CMS Summit 26 conference program

Let’s make digital experiences better

The conference is tailored for digital leaders and features 2 packed days with a carefully curated mixture of talks, workshops, activities and world class facilitators, thought-provokers, speakers and session leads.

Unlike many other conferences, this one is not about speakers talking endlessly about their own work. Rather than being talked at, this is your conference for active participation and connecting with your peers with the goal to move things forward.

The below programme is a work in progress - improvements will happen

Program

Tuesday, May 12

9:00 - 9:30: Breakfast and registration

Join us early, get the conversation started, make some new friends and enjoy some freshly brewed coffee and tea.

9:30 - 9:45: Welcome & Opening

- Our host Janus Boye, Boye & Co

In 2025, CMS platforms shifted toward headless, AI-driven, and cloud-native architectures for omnichannel delivery. Traditional monoliths declined as composable and automation-focused systems dominated the market.

What lies ahead for 2026? Join this analyst update by Matt Garrepy and hear his take on what waits around the corner

Making AI-ready content work at scale isn’t just about new tools—it’s about closing widening gaps in skills, structure, and operations. As content proliferates across channels and teams, many organisations have invested heavily in editorial and UX writing while underinvesting in the architecture, models, and processes that make content usable by both humans and machines. The result: more copy in more places, but not enough context, structure, or governance to support AI or scale efficiently.

In this session, Kate explores why teams are skewed toward creation over management, and how this imbalance shows up when AI enters the picture.  The talk gets practical about what it takes to make content reliable, reusable, and queryable across web, app, email, push, SMS, and legal—often with lean teams operating one CMS for millions of customers. Expect candid examples of restructuring content for scale, aligning AI and multiple platforms around shared content, and the tools needed to keep content accurate and useful. 

She will give honest reflections on what’s working, what isn’t, and what organisations consistently underestimate. The goal is to give anyone navigating AI and content scale a clearer picture of the structures, roles, and operational discipline it takes to make content perform across channels—and for AI.

As organisations grow, their biggest risks often do not lie in technology, but in the human layer: in unclear ownership, invisible contributions, and communication that no longer works reliably across teams, vendors, and platforms.

In environments where many stakeholders need to deliver together, this becomes tangible in slower time to market, inconsistent customer experiences, duplicated work, and increasingly fragile collaboration.

This session uses open-source communities not as an ideal model, but as a lens. They make especially visible what happens when collaboration depends on informal authority, personal status, recognition, and communication. That is exactly why they are useful for organisations: they expose the human dynamics that often weaken performance long before technology does.

Expect practical perspectives on how to create clearer ownership, make critical contributions visible, and design communication patterns that remain effective as complexity grows. Because when many teams need to deliver together, the human layer is not a soft topic. It is a core part of organisational performance.

11.00 - 11:30 Coffee & networking

Making a CMS work at scale in a large, complex, global organisation is not just a technology challenge. It quickly becomes a question of governance, alignment, and operational discipline across teams, markets, and business units.

In this session, Stine shares practical lessons from operating a global content platform in a large organisation. Drawing on real experiences from a recent project, she will highlight what worked, what proved more difficult than expected, and what organisations often underestimate when scaling across regions and business units.

The talk explores what it takes to keep a global platform aligned and operational: governance structures, cross–business unit collaboration, and clear agreements around security, data protection, service levels, and the integration of functional tools across the ecosystem.

Expect honest reflections and practical lessons from the realities of running a global platform. Stine will share what worked, what did not, and what she would approach differently today. The aim is to give others navigating similar complexity a clearer picture of what it actually takes to make a CMS work at global scale.

More details coming soon

More details coming soon

12:30 - 1.30 Lunch

1:30 - 2.30 Roundtables

Come join 2 x 25 minutes of informal roundtable discussions to get answers on your specific questions or help others by sharing your expert knowledge.
Each table has no more than 10 attendees and is assigned a specific topic and moderator.
First come first served: you don’t get to see who’s at the table until you get there.

After the initial 25 minutes are up, you get to pick another table for the next 25 minutes of discussion.

Tables:

1. coming soon

2:30 - 3:00 Coffee & networking

For years, platform lock-in has shaped how digital teams work, who they rely on, and how decisions get made. That assumption is starting to break.

Vibe coding allows developers to express intent while AI generates implementation. At the same time, standards like Model Context Protocol (MCP) are making platforms accessible to AI agents, not just humans. The promise is clear: easier movement between systems, less dependence on specific vendors, and a very different competitive landscape.

The shift is not just faster delivery. When components, integrations, and migrations can be generated on demand, platform-specific expertise stops being the main differentiator. The traditional agency model starts to erode.

