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 AI and the insights and lessons they learn along the way. Here, Sammy Gituko, Software Developer, explores how AI supported improvements to the Metatag module by speeding up the discovery, verification, and replacement of broken documentation links across 30+ plugin files from hours to minutes.

Do you have a favorite restaurant with a “secret” menu item? Well, DrupalCon has its own secret. And, I’m spilling the beans. If you ask any DrupalCon veteran, what the best thing about the events are, they’ll say, “The Hallway Track”. Huh?

What is the “Hallway Track”?

The “Hallway Track” is the space around and between official schedule items. This might be in the actual hallway, in the sponsor floor, at the parties, or even in a taxi ride to the airport.

Space like this lets serendipity happen. You might get bored and join a conversation and make new friends. You might hear of a problem, and think of a new business idea. Or…

Stories from the Hallway Track

I reached out to several friends to get hear some stories about their experiences in the hallway track

Nikki Flores tells about how she ran into a colleague at DrupalCon and became fast friends!

I had worked with her for almost 2 years, had seen pictures of her family and her dog and her vacations. We had always been connecting weekly and sometimes twice a week on our teleconferences. I never saw her in person until she called my name from across the hall at DrupalCon. When we saw each other, we were so excited because we recognized each other's faces! 

Carlos Ospina tells the story about how he took his son to DrupalCon, and that led to the genesis of the IXP program.

I wanted my son to understand why I love this community so much, so we flew him out to Seattle. I told him I knew a lot of people there, but since it was contribution day, there would not be much time to socialize.

After COVID, he agreed to join us again for Portland in 2022. The Sunday before the event, we met some friends for breakfast. I spotted someone I thought I recognized and mentioned it. My son teased me, saying it was probably just because I think I know everyone at DrupalCon.

We sat down, and in the middle of breakfast Eduardo Telaya walked by our table. I called out to him, and he came over. We hugged, and suddenly we were no longer just five people having breakfast. A couple of other friends stopped by to say hello, and our table grew. My son looked at me and said, “So maybe you really do know everyone at DrupalCon.”

I think that moment stuck with him. When we started talking about career options, he agreed to give Drupal a try and came with us to Pittsburgh in 2023 to look for a job. After all, Dad knows everyone, right?

Unfortunately, that was when the hiring slowdown was becoming clear. It was the first time the Drupal Association organized a job fair, and we attended. At one point I had to step away to take a call, and my son did great on his own. He introduced himself, talked to people confidently, and put himself out there. But there were no real opportunities for someone in his position. He had just completed DrupalEasy, had no professional experience, and no background in computer science.

That experience led to conversations with Anilu, and from those conversations the IXP Program was born. It started as a way to help my son get a foothold. He has since moved on from Drupal to explore something different, but the program lives on. We are now approaching 1,750 contribution credits awarded, and six participants have gone through the program.

What began as something personal turned into something that helps others enter the community.

Mike Gifford tells several stories about how he met friends and started his journey to be an Accessibility Maintainer for Drupal Core.

I’ve had so many great conversations with people who have inspired me, challenged me, and made me laugh in the hallway of DrupalCons. Over coffee, lunch or just while trying to charge a device, leaning against the wall.

The first story that came to mind was trying to find Eriol Fox in DrupalCon Vienna. I am not sure what we were using to message each other, but there was a large delay between sending and receiving messages. Then there is the challenge of actually finding each other in these crazy conference centers. Anyways, we had a good time chatting, but she also pointed me to some folks that she had connected with in Japan. I was going to be going there and wanted to find some open source connections while there.

I think it was in DrupalCon Atlanta that I had great conversations with Stephen Mustgrave & Stephen Musgrave. We were all in slightly different breakout groups. I had confused the two of them only a month or two ago and remembered connecting with them and verifying that they are indeed not the same person.

I can’t remember when I ran into Mark Gifford, but it was in some hallway, where we talked about me mostly grabbing the @mgifford in so many new social platforms before he could.  I guess he has some right to them.

I actually started contributing to Drupal’s accessibility after a hallway chat. It was some time before Drupal 7 was released, and I remember going up to Webchick and complaining about accessibility errors in Drupal. She turned around and suggested I could do something about it. I don’t know how many thousands of hours I’ve spent on fixing accessibility issues in Drupal since she made that suggestion. Thanks Angie.

