Web content management has evolved rapidly into a dynamic engine for managing content, commerce, data, and customer experiences across channels. Most recently, Agentic AI-enabled platforms, headless and composable architectures, and deeper data integration have redefined what marketers and developers look for in a CMS. These developments are shaping trends and changing how we work in 2026.
We’re looking ahead at the top 10 web content management trends shaping 2026, giving you a forward-looking lens to help you plan strategically from both a technical and marketing perspective. You’ll also see how Xperience by Kentico reflects many of these changes, as an example of how digital platforms are evolving to include Agentic AI, composable commerce, integrated data, and cross-functional collaboration.
Trend 1: Agentic AI for Content Orchestration
In 2025, native AI became a popular feature in digital experience platforms. But in 2026, AI in content management is moving beyond basic standalone tools for copy generation or image creation. The focus has shifted to agentic AI for complete content orchestration: autonomous agents that can take on defined roles such as campaign manager, SEO specialist, or content strategist.
These agents do more than create content; they can help plan, prioritize, and schedule campaigns, monitor performance, and can continuously refine content based on data.
This shift is reflected in Xperience by Kentico’s upcoming Agentic Marketing Suite, launching January 27, which introduces specialized agents such as a content strategist, a customer journey optimization specialist, and an agent designed to help with campaign management, with more agents coming soon.
By handling tasks in the background, agentic AI can effectively reduce manual overhead and maintain consistent quality and pacing as content demands grow. With 74% of enterprises saying that further AI adoption is a priority (Bain & Company), it’s safe to assume that agentic AI will turn out to be more than just a content management trend in 2026.
Trend 2: Fast Website Development with AI-powered Tooling
Speed to market is an important factor for marketing teams looking to get faster results from their efforts, and that’s not changing in the new year. AI-assisted development, low-code/no-code tooling, and automation will continue to trend as solutions for meeting tight timelines in 2026.
In fact, AI-powered tooling has been found to reduce development time by 55% (arxiv.org). It reduces repetitive setup and configuration work, simplifies content modeling, and making site builds and migrations faster. With the right tools, work can be divided so that developers can focus on high-value custom logic and integrations, and routine tasks are handled by AI.
Trend 3: AI-enhanced Content Personalization & Customer Journey Insights
Personalization has become a non-negotiable; in 2026, the demand is only increasing. According to a recent study, 76% reported feeling frustrated when experiences aren’t personalized (Involve.me). Organizations will be expected to continue to personalize content with a greater understanding of how users move across touchpoints and what drives engagement, conversion, or drop-off.
For this reason, AI-powered customer journey insights are becoming a core CMS capability, helping teams track, analyze, and optimize interactions across content, marketing, and commerce without needing to switch tools. Marketers can quickly see exactly how content performs throughout the entire journey.
Xperience by Kentico’s Customer Journey Insights, powered by AI, support this shift by surfacing patterns, highlighting friction points, and suggesting optimizations. With better visibility into real user behavior, teams can make more informed decisions that improve engagement and conversion without any guesswork or missed opportunities.
“I love using Xperience by Kentico's AI features enabled by AIRA. Having AI available where content editors already work helps them create, refine, and optimize content faster without leaving the platform. It reduces friction between strategy and execution. No more copying and pasting.”
Trend 4: Intelligent Content Coordination Across CMS and DXP Ecosystems
Marketing teams often have a content coordination problem: content is often spread across multiple systems, teams, and channels, making it difficult to deliver consistent, timely, and relevant experiences. Gartner describes this challenge through the lens of a new trend: Intelligent Content Coordination, a data-driven, AI-enabled strategy that connects content planning, creation, distribution, and optimization across the entire customer journey.
Rather than treating content as isolated assets, this approach uses shared taxonomies, unified metadata, cross-functional workflows, and connected architectures. This helps content to be discovered, reused, and optimized in real time.
Gartner warns that by 2027, 40% of organizations could fail to implement digital customer experiences that meet today’s standards without investment in AI-driven intelligent content coordination and content operations strategies. This emphasizes why CMS and DXP platforms are evolving beyond publishing tools and into orchestration layers for content, data, and AI in 2026.
