Inside the Drupal AI Summit: Themes, Speaker and What To Expect

“The web is changing fast, and AI is rewriting the rules. It writes content, builds pages, and answers questions directly, often bypassing websites entirely.

People wonder what this means for Drupal. My answer is simple: AI is the storm, but it's also the way through it. Instead of fighting this shift, we're leaning into it.”

These were the wise words spoken by Dries Buytaert during his keynote at DrupalCon Vienna.

His message marked a clear direction for the Drupal AI Initiative. He showed how Drupal is introducing AI-supported visual editing, smarter site creation, automated agents, and guided workflows. He also explained why Drupal’s structure and long-standing principles make it ready for this new chapter. 

Instead of treating AI as a trend, Drupal is building it into the platform in a way that protects clarity, quality, and user control.

This vision now moves forward through the Drupal AI Summit in Paris, led by Paul Johnson and Kristof Van Tomme. Hosted within FOST, the world’s largest federated technology conference, the summit brings the community together to shape how Drupal will approach responsible, open, and practical AI in the years ahead, continuing the foundation set by the Drupal AI Initiative.

Transform Drupal + AI

To know more about the Drupal AI Summit, details, venue, sessions, and why you should attend, keep reading.

About the Drupal AI Summit

The Drupal AI Summit will take place on 9 December in Paris as part of FOST. 

FOST is a major global conference that brings together people working in open source, cloud technology, security, and digital governance. It is being held from 9–11 December and will host more than 8,000 attendees, 25+ tech conferences, and 400+ speakers.

FOST connects many parts of the software world, which makes it a fitting stage for Drupal’s first event focused fully on AI.

The Drupal AI summit brings together engineers, architects, product leaders, and marketers who are using AI in Drupal in real systems today. It looks at how this work aligns with the values that shaped Drupal from the very beginning. These values continue to guide how Drupal grows and how its community makes decisions.

• Transparency, so teams can understand how systems work and trust the tools they use
• Community, where progress is built through shared effort and open collaboration
• Long term thinking, with choices made for stability, clarity, and public benefit

With these principles in mind, hosting the summit within FOST places Drupal’s AI work inside a wider conversation about the future of open technology. It shows how Drupal plans to bring responsible AI into its future while keeping control, clarity, and community leadership at the center.

Also, Check Out:

FOST and Drupal AI Initiative: Next Era of Responsible AI

What Is the Focus of the Drupal AI Summit?

The Drupal AI summit is shaped around a clear purpose. Drupal wants to make AI useful in ways that stay open, accountable, and under public control. This direction comes from the Drupal AI Initiative, which has spent the past year working toward a future where Drupal with AI has the same openness that has guided the platform for decades.

The focus of the summit grows from that work. It looks at how AI can be built with strong governance, how open source models can replace closed systems, and how organizations can keep full control of their data and their long term plans. The goal is simple. AI should strengthen digital teams without locking them into services they cannot see or guide.

Also, Check Out:

1. Drupal AI Ecosystem Part 1: Setup and AI CKEditor Configuration
2. Drupal AI Ecosystem Part 2: AI Logging, Observability, & API Explorer

What Are the Sessions in the Drupal AI Summit?

The Drupal AI summit will run 11 sessions in a single day. These sessions will be led by experts who will speak about practical architecture, new development models, and the lessons learned from building open source AI tools at scale. 

Here’s a quick look at the sessions and what you can expect to learn from them.

1. Drupal and MCP

- by Giorgi Jibladze, Co-founder and CTO (Omedia)

Giorgi will walk through how Drupal can act as an MCP server, making use of the same protocol that powers modern agentic tools. He'll also demonstrate how developers can expose Drupal resources in a structured way, model complex data, and connect this work to ChatGPT through OpenAI’s new Apps SDK.

What will you learn?

• How Drupal serves as an MCP server
• How to build interactive AI-driven interfaces with Drupal data
• Why Drupal’s content modeling gives it an edge for MCP-based applications

2. Orchestrating AI with an Open-Source CMS

- by Alex Moreno, Partner Manager and Developer Relations (Pantheon)

Alex will show how Drupal has evolved into a strong orchestration platform for APIs, AI models, and intelligent experiences. Using examples from the DrupalCon Vienna session on Drupal, AI, and Google Gemini, he'll explain how AI workflows plug naturally into Drupal’s architecture.

What will you learn?

• How AI models and APIs integrate cleanly into Drupal
• Why open-source CMS platforms remain central in AI-driven ecosystems
• Practical patterns for automation and content intelligence

3. Drupal’s AI Agent Framework and Powerful Page Building

- by Jamie Abrahams, Co-founder (FreelyGive)

Another session at the Drupal AI Summit will be presented by Jamie Abrahams. In this talk, he will introduce Drupal’s agent framework, which allows both developers and site builders to create agent-driven workflows without needing deep technical knowledge. He will also show how Drupal with AI can generate accessible, responsive pages automatically while keeping humans in control of the final outcome.

What will you learn?

• How Drupal’s agent framework works
• How AI can generate pages while maintaining accessibility
• A look at new features coming to the Drupal AI ecosystem

4. Private and Secure AI: A Data-Sovereign Solution

- by Dan Lemon, Developer (amazee.io)

In this session, Dan will present a privacy-first AI assistant that allows teams to work with internal documents, images, and PDFs in a secure environment. He'll show how Drupal with AI plays a central role in ensuring data control and compliance.