Mike Anello intentionally avoided the assignment, but tells a great story about the contribution room!

Forget about the hallway - let’s talk about the contribution room track.

There’s no better way to learn something new and make meaningful personal connections than spending a few hours in a contribution room. There are a few Drupal events each year that I know I won’t be wasting any time listening to over-caffeinated Florida-based front-end developers rant at me about the future of front-end development. Instead, I arrive with an agenda to learn something new about some new Drupal thing by spending time in the contribution room helping to test, write documentation, or work on existing issues.

I can credit this method for supercharging my learning of single directory components, ECA, a good portion of the Drupal AI ecosystem, and more Views internals than I ever wanted (thanks, Lendude!)

At my first Drupal Dev Days (Ghent 2023, IIRC) one of my goals was to use my evolving PhpUnit test-writing skills to use in the contribution area. After talking with a few folks, I was introduced to Len Swaneveld, a core maintainer for the Views module. Len pointed me at a few potential issues to work on, and after reviewing a few of them, I settled on one that seemed like it was completable in a reasonable amount of time. What transpired over the next few weeks will be no surprise to anyone who’s ever worked on core Views code - nothing is simple.

But, the thing that I remember most about that issue is the time that Len spent with me (both in-person and online) mentoring me on some of the darker areas of the Views code base. It gave me an all-new perspective of the module as well as the challenges of maintaining it.

This process, and similar ones related to other areas of Drupal, I knew that I was improving my skills by learning from leaders in the community - all while I was helping them!

Perhaps the most rewarding part of it is the fact that after the event, a personal connection now exists - and it doesn’t feel forced. It is a perfectly natural thing to reach out to these new connections via email or Slack with a little, “it was great getting to know you a few weeks ago at Dev Days; I have a quick question for you…”

Networking is the reason for Drupal events - not presentations (sorry, presenters!)

Michael Richardson tells us how the hallway track led to the creation of DrupalCon Singapore!

For me it would be when I went to DrupalCon Lille with the wild idea of running something like a "DrupalCamp Asia", which would be focused on trying to get folks from all over the continent (and the Pacific) to connect together and share their Drupal stories, cultures, and experience for the first time in nearly 10 years.

Through the power of the hallway track in Lille, I was able to connect directly with sponsors, Drupal Association leadership, and regional community leaders, and over those few days the idea evolved into a fully fledged DrupalCon Asia with sponsors, organisers, and the support of the DA all aligned. What would have taken months to organise online was all put in place in just 3 days and a year later, DrupalCon Singapore was a massive success. I'm not sure that would have been possible without those first conversations half way across the world in Lille.

Baddý Breidert tells us how participating in the DrupalCon prenote led to multiple friendships!

My first DrupalCon was Amsterdam in 2014 and I remember going to that event not knowing anyone. During the Hallway Track I got to know MortenDK that introduced me to a lot of people and from that conference it always became a bit easier to attend DrupalCon. At DrupalCon Dublin 2016, Jam and others from the community invited me to join the pre-note which I gladly accepted. The pre-note always happened before the Driesnote and the purpose of the event was to entertain the keynote attendees and kick-off the conference. The show featured an Irish adventure theme, where the characters attempted to find a “pot of gold” while exploring the concept of “scope” in a  humorous, technical, and musical “infotainment” style.

Cristina Chumillas tells how she went outside of the conference to find a magical donut, and brought it back to share!

Soooo on the first DrupalCon in Portland after covid, the day after committing Claro and Olivero, with Lauri, we went for a quick adventure to find a famous doughnut with bacon and maple syrup. At Voodoo Doughnuts. 

Anyway, we were at the sprints and were working on Olivero issues, so by the time we left it was about to close. On the way it started raining A LOT and when we arrived they were closing and there were no more doughnuts. But since we were there we took the chance to get inside the shop and asked for it, and they still had one! So we bought it and ended up eating it with 8 people at the sprints.

JD Flynn perfectly wraps up the hallway track in his rendition.

To me, the hallway track is where the magical moments are found. It's where connections are made. It's where friendships begin. Sessions at events are amazing, and should definitely be attended. However, the real inspiration and sparks happen during spontaneous conversations that happen just because you bump into someone and start talking about this idea you've had or this bug you found. Before you know it, you're both sitting with your laptops out and building something together. That doesn't happen while sitting quietly in a session.