Trend 5: Seamless Collaboration Between Developers and Marketers
The traditional divide between development and marketing teams is steadily dissolving, and this will continue well beyond the new year. In 2026, you can get the best of both worlds: a CMS platform that both developers and marketers can intuitively use. The traditional divide between development and marketing teams is steadily dissolving, and this will continue well beyond the new year. Successful digital organizations in 2026 rely on shared platforms that support both technical and non-technical users without forcing compromises on either side.
Modern CMS platforms are evolving into collaboration hubs, where developers build flexible foundations and marketers execute campaigns, personalize content, and analyze performance within the same environment. This reduces time-consuming workarounds and long waits to deploy content and campaigns.
Trend 6: SEO & Discoverability (GEO + Semantic SEO) Driven by AI
Search is changing rapidly, driven by AI search experiences, semantic indexing, and generative answers. The Search Engine Journal’s study for 2026 trends reported that many teams are opting for a hybrid approach to SEO, with 58% saying they plan on combining human-created content with AI enhancements for greater discoverability (SEJ). In response, CMS platforms must embed smarter SEO and discoverability tools directly into content workflows to help marketing efforts stand out.
AI-driven SEO agents can now handle tasks like metadata generation, schema markup, semantic tagging, and GEO optimization automatically. This helps teams to keep pace with changing search requirements without relying on manual processes for every update.
"AI won't replace human marketers but will amplify their capabilities through predictive analytics that anticipate needs before customers articulate them.”
Trend 7: Real-time Conversational UX with AI Chatbots
Users increasingly expect real-time, conversational interactions due to the rise of AI-powered chatbots. In 2025, AI chatbots became a natural extension of content, supporting everything from customer support to lead qualification and guided discovery. This trend is expected to grow in 2026, with CMS platforms making it easier to embed and manage AI chatbots without heavy development effort or external tooling.
Xperience by Kentico’s upcoming AI chat bot module, planned for release in March 2026, enables marketers to deploy AI-driven chatbots directly within their websites. This creates more responsive, engaging experiences while supporting scalable, always-on interaction across digital touchpoints.
Trend 8: Unified CDP & Segmentation Inside the CMS
Effective personalization depends on data, and in 2026, marketers increasingly need to be able to access customer data and segmentation capabilities from within their platform for faster digital marketing.
The convergence of CMS and CDP functionality will help teams target content and offers based on behavior, attributes, and real-time signals; all within the same workflow used to create and manage content.
Trend 9: No-code / Low-code Content Modeling
Complex content modeling and painful migrations have long slowed down CMS projects. In 2026, organizations need faster, simpler ways to create content structures and move away from legacy platforms.
Now it's possible with AI-assisted, no-code and low-code tools that reduce reliance on developers and empower non-technical teams to make structural changes with confidence. Content models can evolve as business needs change, rather than becoming long-term constraints.
Trend 10: Data-driven Content Optimization & Experimentation Built In
Despite all the new tools at our disposal, content success in 2026 won’t be a one-and-done effort. And that’s a good thing. Content will have a longer lifespan and reach new audiences through data-driven optimization. Teams will be expected to measure, test, and continuously refine their content to achieve the best results. As a result, built-in experimentation, analytics, and AI-powered recommendations have become the norm, reducing the need to rely on a patchwork of external optimization tools.
Whether it’s testing headlines and layouts or fine-tuning campaigns based on real customer journey data, teams will expect to be able to analyze data directly within the CMS in 2026. This makes the necessary shift from occasionally optimizing to an everyday practice that's easier than ever before.
Keeping up with Digital Platform Trends in 2026
As digital experiences continue to evolve, Xperience by Kentico helps teams manage content, marketing, and commerce in one unified platform. By embedding AI, data, and optimization directly into everyday workflows, organizations can adapt faster and deliver more connected experiences in 2026.
Here’s how Xperience by Kentico supports the DXP trends shaping the year ahead:
- Agentic Marketing Suite: Orchestrate content and campaigns with autonomous agents that help plan, execute, and optimize marketing efforts at scale.
- AI-powered Customer Journey Insights: Understand how content performs across touchpoints and identify opportunities to improve engagement and conversion.
- Headless commerce capabilities: Create flexible, content-led commerce experiences without relying on tightly coupled systems.
- AI chat bot: Deliver real-time, conversational experiences directly within your digital channels.
Explore how Xperience by Kentico will help organizations adapt faster and deliver more connected experiences in 2026, with AI, data, and optimization built directly into everyday workflows.
Check out our roadmap to get the details on upcoming refreshes and releases.