature update since the module's initial release. This version focuses on three areas that organisations told us matter most:

• Keeping AI safe and accountable
• Making AI useful for content teams
• Giving technical teams the visibility they need to operate AI in production with confidence

And because Drupal AI is open source, you stay in control of your models, your data, and your infrastructure.

AI Guardrails: stay in control of every AI interaction

Trust is the foundation of responsible AI adoption. Drupal AI 1.3.0 introduces AI Guardrails, configurable checks that run before or after any AI request.

Teams can define rules to control how AI interacts with their content and data. For example, they can block sensitive data from leaving their organisation, filter harmful responses, or enforce compliance policies. All of this can be configured without writing code.

Guardrails work across all AI operations in Drupal. This gives security and compliance teams a single place to oversee how AI is used across the site.

In practice, this means AI governance becomes part of the platform itself, rather than something teams must manage separately.

One-click AI for editors, right where they work

AI should meet editors in their workflow, not force them into a separate tool.

Drupal AI 1.3.0 introduces Field Widget Actions, one-click AI workflows attached directly to content fields.

Editors can now:

• Generate images from text descriptions and attach them as media
• Create structured FAQs from existing content
• Extract addresses from images using AI and Google Places
• Plot data from a CSV into a chart field
• Generate audio summaries with text-to-speech
• Auto-fill metadata such as telephone numbers and office hours from unstructured text
• Evaluate whether the content is ready for publication and update its moderation state

Each action is backed by a customisable workflow allowing site builders to tailor AI behaviour to their organisation’s needs and editorial standards without writing code.

A smarter, more flexible chatbot

Editors often need quick assistance while working on content. The built-in Drupal AI chatbot has been expanded to support this directly within the editing experience.

Open the chatbot via slide-in or full-screen mode, allowing the editor to choose the interface that best fits their workflow.

The chatbot receives page context, meaning it understands the content currently being viewed or edited.
Editors can ask questions such as:

• Make this title more engaging
• Summarise this article for social media

Because the chatbot receives the current page context, its responses relate directly to the content on the screen.
Custom loading messages replace generic spinners, allowing site builders to provide clearer feedback while AI requests are processed.

Better tools for developers and site builders

As organisations begin building AI-powered features in Drupal, developers need tools that simplify configuration and reduce boilerplate.

Drupal AI 1.3.0 includes a set of reusable form elements designed specifically for AI workflows.
These components provide consistent interfaces for working with AI providers, prompts, and structured outputs.

The new elements include:

• Markdown editor with WYSIWYG, diff view, and Word paste compatibility
• Mentions autocomplete, allowing users to type @ or { to insert prompt variables
• Provider Selector, a unified interface for selecting AI providers
• JSON Schema editor with validation for structured output configuration
• Chat History viewer that mirrors the conversational interface of modern AI playgrounds

Configuration files have also been improved. Prompts are stored in a human-readable format rather than single-line strings, making code reviews easier and reducing merge conflicts when teams collaborate on AI workflows.

New AI operation types: rerank, summarize, detect

Drupal AI’s provider-agnostic architecture continues to expand with three additional operation types.

Rerank reorders search results or document lists based on relevance to a query. This is particularly useful in retrieval-augmented generation workflows.

Summarize uses lightweight summarization models instead of full language models, reducing cost and processing time.

Object Detection identifies objects in images using traditional machine learning models. The AI Validations module already uses this to verify image content automatically.

All operation types work with compatible providers, allowing organisations to change models without rewriting integration code.

Production-grade AI observability

Running AI in production requires visibility into how systems behave. Drupal AI’s observability module exports spans, traces, and metrics through OpenTelemetry, the industry standard for application monitoring.

Teams are able to connect this data to platforms such as Datadog, Grafana, Sentry, or any OpenTelemetry-compatible system.

This allows engineering teams to monitor AI agent decisions, track usage and cost, and audit AI interactions across their sites.

Combined with the exclude-tags feature for logging, organisations also gain fine-grained control over what information is recorded and what remains private.

A maturing platform: consolidation and clear direction

Drupal AI 1.3.0 also simplifies parts of the platform.

AI Translate gives way to TMGMT (Translation Management Tool), aligning AI-assisted translation with Drupal’s standard translation workflow.