The "hallway" track isn't limited to just the hallway of the event's venue either. It carries over to the parties and the after parties where lifetime friendships and memories are formed. It's not an exaggeration to say that most of the people in my life who I consider good friends are good friends because of that spark that happened in the hallway, wherever that hallway might exist. It could be bonding over a drink, shared love of a type of food, randomly bumping into someone who looks familiar outside of the event, or picking the song at karaoke that gets everyone up and dancing. I owe some of the strongest relationships in my life, personally and professionally, to the hallway track.

Make space for the Hallway Track

As JD said, the hallway track is where the magic happens. But how do you find it?

You need to put yourself out there. Sit down at lunch tables where you don’t know anyone, and strike up conversations. Go to the event parties and talk to people in the lines at the bar. Join a trivia team with people that you don’t know! 

You might just end up with some serendipity of your own!

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
 

Now that some of the projects that opted-in for GitLab issues are using them, they are getting real world experience with how the issue workflow in GitLab is slightly different. More and more projects are being migrated each week so sooner or later you will probably run into the following situations.

Creating new issues

When creating issues, the form is very simple. Add a title and a description and save, that's it!

GitLab has different work items when working on projects, like "Incidents", "Tasks" and "Issues". Our matching type will always be "Issue". Maintainers might choose to use the other types, but all integrations with Drupal.org will be made against "Issue" items.

Labels (issue metadata)

As mentioned in the previous blog post GitLab issue migration: the new workflow for migrated projects, all the metadata for issues is managed via labels. Maintainers will select the labels once the issue is created.

Users without sufficient privileges cannot decide things like priority or tags to use. Maintainers can decide to grant the role "reporter" to some users to help with this metadata for the issues. Reporters will be able to add/edit metadata when adding or editing issues. We acknowledge that this is probably the biggest difference to working with Drupal.org issues. We are listening to feedback and trying to identify the real needs first (thanks to the projects that opted in), before implementing anything permanent.

Reporters will be able to add or edit labels on issue creation or edit:

So far, we have identified the biggest missing piece, the ability to mark an issue as RTBC. Bouncing between "Needs work" or "Needs review" tends to happen organically via comments among the participating contributors in the issue, but RTBC is probably what some maintainers look for to get an issue merged.

The previous are conventions that we agreed on as a community a while back. RTBC is one, NW (Needs Work) vs NR (Needs Review) is another one, so we could use this transition to GitLab issues to define the equivalent ones.

GitLab merge requests offer several choices that we could easily leverage.

• Draft vs ready could mimic "Needs work" vs "Needs review". Contributors will switch this back and forth depending on the feedback needed on the code.
• Merge request approvals could mimic "RTBC". This is something that can even be required (number of approvals or approval rules) per project, depending on the maintainer's preferences.

We encourage maintainers to look at the merge requests listing instead (like this one). Both "draft" vs. "ready" and "approved" are features you can filter by when viewing merge requests for a project.

Automated messages

There are automated messages when opening or closing issues that provide links related to fork management, fork information, and access request when creating forks, and reminders to update the contribution record links to the issue to track credit information.

Crosslinking between Drupal.org issues and GitLab issues

When referring to a Drupal.org issue from another Drupal.org issue, you can continue to use the [#123] syntax in the summary and comments, but enter the full URL in the "related issues" entry box.

When referring to a GitLab issue from another GitLab issue, use the #123 syntax, without the enclosing [ ].

For cross-platform references (Drupal to GitLab or GitLab to Drupal), you need to use the full URL.

What's next

Same as before, we want to go and review more of the already opted-in projects, collect feedback, act on it when needed, and then we will start to batch-migrate the next set: low-usage projects, projects with a low number of issues, etc.

The above should get us 80% of the way regarding the total number of projects to migrate, and once we have gathered more feedback and iterated over it, we'll be ready to target higher-volume, higher-usage projects.

Related blog posts:

• GitLab issue migration: immediate changes
• GitLab issue migration: the new workflow for migrated projects
• GitLab issue migration: how to use the new workflow (this one)

• This is cross-posted from Dries Buytaert's blog

For the past months, the AI Initiative Leadership Team has been working with our contributing partners to define what the Drupal AI initiative should focus on in 2026. That plan is now ready, and I want to share it with the community.

