Cruce Saunders

What’s ahead for Adobe Experience Manager? According to Tom Cranstoun, an ecosystem revolution. And it’s already happening. As “The AEM Guy” details in today’s Guest Post on CMS Critic, Adobe’s long evolutionary arc from #opensource foundations to market-leading DXP has been nothing short of transformative – and that journey is revealing some compelling insights about where #digitalexperience platforms are headed. The destination? An approach that transcends traditional platform boundaries. Tom’s deep experience with AEM has given him a unique foundation for predicting what’s next. In his article, he also offers keen observations that illustrate Adobe’s rethinking of #content workflows, from the Franklin initiative to the AEM’s Document Authoring. Citing a range of technologies that have been woven into the tapestry, Tom unpacks how AEM is also following the broader pattern of balancing proprietary innovation with open standards and community contributions. There’s no question that #CMS and #DXP software vendors have embraced greater composability and modularity, offering a counterpoint to legacy monolithic platforms. But is the opportunity for Adobe – and its enterprise DXP peers – to become ecosystem orchestrators? “The future belongs not to platforms that try to do everything,” Tom says, “but to those that do specific things exceptionally well while enabling seamless integration with complementary tools.” This is a fantastic thought piece by one of the leading minds in the AEM community, and you can read it here: https://lnkd.in/enReD6fy

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The headlines this week suggest a sector in its ascendancy: one of the leaders in the SEO for AI space, Profound, announced new funding at a $1 billion valuation. (Early subscribers to The Aisle may recall that I interviewed the startup’s CEO James Cadwallader for this same newsletter back in December.) Yet in conversations this week with a half-dozen consumer brand leaders, the sentiment was noticeably more restrained.    The disagreement is less about whether AI-driven discovery matters for brands but more about what should be measured and how, what can realistically be outsourced, and how much of this work is actually new. All of my interviews and full reporting is available below for subscribers. And some bonus content from me on why that viral Citrini Research doomsday AI post gets DoorDash's strengths wrong. https://lnkd.in/e2zvD-xd

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Griddo earns a PhD in performance. From no-code page building to AI automation, this education-focused DXP is giving university communications and marketing teams a feature-rich toolset for managing content and digital assets with ease and scale. In my illuminating conversation with Griddo’s CEO Daniel Serrano and Growth Analyst Isabella Sofía Otero Blanco, we went deep into the platform’s capabilities, which include focused controls and governance that higher education institutions rely on. Cloud-first, API-first, and fully composable, Griddo offers an authoring experience built for university teams, featuring a robust design system. Its low-code capabilities make it highly accessible to editors and marketers, and it addresses the fundamentals of SEO/GEO. According to Daniel, universities are a challenging vertical but one filled with opportunity. While developing the IE University website at Secuoyas, a digital agency based in Europe, he and his team identified where the key gaps are with modern platforms – and worked to bridge them. “When we had to integrate this ecosystem of different websites that the university had, we found that there was a big gap between what a CMS could deliver. We couldn’t find a platform that really met the need, so we started to look at a new way of doing things.” For higher education and university teams evaluating CMS and DXP solutions, Griddo should be on your list. You can read our thorough analysis on CMS Critic: 🔶 https://lnkd.in/eM9YtyEc #Griddo #DXP #digitalexperienceplatform #highereducation #universities #AI #artificialintelligence #marketing

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⚡ AI is not just another tech cycle⚡ It’s the most transformative shift we’ve seen since initial computing. Coatue held the '25 East Meets West conference and was struck by how much AI is reshaping the landscape. These folks share their exceptional content for all of us - Amazing! Thank you!!! Kevin Weil from OpenAI put it best: “The model you use today is the worst AI model you’ll ever use for the rest of your life.” Key takeaways for leaders in tech: 🔄 Iterative innovation. Rapid, incremental releases will matter more than perfection. ⚡ New productivity curve. AI will drive a new “golden age of margin expansion,” allowing us to do more with less. 🤖 Deep user engagement. AI will complete tasks and deeply integrate into daily workflows. 🚀 Bold reinvention. The playing field is resetting — incumbents and disruptors alike must embrace change. 🤝 Strategic partnerships & talent. Success will require strategic alliances and a serious commitment to nurturing an AI-capable workforce. Deep Dives ⬇️ 📊 Conference slides (100+ slides) https://lnkd.in/gHZK_Ymj 🎧 Pod 1 — EMW Summary https://lnkd.in/g8vUGi9T 🎧 Pod 2 — Kevin Weil on AI & strategy (Not Geeky) https://lnkd.in/ghHhcn8q ✅ Would love to hear your thoughts — what’s your top takeaway?

