The AI work is another reason this feels like a different era.
Drupal CMS 2.0 doesn’t treat AI as a novelty sitting off to the side. Current features include Canvas AI for generating landing pages from prompts, an administrative chatbot that can help with site-building tasks, and AI-generated alt text for images. Drupal’s current product direction also includes AI-assisted content creation, editing and review as part of the CMS experience.
That’s where I think AI becomes interesting.
I don’t need a CMS to put an AI button somewhere so it can say it has AI. I want AI where the work is happening, integrated. If I’m creating a page, help me create it. If I’m organizing content, understand the content model. If I’m working inside a structured system, use that structure as context. Drupal is particularly well positioned for this because structure has always been one of its strong suits.
Content types, fields, taxonomy and reusable content give Drupal an underlying model of what the information actually is. Drupal CMS continues to emphasize structured content that can be organized, reused and published across different experiences. That structure was valuable before AI, and it may become even more valuable because of AI.
We are already seeing what that structure can mean
We recently ran Cool Fire’s own Drupal site through the FireUp AIO AI Visibility Scorecard. Our overall score was 64 out of 100, so there is plenty we still want to improve. But the Foundation pillar scored 100%. “Foundation” measures structural signals (e.g., semantic HTML, schema, entity clarity) where Drupal naturally excels.
I found that particularly interesting because the foundation is exactly where Drupal has always been strong. Good content is not just words sitting on pages. It has structure, relationships, context and meaning.
That doesn’t mean Drupal automatically gives you perfect AI visibility. It doesn’t on its own. Our own scorecard identified work we still need to do around expertise, citations, case studies and measurable proof. But it does reinforce something I have believed for a long time and that’s when the underlying structure is built well, you are starting from a much better place.
This is the second piece of a longer reflection on Drupal CMS 2.0, more coming.