This roadmap builds directly on the strategy we outlined in Accelerating AI Innovation in Drupal. That post described the direction. This plan turns it into concrete priorities and execution for 2026.

The full plan is available as a PDF, but let me explain the thinking behind it.

Producing consistently high-quality content and pages is really hard. Excellent content requires a subject matter expert who actually knows the topic, a copywriter who can translate expertise into clear language, someone who understands your audience and brand, someone who knows how to structure pages with your component library, good media assets, and an SEO/AEO specialist so people actually discover what you made.

Most organizations are missing at least some of these skillsets, and even when all the people exist, coordinating them is where everything breaks down. We believe AI can fill these gaps, not by replacing these roles but by making their expertise available to every content creator on the team.

For large organizations, this means stronger brand consistency, better accessibility, and improved compliance across thousands of pages. For smaller ones, it means access to skills that were previously out of reach: professional copywriting, SEO, and brand-consistent design without needing a specialist for each.

Used carelessly, AI just makes these problems worse by producing fast, generic content that sounds like everything else on the internet. But used well, with real structure and governance behind it, AI can help organizations raise the bar on quality rather than just volume.

Drupal has always been built around the realities of serious content work: structured content, workflows, permissions, revisions, moderation, and more. These capabilities are what make quality possible at scale. They're also exactly the foundation AI needs to actually work well.

Rather than bolting on a chatbot or a generic text generator, we're embedding AI into the content and page creation process itself, guided by the structure, governance, and brand rules that already live in Drupal.

For website owners, the value is faster site building, faster content delivery, smarter user journeys, higher conversions, and consistent brand quality at scale. For digital agencies, it means delivering higher-quality websites in less time. And for IT teams, it means less risk and less overhead: automated compliance, auditable changes, and fewer ad hoc requests to fix what someone published.

We think the real opportunity goes further than just adding AI to what we already have. It's also about connecting how content gets created, how it performs, and how it gets governed into one loop, so that what you learn from your content actually shapes what you build next.

The things that have always made Drupal good at content are the same things that make AI trustworthy. That is not a coincidence, and it's why we believe Drupal is the right place to build this.

What we're building in 2026

The 2026 plan identifies eight capabilities we'll focus on. Each is described in detail in the full plan, but here is a quick overview:

• Page generation - Describe what you need and get a usable page, built from your actual design system components
• Context management - A central place to define brand voice, style guides, audience profiles, and governance rules that AI can use
• Background agents - AI that works without being prompted, responding to triggers and schedules while respecting editorial workflows
• Design system integration - AI that builds with your components and can propose new ones when needed
• Content creation and discovery - Smarter search, AI-powered optimization, and content drafting assistance
• Advanced governance - Batch approvals, branch-based versioning, and comprehensive audit trails for AI changes
• Intelligent website improvements - AI that learns from performance data, proposes concrete changes, and gets smarter over time through editorial review
• Multi-channel campaigns - Create content for websites, social, email, and automation platforms from a single campaign goal

These eight capabilities are where the official AI Initiative is focusing its energy, but they're not the whole picture for AI in Drupal. There is a lot more we want to build that didn't make this initial list, and we expect to revisit the plan in six months to a year.

We also want to be clear: community contributions outside this scope are welcome and important. Work on migrations, chatbots, and other AI capabilities continues in the broader Drupal community. If you're building something that isn't in our 2026 plan, keep going.

How we're making this happen

Over the past year, we've brought together organizations willing to contribute people and funding to the AI initiative. Today, 28 organizations support the initiative, collectively pledging more than 23 full-time equivalent contributors. That is over 50 individual contributors working across time zones and disciplines.

Coordinating 50+ people across organizations takes real structure, so we've hired two dedicated teams from among our partners:

• QED42 is focused on innovation, pushing forward on what is next.
• 1xINTERNET is focused on productization, taking what we've built and making it stable, intuitive, and easy to install.

Both teams are creating backlogs, managing issues, and giving all our contributors clear direction. You can read more about how contributions are coordinated.

This is a new model for Drupal. We're testing whether open source can move faster when you pool resources and coordinate professionally.

Get involved

If you're a contributing partner, we're asking you to align your contributions with this plan. The prioritized backlogs are in place, so pick up something that fits and let's build.

If you're not a partner but want to contribute, jump in. The prioritized backlogs are open to everyone.

And if you want to join the initiative as an official partner, we'd absolutely welcome that.