Field Widget Actions now provide a flexible framework for AI-assisted editorial tasks. AI Content Suggestions remains available as a contrib module for teams that want to continue building on that approach.

AI Validations will use the Object Detection operation type going forward, while still allowing different validation modules to build on the same abstraction.

These changes simplify the core architecture while leaving room for contrib modules and alternative implementations.

Closing the Loop

AI in a CMS brings practical challenges around governance, editorial workflows, and production visibility.

Drupal AI 1.3.0 shows that these problems can be handled directly within Drupal.

AI can be governed, integrated into everyday publishing workflows, and monitored in production as part of the platform.

Get started

• Documentation and guides: https://www.drupal.org/project/ai
• Download Drupal AI 1.3.0
• Join the conversation: #ai on Drupal Slack

Drupal AI remains open source and provider-agnostic, allowing organisations to integrate AI capabilities while maintaining control over their infrastructure, data, and model choices.

Full release notes

This post highlights the major additions. For the complete list of changes, bug fixes, and improvements in 1.3.0, see the full release notes on drupal.org.

Read more articles about Drupal AI.
 

Every year, the global campaign organised by the Union for International Cancer Control invites people affected by cancer to share their personal experiences as part of World Cancer Day. These stories provide an important human perspective on the realities of cancer. They help build solidarity, encourage early diagnosis, and ensure the voices of patients, survivors, families and carers are heard around the world.

However, when a global campaign encourages participation at scale, the practical challenges quickly become clear. Hundreds of deeply personal stories can arrive from many different countries in a short period of time. Each submission needs to be reviewed carefully, handled with sensitivity, and prepared for publication. For a small team responsible for managing the campaign, this can create significant pressure during the peak period around World Cancer Day.

To address this challenge, the World Cancer Day team partnered with 1xINTERNET to explore how artificial intelligence could support their existing editorial workflow within Drupal.

Balancing efficiency and human oversight in AI assisted moderation

Rather than attempting to automate the process entirely, the approach focused on supporting human decision making. AI was introduced to assist moderators by helping them review incoming submissions more efficiently. This allowed the team to process stories more quickly while ensuring that personal experiences remained at the centre of the review process.

The result is a practical example of how AI can be applied responsibly. Technology is used to assist people rather than replace them, helping organisations manage growing volumes of content while maintaining appropriate oversight and care.

In this upcoming webinar we will explore the approach taken by the World Cancer Day team and the lessons it offers for other organisations facing similar challenges.

Register for the webinar

What the webinar will cover

Participants will hear about:

• The role that personal stories play in the global World Cancer Day movement
• The operational challenge of moderating hundreds of submissions from around the world
• How AI supported a human moderation process rather than replacing it
• Practical lessons for organisations considering responsible applications of AI

The session is designed for organisational leaders, communications teams, and others exploring how artificial intelligence can be introduced in a considered and practical way. Using a real global campaign as its foundation, it offers a practical example of how AI can support teams managing large volumes of user generated content.

Event details

Title: Helping people tell their cancer stories using AI: Lessons from World Cancer Day
Date: 16 March 2026
Time: 2:00 PM GMT*
Format: Live webinar

Register now to secure your place.

*If the timing is not convenient, the session will be recorded and shared with everyone who registers so it can be watched afterwards.

Speakers

Charles Andrew Revkin

Communications professional working on the World Cancer Day campaign at the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). Charles leads global storytelling efforts that amplify the voices of people affected by cancer around the world.

Diego Costa

Chief Operating Officer at 1xINTERNET. Diego works with organisations to design and deliver complex digital platforms using open-source technologies including Drupal.

Matthew Saunders

AI Ambassador at amazee.io and long-time member of the Drupal community. Matthew works on initiatives that help organisations adopt AI in ways that respect privacy, transparency, and human decision-making.

More webinars and events

This is part of a series of webinars and global events organised by Drupal AI. For full details visit our events calendar.

Written by guest blogger María Fernanda Silva

Something is shifting in how organizations think about AI. The early excitement around what it could do is giving way to a harder, more important question: how do you build AI that actually holds up — at scale, under pressure, and over time?