What will you learn?

• How Drupal supports secure and compliant AI workflows
• How teams can run private AI models over internal content
• Why data sovereignty matters in real-world use cases

5. Re-Imagining Web Publishing with AI and UX Research

- by Emma Horrell, User Experience Manager (University of Edinburgh)

Emma will share experiments from a large university website, exploring how AI in Drupal can support editors through improved UX, learning agents, and real-time editorial guidance. She will show how UX and AI work together within Drupal to enhance day-to-day publishing.

What will you learn?

• How UX research shapes trustworthy AI tools
• How AI can support editors at scale
• A practical model for running AI experiments in large organisations

6. AI-Assisted Site Migrations

- by Andrew Mallis, CEO (Kalamuna)

This is another excellent session to look forward to during the Drupal AI Summit. Andrew will introduce new tools in Drupal’s migration ecosystem that use AI to plan, generate, and automate migration tasks. This includes the AI Migrate Agent module and Drush commands that support AI-driven migrations inside CI pipelines.

What will you learn?

• How AI can reduce time and effort in site migrations
• How to generate migration plans through conversation
• How to automate migrations in modern development workflows

7. AI Meets Community: Balancing Automation and Trust

- by Moritz Arendt, Head of Product (Open Social)

Moritz will reflect on integrating AI into community platforms that rely on participation and trust. He'll share the challenges, boundaries, and design choices behind using AI as a co-pilot rather than a replacement.

What will you learn?

• How to design AI features that respect community dynamics
• How to balance automation with transparency
• Lessons from real deployments in collaborative environments

8. AIO / GEO — Content Optimisation for AI-Driven Search

- by Christoph Breidert, Founder / CIO (1xINTERNET)

Christoph will introduce the S1x Signals Framework, which helps organisations prepare their content for AI-generated search and answer engines. He will explain how Drupal can run automated audits to keep content aligned with emerging AI-based discovery patterns.

What will you learn?

• How AI-generated search is changing content strategy
• How to optimise content for visibility in AI answers
• How Drupal can automate this work at scale

9. How to Build AI Search with Drupal’s No-Code AI Framework

- by Artem Dmitriiev, Web Developer (1xINTERNET GmbH)

Artem will show how teams can build intelligent search tools using Drupal’s no-code AI framework. He will walk through examples of semantic search, conversational interfaces, and AI-generated summaries, all built using open-source components.

What will you learn?

• How to create AI search experiences without custom code
• How semantic and keyword search can work together
• How Drupal with AI helps teams build modern search interfaces quickly

10. Automation and Beyond: Creating and Publishing Documentation with Drupal AI

- by Kristof Van Tomme, CEO / Co-founder (PRONOVIX)

During this session, Kristof will present how AI in Drupal improves documentation publishing within developer portals. He'll cover automated workflows, metadata extraction, AI search, and answer engine optimization.

What will you learn?

• How Drupal supports modern documentation workflows
• How AI improves classification, search, and content reuse
• Practical use cases for API and developer-focused teams

11. Why Drupal is the Perfect Foundation for Your AI

- by Marcus Johannson, Technical Lead Drupal AI Initiative & Senior Developer (FreelyGive)

Last but not least, in this sessions, Marcus will explore what makes Drupal a strong and dependable platform for modern digital projects. Marcus will highlight Drupal’s flexibility, its structured approach to content, and its ability to integrate smoothly with a wide range of tools and workflows.

What Can You Expect From This Drupal AI Initiative Event?

The Drupal AI Summit is an important moment for the community. It brings people together at a time when the web is changing fast and many teams are trying to understand how AI fits into their work. 

This event gives you a chance to see what is already happening in real projects and where Drupal is heading next. It is a unique opportunity for anyone working at the intersection of Drupal, open source, and artificial intelligence.

• You’ll get the chance to explore real examples of AI applied to the Drupal stack, including content automation, search improvement, workflows, and human-in-the-loop models.
• You’ll connect with tech evangelists, module maintainers, and contributors who are shaping how Drupal works in an AI-first world.
• You’ll find a welcoming space to network with agencies, open source supporters, nonprofits, and anyone curious about what AI can bring to their Drupal projects.

Whether you're a developer, a site builder, an AI practitioner, an agency, or an organization that relies on Drupal, this summit gives you something you won’t find anywhere else: a clear view of where Drupal is going and a voice in shaping that future.

So don’t miss out. Be part of this amazing crowd.

Register Today!

Key Takeaways

1. The Drupal AI Initiative gives Drupal a clear direction by helping teams build smarter workflows while keeping full control over their data and decisions.
2. The Drupal AI Summit in Paris brings the community together to shape practical, open, and accountable ways to use new technology inside Drupal projects.
3. Drupal keeps its long-standing values, clarity, transparency, and community leadership, at the center while it adapts to a fast-changing digital world.
4. The summit connects engineers, product leaders, and creators who already build real solutions with Drupal, showing how the platform stays strong and future-ready.
5. Anyone attending the Drupal AI Summit gains a front-row view of new workflows, content tools, and publishing methods that support modern digital teams.