This plan wasn't built in a room by itself. It's the result of collaboration across 28 sponsoring organizations who bring expertise in UX, core development, QA, marketing, and more. Thank you.

We're building something new for Drupal, in a new way, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

— Dries Buytaert

• This is cross-posted from Dries Buytaert's blog

For the past months, the AI Initiative Leadership Team has been working with our contributing partners to define what the Drupal AI initiative should focus on in 2026. That plan is now ready, and I want to share it with the community.

This roadmap builds directly on the strategy we outlined in Accelerating AI Innovation in Drupal. That post described the direction. This plan turns it into concrete priorities and execution for 2026.

The full plan is available as a PDF, but let me explain the thinking behind it.

Producing consistently high-quality content and pages is really hard. Excellent content requires a subject matter expert who actually knows the topic, a copywriter who can translate expertise into clear language, someone who understands your audience and brand, someone who knows how to structure pages with your component library, good media assets, and an SEO/AEO specialist so people actually discover what you made.

Most organizations are missing at least some of these skillsets, and even when all the people exist, coordinating them is where everything breaks down. We believe AI can fill these gaps, not by replacing these roles but by making their expertise available to every content creator on the team.

For large organizations, this means stronger brand consistency, better accessibility, and improved compliance across thousands of pages. For smaller ones, it means access to skills that were previously out of reach: professional copywriting, SEO, and brand-consistent design without needing a specialist for each.

Used carelessly, AI just makes these problems worse by producing fast, generic content that sounds like everything else on the internet. But used well, with real structure and governance behind it, AI can help organizations raise the bar on quality rather than just volume.

Drupal has always been built around the realities of serious content work: structured content, workflows, permissions, revisions, moderation, and more. These capabilities are what make quality possible at scale. They're also exactly the foundation AI needs to actually work well.

Rather than bolting on a chatbot or a generic text generator, we're embedding AI into the content and page creation process itself, guided by the structure, governance, and brand rules that already live in Drupal.

For website owners, the value is faster site building, faster content delivery, smarter user journeys, higher conversions, and consistent brand quality at scale. For digital agencies, it means delivering higher-quality websites in less time. And for IT teams, it means less risk and less overhead: automated compliance, auditable changes, and fewer ad hoc requests to fix what someone published.

We think the real opportunity goes further than just adding AI to what we already have. It's also about connecting how content gets created, how it performs, and how it gets governed into one loop, so that what you learn from your content actually shapes what you build next.

The things that have always made Drupal good at content are the same things that make AI trustworthy. That is not a coincidence, and it's why we believe Drupal is the right place to build this.

What we're building in 2026

The 2026 plan identifies eight capabilities we'll focus on. Each is described in detail in the full plan, but here is a quick overview:

• Page generation - Describe what you need and get a usable page, built from your actual design system components
• Context management - A central place to define brand voice, style guides, audience profiles, and governance rules that AI can use
• Background agents - AI that works without being prompted, responding to triggers and schedules while respecting editorial workflows
• Design system integration - AI that builds with your components and can propose new ones when needed
• Content creation and discovery - Smarter search, AI-powered optimization, and content drafting assistance
• Advanced governance - Batch approvals, branch-based versioning, and comprehensive audit trails for AI changes
• Intelligent website improvements - AI that learns from performance data, proposes concrete changes, and gets smarter over time through editorial review
• Multi-channel campaigns - Create content for websites, social, email, and automation platforms from a single campaign goal

These eight capabilities are where the official AI Initiative is focusing its energy, but they're not the whole picture for AI in Drupal. There is a lot more we want to build that didn't make this initial list, and we expect to revisit the plan in six months to a year.

We also want to be clear: community contributions outside this scope are welcome and important. Work on migrations, chatbots, and other AI capabilities continues in the broader Drupal community. If you're building something that isn't in our 2026 plan, keep going.

How we're making this happen

Over the past year, we've brought together organizations willing to contribute people and funding to the AI initiative. Today, 28 organizations support the initiative, collectively pledging more than 23 full-time equivalent contributors. That is over 50 individual contributors working across time zones and disciplines.

Coordinating 50+ people across organizations takes real structure, so we've hired two dedicated teams from among our partners:

• QED42 is focused on innovation, pushing forward on what is next.
• 1xINTERNET is focused on productization, taking what we've built and making it stable, intuitive, and easy to install.