On 14 May 2026, New York City becomes the place where that question gets answered. The Drupal AI Summit brings together enterprise leaders, digital decision-makers, and senior practitioners from across the US and Europe — not to explore AI in theory, but to share what responsible, durable AI looks like in practice.

The decisions that define what AI becomes

Thirteen focused sessions. Real case studies. The Summit is built around the strategic and organizational questions that determine whether AI delivers real value or stays stuck in pilot mode: governance, investment, long-term architecture, and what it actually takes to scale. If you are responsible for those decisions, this is where you belong.

Open source and the architecture of trust

Most AI implementations fail quietly — locked into black boxes, disconnected from the workflows where real work happens, impossible to adjust without starting over.

There is a different path. When AI is embedded directly into content, data, and workflow systems (where enterprise work actually happens), teams maintain transparency, organisations retain control, and the architecture evolves alongside the business without the cost of replatforming. This is not a niche concern. It speaks to every enterprise leader navigating AI in environments where trust, regulation, and scale are not optional considerations — they are the entire challenge.

The Summit explores what this looks like in practice, with sessions grounded in the architectural and organizational choices that make responsible AI adoption real, not just possible.

What to expect on 14 May

From 9:00 am to 5:45 pm at 360 Madison Avenue in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, you will have access to thirteen sessions built entirely around case studies from peers who are applying AI in production environments. No theoretical frameworks. No technical deep-dives. Just honest, grounded conversations about what works, what doesn't, and what it takes to build AI your organization can trust for the long term.

Practitioners and leaders are flying in from across the US and Europe to share first-hand experience and to learn from each other. Your pass also grants access to the wider apidays New York event running across both days, connecting you with communities exploring APIs, AI agents, cybersecurity, and modern digital infrastructure — all under the same roof.

Explore the summit in detail

Want to learn more? Explore our dedicated AI Summit New York City hub where you can learn more about the format, who the event is designed for. This will also be where the agenda is published once finalised in mid March.

Early Bird tickets available until 13 April

Secure your place at the Drupal AI Summit NYC for $150 USD before 13 April 2026. After that, tickets are $200 USD.

The Paris edition sold out. If you're planning to join us in New York, early is the right call.

The foundations for enterprise-grade AI already exist. Come and see how they're being built — openly, responsibly, and together.

Secure your Early Bird ticket today!

Photos by Paul Johnson

If you’ve been following the rapid rise of AI‑driven chatbots and ‘assistant‑as‑a‑service’ platforms, you know one of the biggest pain points is trustworthy, privacy‑preserving web search. AI assistants need access to current information to be useful, yet traditional search engines track every query, building detailed user profiles. 

Enter SearXNG - an open‑source metasearch engine that aggregates results from dozens of public search back‑ends while never storing personal data. The new Drupal module lets any Drupal‑based AI assistant (ChatGPT, LLM‑powered bots, custom agents) invoke SearXNG directly from the Drupal site, bringing privacy‑first searching in‑process with your content.

What is SearXNG?

SearXNG aggregates results from up to 247 search services without tracking or profiling users. Unlike Google, Bing or other mainstream search engines, SearXNG removes private data from search requests and doesn't forward anything from third-party services.

Think of it as a privacy-preserving intermediary: your query goes to SearXNG, which then queries multiple search engines on your behalf and aggregates the results, all while keeping your identity completely anonymous.

The Drupal SearXNG Module

The Drupal SearXNG module brings this privacy-focused search capability directly into the Drupal ecosystem. It connects Drupal with your preferred SearXNG server (local or remote), includes a demonstration block, and provides an additional submodule that integrates SearXNG with Drupal AI by offering an AI Agent Tool.

This integration is particularly powerful when combined with Drupal's growing AI ecosystem, including the AI module framework, AI Agents and AI Assistants API.

Key Benefits

Privacy by design

The most compelling benefit is complete privacy protection. When your Drupal AI assistant uses SearXNG to search the web:

• No user tracking or profiling occurs
• Search queries aren't stored or analysed
• IP addresses remain private
• No targeted advertising based on searches
• Compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR

This makes it ideal for organisations in healthcare, government, education and any sector where data privacy is paramount.

Comprehensive search results

By aggregating results from up to 247 search services, SearXNG provides more diverse and comprehensive search results than relying on a single search engine. Your AI assistant gets a broader perspective, potentially finding information that might be missed by individual search engines.