What becomes critical is everything around the build. Content models, governance, stakeholder alignment, and platform judgment now determine whether systems hold together or fall apart. Teams that focus only on speed risk creating more fragmentation, not less.

This session maps what actually changes across how things are built, how platforms connect, and where human expertise still matters. Drawing on real migration and replatforming work, it shows where AI accelerates delivery, where it introduces friction, and where assumptions break.

You will leave with a clear view of which capabilities are losing value, which are becoming critical, and a set of practical questions to assess your own delivery model.

AI is reshaping how digital teams plan, build, and deliver. The real advantage isn’t just in adopting new tools — it’s in connecting them. When AI is embedded into a composable architecture, strategy and execution finally move at the same pace.

In this session, Chad Solomonsen explores how to design an AI-powered roadmap that accelerates value instead of adding complexity. He’ll show how to:

• Attach AI at the experience layer where it drives real outcomes

• Stream and govern data safely from core systems

• Reuse modular components across teams and channels

• Deliver measurable improvements in weeks, not years

Drawing on real implementations and lessons from leading enterprise teams, Chad reveals what it takes to turn composable vision into everyday execution — building smarter and shipping faster with AI at the center.

More details coming soon

4:30 - 5:00 Coffee & networking

5:00 - 6:00 European CMS Idol 2026

Help crown the next (and first) “2026 CMS Idol”! In this fast-paced, entertaining competition, contestants will have 6 minutes to showcase their system and try to win your vote.

If you like short demos, pithy commentary, and expert analyses, then look no further. This is the session for you. You'll hear thoughts from an expert panel of judges, but it's up to you to decide the winner.

Host: Matt Garrepy, CMS Critic

Judges:

• Matthew McQueeny

• TBA

• TBA

6:30 - 10:00 Social event

Join us for an informal networking dinner. Everyone is welcome!

We’ll also announce the CMS Idol winner and even do a CMS Experts Quiz!

Venue: coming soon

Wednesday, May 13

7:00 Morning Run

We meet in front of the Kommunikation Museum for a relaxed 25 minute run. We’ll run to along the famous river and see the famous skyline

9:00 - 9:30 Breakfast and networking

Join us early, get the conversation started, reflect on what you’ve already learned and enjoy some freshly brewed coffee and tea.

9:30 - 9:45: Morning welcome

A brief opening by
- Our host Janus Boye, Boye & Co

Your website isn’t dead, but it’s no longer enough. As AI reshapes customer expectations, brands must evolve their static digital experiences into real-time interactions.

Site visitors no longer have time to browse through endless webpages to try to find what they’re looking for. This is where AI agents come into play. They act as digital concierges that answer visitors’ questions and help them complete tasks, moving them further along their customer journey.

But what about the webpage itself? How will the actual website transform with AI? In this session, we’ll dive into AI agents built for the customer experience, and how webpages can dynamically transform through AI.

More details coming soon

AI is rapidly finding its way into content workflows, but the reality inside enterprise environments is far more uneven than the hype suggests. Many organisations are experimenting with “bring your own AI” approaches, only to end up with fragmented workflows that lack context, governance, and connection to real business needs.

In this session, Ondřej shares insights from recent discovery work and conversations with enterprise teams to paint a more honest picture of where AI in content editing stands today. What is actually being used? Where does it deliver value? And where does it quietly fall short?

Rather than presenting a polished vision of the future, this session reflects on real-world experiences across organisations navigating AI in their editorial workflows. Together, we will explore what it takes to move from isolated AI experiments to something that genuinely supports editors, content teams, and the broader content ecosystem.

Expect a candid, experience-based perspective on where AI helps, where it creates friction, and what organisations need to get right before it can scale.

10:45 - 11:15 Coffee & networking

Every setup, content model, and workflow carries assumptions about who your users are. Most of these assumptions are never made explicit. They emerge quietly through configuration choices, content decisions, and the way we communicate.

This session explores where digital bias hides in three critical layers: configuration, content, and communication. From platform choices and AI-assisted tools to editorial workflows and messaging, we will uncover how everyday decisions shape who your digital experience works for and who gets left out.

Bias does not stay hidden. It reaches every person who interacts with your product and your content, with real consequences for users, teams, and organisations.

Through practical examples across configuration, content strategy, and communication design, you will learn how to spot these hidden assumptions and understand their impact.

You will leave with a clear, practical framework and a set of questions you can apply immediately in your next project, helping you create more inclusive, effective, and trustworthy digital experiences.

more details coming soon

12:30 - 13:30 Lunch

More details coming soon

A brief interactive wrap-up of the two days. Join us for key lessons learned, big questions for 2026, perhaps a few answers and what happens next.

14.45 - 15:00 Goodbyes and see you next year!

Thanks for joining us. Continue the conversation over a cup of coffee or tea before leaving Frankfurt