Both teams are creating backlogs, managing issues, and giving all our contributors clear direction. You can read more about how contributions are coordinated.

This is a new model for Drupal. We're testing whether open source can move faster when you pool resources and coordinate professionally.

Get involved

If you're a contributing partner, we're asking you to align your contributions with this plan. The prioritized backlogs are in place, so pick up something that fits and let's build.

If you're not a partner but want to contribute, jump in. The prioritized backlogs are open to everyone.

And if you want to join the initiative as an official partner, we'd absolutely welcome that.

This plan wasn't built in a room by itself. It's the result of collaboration across 28 sponsoring organizations who bring expertise in UX, core development, QA, marketing, and more. Thank you.

We're building something new for Drupal, in a new way, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

— Dries Buytaert

Scaling the Drupal AI Initiative

The Drupal AI Initiative officially launched in June 2025 with the release of the Drupal AI Strategy 1.0 and a shared commitment to advancing AI capabilities in an open, responsible way. What began as a coordinated effort among a small group of committed organizations has grown into a substantial, sponsor-funded collaboration across the Drupal ecosystem.

Today, 28 organizations support the initiative, collectively pledging more than 23 full-time equivalent contributors representing over 50 individual contributors working across time zones and disciplines. Together, sponsors have committed more than $1.5 million in combined cash and in-kind contributions to move Drupal AI forward.

The initiative now operates across multiple focused areas, including leadership, marketing, UX, QA, core development, innovation, and product development. Contributors are not only exploring what’s possible with AI in Drupal, but are building capabilities designed to be stable, well-governed, and ready for real-world adoption in Drupal CMS.

Eight months in, this is more than a collection of experiments. It is a coordinated, community-backed investment in shaping how AI can strengthen content creation, governance, and measurable outcomes across the Drupal platform.

Strengthening Delivery for Growth

As outlined in the 2026 roadmap, this year focuses on delivering eight key capabilities that will shape how AI works in Drupal CMS. Achieving that level of focus and quality requires more than enthusiasm and good ideas. It requires coordination at scale.

From the beginning, sponsors contributed both people and funding so the initiative could be properly organized and managed. With 28 organizations contributing more than 50 people across multiple workstreams, it was clear that sustained progress would depend on dedicated delivery management to align priorities, organize backlogs, support contributors, and maintain predictable execution.

To support this growth, the initiative ran a formal Request for Proposal (RFP) process to select delivery management partners to help coordinate work across both innovation and product development workstreams. This was not a shift in direction, but a continuation of our original commitment: to build AI capabilities for Drupal in a way that is structured, sustainable, and ready for real-world adoption.

Selecting Delivery Partners

To identify the right delivery partners, we launched the RFP process in October 2025 at DrupalCon Vienna. The RFP was open exclusively to sponsors of the Drupal AI Initiative. From the start, our goal was to run a process that reflected the responsibility we carry as a sponsor-funded, community-driven initiative.

The timeline included a pre-proposal briefing, an open clarification period, and structured review and interview phases. Proposals were independently evaluated against clearly defined criteria tailored to both innovation and production delivery. These criteria covered governance, roadmap and backlog management, delivery approach, quality assurance, financial oversight, and demonstrated experience contributing to Drupal and AI initiatives.

Following an independent review, leadership held structured comparison sessions to discuss scoring, explore trade-offs, clarify open questions, and ensure decisions were made thoughtfully and consistently. Final discussions were held with shortlisted vendors in December, and contracts were awarded in early January.

The selected partners are engaged for an initial six-month period. At the end of that term, the RFP process will be repeated.

This process was designed not only to select capable partners but to steward sponsor contributions responsibly and align with Drupal’s values of openness, collaboration, and accountability.

Delivery Partners Now in Place

Following the structured selection process, two contributing partners were selected to support delivery across the initiative’s key workstreams.

QED42 will focus on the Innovation workstream, helping coordinate forward-looking capabilities aligned with the 2026 roadmap. QED42 has been an active contributor to Drupal AI efforts from the earliest stages and has played a role in advancing AI adoption across the Drupal ecosystem. Their contributions to initiatives such as Drupal Canvas AI, AI-powered agents, and other community-driven efforts demonstrate both technical depth and a strong commitment to open collaboration. In this role, QED42 will support structured experimentation, prioritization, and delivery alignment across innovation work.