Self-hosted control

Organisations can run their own SearXNG instance, giving them complete control over:

• Which search engines to query
• Rate limiting and usage patterns
• Data residency requirements
• Custom configurations and preferences
• Complete audit trails

Getting started is remarkably straightforward thanks to SearXNG's official Docker image, which makes launching a local server as simple as running a single command. This means organisations can have their own private search instance running in minutes, without complex server configuration or dependencies.

Seamless AI integration

The module's AI Agent Tool integration means that Drupal AI assistants can seamlessly incorporate web search into their workflows. Whether it's a chatbot helping users navigate your site or an AI assistant helping content creators research topics, web search becomes just another capability in the assistant's toolkit.

Practical Use Cases

Internal knowledge assistants

Imagine a corporate intranet where employees use an AI assistant to find both internal documentation and external resources. The assistant can search your internal Drupal content while using SearXNG to find external information, all while maintaining complete privacy about what employees are researching.

Privacy-conscious educational platforms

Universities and schools increasingly need to protect student privacy. A Drupal-powered learning management system with an AI tutor can use SearXNG to help students research topics without creating profiles of their academic interests and struggles.

Government and public sector portals

Government organisations can leverage AI assistants to help citizens find information and services. Using SearXNG ensures that citizen queries remain private and aren't used for commercial purposes.

The Future of Privacy-First AI

The SearXNG Drupal module represents an important step forward in building AI systems that respect user privacy. As AI assistants become more prevalent in web applications, the ability to access current information without compromising privacy will become increasingly valuable.

Drupal's AI framework supports over 48 AI platforms, providing flexibility in choosing AI providers. By combining this with privacy-respecting search through SearXNG, organisations can build powerful, intelligent applications that align with growing privacy expectations and regulations.

Conclusion

Privacy and powerful AI don't have to be mutually exclusive. The SearXNG Drupal module proves that organisations can build intelligent, helpful AI assistants that respect user privacy. Whether you're building internal tools, public-facing applications, or specialised platforms, this module provides a foundation for privacy-first AI that can search the web without compromising user trust.

As data privacy regulations continue to evolve and users become more aware of digital privacy issues, tools like the SearXNG module will become increasingly essential. By adopting privacy-first approaches now, organisations can build user trust while delivering the intelligent, helpful experiences that modern web applications demand.

Find out more and download on the dedicated SearXNG Drupal project page.

Join us THURSDAY, February 19 at 1pm ET / 10am PT, for our regularly scheduled call to chat about all things Drupal and nonprofits. (Convert to your local time zone.)

We don't have anything specific on the agenda this month, so we'll have plenty of time to discuss anything that's on our minds at the intersection of Drupal and nonprofits. Got something specific you want to talk about? Feel free to share ahead of time in our collaborative Google document at https://nten.org/drupal/notes!

All nonprofit Drupal devs and users, regardless of experience level, are always welcome on this call.

This free call is sponsored by NTEN.org and open to everyone.

Information on joining the meeting can be found in our collaborative Google document.

While Artificial Intelligence is evolving rapidly, many applications remain experimental and difficult to implement in professional production environments. The Drupal AI Initiative addresses this directly, driving responsible AI innovation by channelling the community's creative energy into a clear, coordinated product vision for Drupal.

In this article, the third in a series, we highlight the outcomes of the latest development sprints of the Drupal AI Initiative. Part one outlines the 2026 roadmap presented by Dries Buytaert. Part two addresses the organisation and new working model for the delivery of AI functionality.

Authors: Arian, Christoph, Piyuesh, Rakhi (alphabetical)

Dries Buytaert presenting the status of Drupal AI Initiative at DrupalCon Vienna 2025

Converting ambition into measurable progress

To turn the potential of AI into a reliable reality for the Drupal ecosystem, we have developed a repeatable, high-velocity production model that has already delivered significant results in its first four weeks.

A Dual-Workstream Approach to Innovation

To maximize efficiency and scale, development is organized into two closely collaborating workstreams. Together, they form a clear pipeline from exploration and prototyping to stable functionality:

• The Innovation Workstream: Led by QED42, this stream explores emerging technologies like evaluating Symfony AI, building AI-driven page creation, prompt context management, and the latest LLM capabilities to define what is possible within the ecosystem.
• The Product Workstream: Led by 1xINTERNET, this team takes proven innovations and refines, tests, and integrates them into a stable Drupal AI product ensuring they are ready for enterprise use.

