For years, marketers have worked to perfect the customer journey. We’ve mapped it, optimised it, personalised it and measured every click. We’ve invested in technologies designed to anticipate what customers need and guide them toward the next interaction.
But what happens when the customer decides to skip the journey altogether?
That’s increasingly possible in a world where people can simply ask AI for what they need. Rather than navigating websites and following a carefully designed path to conversion, they can describe what they’re looking for and expect a relevant answer.
We’re already seeing evidence of this shift. Ofcom’s 2026 Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes report found that 75% of UK online adults read AI-generated search summaries at least some of the time, with 42% doing so often or always. Meanwhile, Forrester research found that 34% of UK online adults had used ChatGPT to search for products they were interested in buying in the previous month, up from 22% in October 2025.
For marketers, the implications go beyond search. We’ve traditionally measured digital success through traffic, engagement and conversions. But an AI assistant might influence a purchasing decision long before someone visits a brand’s website, if they visit at all.
Visibility increasingly means more than ranking well in search results. It means making information accessible, credible and useful wherever people are looking for answers.
And that’s where the conversation about content management gets interesting.
CMS needs to do more than publish
CMS has come a long way. Headless architectures made it easier to deliver content across channels. Composable approaches gave organisations more flexibility to connect the technologies powering their digital experiences.
Both were important advances. But much of the thinking behind traditional content management still revolves around pages, templates and predefined experiences. Businesses organise information, determine how it should be presented and hope customers can find what they need. AI is beginning to challenge that model.
Generative CMS takes that evolution further. Rather than relying entirely on predefined pages and experiences, it opens the door to delivering content based on what someone is actually trying to accomplish.
Combined with technologies like retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), these systems can connect AI-powered interactions to an organisation’s own content, product information and knowledge resources.
Imagine someone visiting a bank’s website to understand which account best suits their needs. Today, they might have to navigate several pages, compare options and interpret eligibility requirements. An AI-powered experience could instead help them find relevant information drawn from the bank’s approved content, while giving them the option to explore further or speak with an adviser.
The goal isn’t to eliminate the website or replace every interaction with a chatbot. It’s to help people find what they need without making them work so hard for it.
Intelligence without trust isn't progress
Of course, there’s another side to this conversation. If AI is going to play a greater role in how content is discovered, assembled and delivered, organisations need confidence in the information being used.
What happens when an AI-generated response relies on outdated product information? Who determines which content an AI system can access? And how do businesses maintain brand consistency, regulatory compliance and appropriate human oversight?
These aren’t questions marketers can afford to address after the technology is deployed. As experiences become more dynamic, organisations need to build on their existing content governance practices, with additional safeguards for what information AI can access and how it can be used. Technologies like RAG can help ground responses in trusted information, but they don’t eliminate the risk of inaccurate or outdated answers. Human oversight remains essential.
Rethink the foundation, not just the interface
None of this means organisations need to abandon their existing CMS or rebuild their digital experiences overnight. But it does mean asking some different questions.
That starts with taking a closer look at the content itself. Is it structured in a way that makes it useful beyond the page where it was published? And can the technology behind it support new ways of delivering that information without sacrificing accuracy or control?
Answering these questions will take more than technology. Marketers, content teams and IT will need to rethink how information is created, maintained and made available to the people who need it.
The website isn’t going away. Neither are traditional search or the carefully designed experiences we’ve spent years improving. But we can no longer assume people will interact with our brands in the ways we’ve planned for them.
The next evolution of CMS is an opportunity to make the information organisations already have more useful, accessible and responsive to what people actually need.
And that’s a much more interesting future than simply publishing another page.
Sara Faatz
Sara Faatz, Senior Director, Community & Awareness, Progress Software.With two decades of experience in corporate marketing, brand development and community engagement, Sara has worked with international organisations across a range of industries. Throughout her career, she has led marketing teams of varying sizes, developed community initiatives from the ground up and established partner programmes that strengthen relationships and support business growth.