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Generative AI presents significant risks for local government, particularly in community engagement. If trained on unrepresentative data, AI can amplify existing societal biases, creating content that excludes or misrepresents certain community voices. This can ultimately undermine public trust and lead to inequitable outcomes for residents, making it crucial for governments to prioritise data diversity and human oversight. Generative AI is an incredible tool, but like any tool it must be treated with care and the utmost safety in mind.

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Microsoft and Salesforce lead the ‘low-code’ development landscape, according to an assessment by GlobalData Plc. Research director Charlotte Dunlap says these companies are demonstrating the importance of the user experience to support the emerging AI agent space. "The need to remove any red tape from the app modernisation process has never been greater," adds Dunlap. #lowcodedevelopment #agenticAI https://lnkd.in/e7r-JRNm

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Why Genealogy Needs Stories—and Citations | A clip from my Substack post, #AATP25: Revisiting “Using Digitized Maps from the Library of Congress to Understand Your Place” with Annette Burke Lyttle. Watch it here: https://lnkd.in/gMEC-WAE

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Best kept secret: the IBM accessibility checker, blows other #a11y testing tools out of the water ✅ open source and well maintained✅ Free and ad free ✅ multiple rulesets ✅ export results to excel https://lnkd.in/eRqXbfdy

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⚡ AI isn’t the threat—it’s the wake-up call higher ed needed. Institutions resisting change risk falling behind. Those embracing AI with purpose are rethinking workflows, pedagogy, and outcomes for the better. 💡 The future isn’t AI vs. education—it’s AI with education. 👉 Has AI been a disruption or an opportunity for your institution? Read more: https://buff.ly/c6KI5sd #AI #HigherEd #EdTech #Innovation #FutureOfWork

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OpenAI has published a prompting guide for GPT-5: https://lnkd.in/e9YH_hWn “ We discuss concepts like improving agentic task performance, ensuring instruction adherence, making use of newly API features, and optimizing coding for frontend and software engineering tasks” #LLMs #GenAI

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Enjoyed writing this piece with Anathea Ruys (she, her, hers) post the Upfronts to think through how marketers and publishers can work better to advocate for better measurement. Crucially, big tech (Google, Meta, Pinterest, TikTok) have done an excellent job making data portable and accessible for marketers to validate MMMs. It is beyond crucial that more traditional publishers follow suit to start to champion a world of independent measurement. https://lnkd.in/gbMFukk6

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You’ve heard of MCP, but IBM Research team is tackling AI agent-to-agent communication challenges, and they’ve just published their initial draft of ACP (Agent Communication Protocol). 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗔𝗖𝗣?ACP standardizes agent interactions, enabling automation, collaboration, UI integration, and developer tools. Instead of enforcing strict rules upfront, ACP prioritizes practical features, ensuring adoption before formal standardization. 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Agent systems often face integration issues due to varied communication standards. ACP addresses this by streamlining interactions for agents that process natural language and rely on external models, fostering easier integration and collaboration. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 Standardization ensures reliable and widely adopted features. ACP evolves based on real-world use, offering: 1/ Interoperability: Smooth interaction between agents and systems. 2/ Simplified Development: Less complexity, more innovation. 3/ Efficiency: Reduced redundancy through reusable solutions. ACP also enhances agent-specific capabilities, such as: Natural Language Flexibility: Optimized for handling ambiguous language Model Dependency Management: Simplifies external model integration and resource management.

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