Sustainable Management through the RFP Model

This structure is powered by a Request for Proposal (RFP) model, sponsored by 28 organizations partnering with the Drupal AI Initiative.

The management of these workstreams is designed to rotate every six months via a new RFP process. Currently, 1xINTERNET provides the Product Owner for Product Development and QED42 provides the Product Owner for Innovation, while FreelyGive provides core technical architecture. This model ensures the initiative remains sustainable and neutral, while benefiting from the consistent professional expertise provided by the partners of the Drupal AI Initiative.

Professional Expertise from our AI Partners

The professional delivery of the initiative is driven by our AI Partners, who provide the specialized resources required for implementation. To maintain high development velocity, we operate in two-week sprint iterations. This predictable cadence allows our partners to effectively plan their staff allocations and ensures consistent momentum.

The Product Owners for each workstream work closely with the AI Initiative Leadership to deliver on the one-year roadmap. They maintain well-prepared backlogs, ensuring that participating organizations can contribute where their specific technical strengths are most impactful.

By managing the complete development lifecycle, including software engineering, UX design, quality assurance, and peer reviews, the sprint teams ensure the delivery of stable and well-architected solutions that are ready for production environments.

The Strategic Role of AI in Drupal CMS

The work of the AI Initiative provides important functionality to the recently launched Drupal CMS 2.0. This release represents one of the most significant evolutions in Drupal’s 25-year history, introducing Drupal Canvas and a suite of AI-powered tools within a visual-first platform designed for marketing teams and site builders alike.

The strategic cooperation between the Drupal AI Initiative and the Drupal CMS team ensures that our professional-grade AI framework delivers critical functionality while aligning with the goals of Drupal CMS.

Results from our first Sprints

The initial sprints demonstrate the high productivity of this dual-workstream approach, driven directly by the specialized staff of our partnering organizations. In the first two weeks, the sprint teams resolved 143 issues, creating significant momentum right from the first sprint.

Screenshot Drupal AI Dashboard

This surge of activity resulted in the largest regular patch release in the history of the Drupal AI module. This achievement was made possible by the intensive collaboration between several expert companies working in sync. Increased contribution from our partners will allow us to further accelerate development velocity, improving the capacity to deliver more advanced technical features in the coming months.

Screen recording Agents Debugger

Highlights from the first sprints

While the volume of work is significant, some new features stand out. Here are a few highlights from our recent sprint reviews:

• AI Dashboard in Drupal CMS 2.0: Artem from 1xINTERNET presented the AI Dashboard functionality. This central hub for managing AI features and providers has been officially moved into the Drupal CMS 2.0 release, serving as the user interface for AI site management.
• Advanced Automation: Anjali from QED42 presented new JSON and Audio field automators, which enable Drupal to process complex data types via AI.
• The Context Control Center: Kristen from Salsa Digital presented the evolution of our context governance, converting config entities into content entities to enable revision management and better targeting.
• The New Markdown Editor: Bruno from 1xINTERNET demonstrated a sleek new Markdown editor for prompt fields, featuring type-ahead autocomplete for variables and tokens. This will be released with the 1.3 version of the Drupal AI module.
• Agents Debugger: To help developers see "under the hood," Marcus from FreelyGive introduced the new debugger module to trace AI agent interactions in real-time.
• Technical Deep-Dives: We’ve seen steady progress on Symfony AI (presented by Akhil from QED42), Model Context Protocol (presented by Abhisek from DropSolid), and Reranking Models (led by Sergiu from DropSolid) to improve search quality.

Become a Drupal AI Partner

Our success so far is thanks to the companies who have stepped up as Drupal AI Partners. These organizations are leading the way in defining how AI and the Open Web intersect.
A huge thank you to our main contributors of the first two sprints (alphabetical order):

• 1xINTERNET
• DropSolid
• FreelyGive
• QED42
• Salsa Digital

We invite further participation from the community. If your organization is interested in contributing expert resources to the forefront of AI development, we encourage you to join the initiative.

Sign up to join the Drupal AI Initiative