1xINTERNET will lead the Product Development workstream, supporting the transition of innovation into stable, production-ready capabilities within Drupal CMS. As a founding sponsor and co-leader within the initiative, 1xINTERNET brings deep experience in distributed Drupal delivery and governance. Their longstanding involvement in Drupal AI and broader community leadership positions them well to guide roadmap execution, release planning, backlog coordination, and predictable productization.

We are grateful to QED42 and 1xINTERNET for their continued commitment to the initiative and for stepping into this role in service of the broader Drupal community. We also want to acknowledge the strong level of interest in this RFP and the high standard of submissions received, and to thank all participating organizations for the time, thought, and care invested in the process. The level of interest and quality of submissions reflect the caliber of agencies and contributors engaged in advancing Drupal AI.

Both organizations were selected not only for their delivery expertise but for their demonstrated investment in Drupal AI and their alignment with the initiative’s goals. Their role is to support coordination, roadmap alignment, and disciplined execution across contributors, ensuring that sponsor investment and community effort translate into tangible, adoptable outcomes.

Contracts began in early January. Two development sprints have already been completed, and a third sprint is now underway, establishing a clear and predictable delivery cadence.

QED42 and 1xINTERNET will share more details about their processes and early progress in an upcoming blog post.

Ready to Deliver on the 2026 Roadmap

With the 2026 roadmap now defined and structured delivery teams in place, the Drupal AI Initiative is positioned to execute with greater clarity and focus. The eight capabilities outlined in the one-year plan provide direction. Dedicated delivery management provides the coordination needed to turn that direction into measurable progress.

Predictable sprint cycles, clearer backlog management, and improved cross-workstream alignment allow contributors to focus on building, refining, and shipping capabilities that can be adopted directly within Drupal CMS. Sponsor investment and community contribution are now supported by a delivery model designed for scale and sustainability.

This next phase is about disciplined execution. It means shipping stable, well-governed AI capabilities that site owners can enable with confidence. It means connecting innovation to production in a way that reflects Drupal’s strengths in structure, governance, and long-term maintainability.

We are grateful to the sponsors and contributors who have made this possible. As agencies and organizations continue to join the initiative, we remain committed to transparency, collaboration, and delivering meaningful value to the broader Drupal community.

We are entering a year of focused execution, and we are ready to deliver.

Moving Forward Together

The Drupal AI Initiative is built on collaboration. Sponsors contribute funding and dedicated team members. Contributors bring expertise across UX, core development, QA, marketing, innovation, and production. Leadership provides coordination and direction. Together, this shared investment makes meaningful progress possible.

We extend our thanks to the 28 sponsoring organizations and the more than 50 contributors who are helping shape the future of AI in Drupal. Their commitment reflects a belief that open source can lead in building AI capabilities that are stable, governed, and built for real-world use.

As we move into 2026, we invite continued participation. Contributing partners are encouraged to align their work with the roadmap and engage in the active workstreams. Organizations interested in joining the initiative are welcome to connect and explore how they can contribute.

We have laid the foundation. The roadmap is clear. Structured delivery is in place. With continued collaboration, we are well-positioned to deliver meaningful AI capabilities for the Drupal community and the organizations it serves.

The Drupal Association engineering team  is announcing the end of life (EOL) of the first generation of the Automatic Update API, which relies on a different original signing solution for update validation than later versions.

Drupal.org’s APIs for Automatic Updates 7.x-1.x and 8.x-1.x will be discontinued on March 6th, 2026. These versions of automatic updates have been unsupported since the versions of Drupal core they are compatible with, 7 and 8, became unsupported.

Release contents hash files (example) will not be updated and will expire May 12th, 2026. They may be removed after this date with no notice.

In place updates (example) will no longer be generated after March 6th, 2026. These are generated on demand and existing update files will be removed.

APIs for supported versions of Automatic Updates will continue to be supported indefinitely.

Automatic Updates v1 was an important early step toward improving the safety and reliability of Drupal updates. However, its underlying signing and validation model has now been superseded by a more robust and secure approach, with TUF and Rugged.

Next steps

If you are still using Automatic Updates under the 7.x-1.x or 8.x-1.x branches, now is the time to plan your update to a supported version, or implement custom updates using the supported API with your own CI, etc. Doing so ensures continued support, improved security, and alignment with Drupal’s long-term update strategy.

As DrupalCon Chicago 2026 draws closer, conversations about community are extending beyond sessions, socials, and contributions to include how we care for one another in shared spaces. The Drupal Community Working Group's Community Health Team has been working with event organizers to gather practical, community-informed health and safety guidance that reflects how people actually experience DrupalCon.

The information below provides resources for navigating the conference, the venue, and the city with confidence, while reinforcing Drupal's longstanding commitment to an inclusive, respectful, and supportive community where everyone can show up as their whole selves.

Have questions or concerns about DrupalCon Chicago? Feel free to drop by the Community Working Group's public office hours this Friday, February 13 at 10am ET / 1200 UTC.

Join the #community-health Drupal Slack channel for more information. A meeting link will be posted there a few minutes before office hours.

DrupalCon Chicago 2026 Health and Safety

Updated: February 10, 2026

The information that was previously provided here has been moved to the DrupalCon Chicago Health & Safety page.

For more details, or if these policies are updated, please go to the DrupalCon Chicago official page:

DrupalCon Chicago Health & Safety

The Health and Safety page originated from discussions among the CWG Community Health Team and the DrupalCon Steering Committee after reviewing event websites from other communities in North America. We found the general health and safety information useful and we are working on creating a template for the Planning Drupal Events Playbook for other Drupal events to use moving forward.

Acknowledgements

The information we gathered for the DrupalCon Chicago Health & Safety page was inspired by the Linux Foundation's Open Source Summit Minneapolis Health & Safety page, APHA Health & Safety page, American Geophysical Union Safety and Security Guidance page, and DjangoCon Travel info page.

Friday, February 20 at Florida DrupalCamp in Orlando and Thursday, March 12 at DrupalCamp NJ in Princeton.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how we build websites and create content — and the Drupal AI ecosystem is making it easier than ever for site builders to harness that power responsibly.

If you've been curious about integrating AI into your Drupal workflow but aren't sure where to start, this is the workshop for you.

Responsible Drupal AI Basics

This full-day, hands-on workshop designed for beginners who want to learn the fundamentals of using AI within Drupal. Over the course of the day, you'll work directly with key modules in the Drupal AI ecosystem — including AI Automators, Field Widget Actions, and AI Agents — gaining practical experience with setup, configuration, and real-world content generation techniques.

The emphasis throughout is on responsible AI usage: leveraging these tools to assist (not replace) your effectiveness and efficiency as a developer or content author. You'll explore various setup options, companion modules for auditing and exploring AI capabilities, and walk away with hands-on experience generating content in a thoughtful, responsible manner.

Who Is This For?

This workshop is aimed at Drupal site builders at the beginner level. No prior Drupal AI experience is necessary. If you can navigate the Drupal admin interface and have a basic understanding of AI prompt engineering, you're ready to dive in.

Prerequisites

Basic knowledge of AI prompt engineering, basic Drupal site-building skills, and a paid API account with an AI provider (OpenAI, Gemini, or Anthropic recommended). Alternatively, a free 30-day trial with the Amazee.ai AI provider is available. 

About the Instructor

Mike Anello (@ultimike) has been teaching Drupal professionally for over 15 years. As co-founder and lead instructor at DrupalEasy, he runs several well-known training programs including Drupal Career Online, Professional Module Development, and Professional Single Directory Components. Mike is a frequent presenter at Drupal events across the United States and Europe, and is deeply involved in the Drupal community as an organizer, code contributor, and documentation contributor. You'll be learning from one of the most experienced Drupal educators in the community.

Two Chances to Attend

This full day workshop is being offered at two upcoming DrupalCamps on the US East Coast:

• Florida DrupalCamp — Friday, February 20, 2026 Orlando, FL
• DrupalCamp NJ — Thursday, March 12, 2026 Princeton, NJ

Registration for both events is now open, and space is limited. Don't wait to secure your spot.

Register Now

• Florida DrupalCamp: View workshop details and register
• DrupalCamp NJ: View workshop details and register

Spread the Word

Know a colleague, client, or friend who's been wanting to explore AI in Drupal? Please share this article with anyone who might benefit from a hands-on, beginner-friendly introduction to the Drupal AI module ecosystem. The more people in the Drupal community who understand how to use AI responsibly, the stronger our ecosystem becomes.