Top session picks at DrupalCon Atlanta 2025

Authored by Nadiia Nykolaichuk.

All eyes in the Drupal universe are on Atlanta! The countdown is on for DrupalCon Atlanta 2025—an event packed with insights, innovation, and community spirit. While memories of DrupalCon Barcelona are still fresh, it’s time to get ready for another thrilling adventure!

DrupalCon Atlanta 2025’s hero image

With Drupal evolving at lightning speed, this event promises to be one of the most exciting yet. Whether you’re eager to explore the latest in AI or dive into Drupal CMS, this is your chance to be at the heart of it all. DrupalCon is all about compelling sessions, big announcements, and hands-on workshops. It also offers exceptional networking opportunities to connect with fellow Drupal enthusiasts.

The program is packed with outstanding sessions on every aspect of building and using Drupal websites, along with key topics that shape your team’s success. Continuing our tradition, we’ve reviewed the agenda and want to highlight some of the most compelling presentations across all tracks.

Champion sponsors for the 17th time

Before diving into the sessions, we’d love to share some exciting news — this March marks the 17th year our team is fully engaged with DrupalCon! We’re proud to be a champion sponsor of DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 and to have our experts take the stage as speakers.

You’ll hear more about our speakers very soon in our session highlights, but for now, we’d like to extend a warm invitation to connect with us at the event. Stop by to meet our team at Booth #606/608, chat about all things Drupal, and pick up some cool swag. Want dedicated time with us? Book your slot in advance!

ImageX is a champion sponsor of DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 (Booth #606/608)

Collection of hand-picked sessions at DrupalCon Atlanta 2025

“Meet the AI Automators that power everything in Drupal CMS — CKEditor, AI Agents, no code required!” — by Marcus Johansson

Curious to know the latest in Drupal? Forget trending — this is making waves. We’re talking about Drupal’s groundbreaking leap into AI. Remember the impressive Drupal AI demos from DrupalCon Barcelona, where AI tackled tasks once thought impossible?

To dive even deeper into the topic, don’t miss the DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 session by the technical mastermind behind Drupal’s AI revolution. Marcus Johansson will introduce the AI Automators that power AI-driven features in the newly-released Drupal CMS 1.0 — from content assistance in CKEditor and Alt text generation to no-code AI Agent creation.

AI Agents — whether as chat bots or other tools — analyze data, make decisions, and perform user tasks. But when consistency and control are essential, AI Automators step in. They regularly chain a set of prompts and AI-related services. AI Automators work right out of the box while offering extensive customization to meet your needs — all without writing a single line of code.

Marcus will show you how AI Automators work, how quickly and easily you can build your own Automators for CKEditor, and how you can use them to create full-fledged AI apps or custom AI Agents.

The session should be interesting for everyone. As a non-technical user, you’ll have a chance to see what’s possible, and as a technical user, you’ll discover exactly how to do it.

“The future of Drupal core in the age of Drupal CMS” — by Gábor Hojtsy

Gábor Hojtsy, a Drupal core contributor and initiative coordinator, is known for filling conference rooms with eager attendees wanting to learn about Drupal’s future, roadmap, and upcoming milestones. DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 will be no different — Gábor is likely already gearing up his time machine — so don’t miss your chance to embark on this insightful journey into the future.

Earlier, we mentioned Drupal CMS 1.0, which has become the talk of the town in the Drupal community. Check out how we explored the newly-released Drupal CMS 1.0 and demonstrated how it accommodates the needs of non-technical users. You’ll appreciate its beautiful simplicity combined with a powerful foundation, pre-configured feature sets known as Recipes, AI’s help at every step, and much more. We also explained that it’s built on top of the traditional Drupal core.

With the buzz around the newly released Drupal CMS 1.0 still strong, Drupal CMS 2.0 is already coming. Drupal CMS sparks curiosity and questions, all of which Gábor will address. He will share what the release of Drupal CMS means for Drupal core and the broader community. He’ll also tackle the burning question: Will Drupal 12 be Drupal CMS? (Yes and no).

Attendees will learn how Drupal will continue to serve vital use cases such as headless architectures, social platforms, and e-commerce. Plus, they will understand what developers and other non-focused personas can expect in this evolving landscape.

“Experience Builder is coming. Are you ready?” — by Lauri Timmanee

“Imagine a world where installing Drupal instantly offers a creative experience that allows you to build and style pages right out of the box, without any need for additional modules or configuration.” — Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal

This quote from Dries’ blog perfectly captures the essence of the upcoming Experience Builder (initially introduced as “Next Generation Page Builder”). Indeed, it starts with imagination — and time and again, the Drupal community has shown that no idea is too ambitious to become reality.

Development of the Experience Builder tool is in full swing and aims to combine the best practices from Layout Builder and other tools with groundbreaking enhancements. Intuitive and powerful, it will enable even marketing teams with no prior Drupal experience to build and style their pages directly from their browser. No complex coding will be required beyond basic HTML, CSS, and templating markup. Content creators will be able to design and manage content seamlessly, without relying on developers.

Discover all the latest insights at this DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 session by Lauri Timmanee (lauriii), the project lead behind Experience Builder. He’s the best person to walk you through building pages with Experience Builder in a dynamic demo and give you an exciting sneak peek into what the future holds.

“Honey, I Shrunk The Marketing Budget: How To Keep Improving Your Website In a Challenging Economy” — by Bjorn Thomson

Our team is dedicated to empowering you to enhance your website in every possible way. In challenging economic times, your site remains a vital digital hub — perhaps even more valuable than ever. Maximizing its performance can be the key to driving success across your entire organization. For instance, in higher education, a well-performing site can attract more enrollments, while for nonprofits, it can increase donations.

But how can you enhance your website’s productivity when financial constraints have cut your marketing budget? While it might seem like a challenging tightrope to walk, it’s completely achievable. We are excited to invite you to the session by Bjorn Thomson (bthomson), our team’s Digital Experience Solutions Director, where you’ll explore the details.

This session will cover practical tips for immediate and tangible improvements. You’ll also discover strategies to foster a culture of continuous optimization. Finally, you’ll gain insights on how to demonstrate the impact and value of these optimizations to your management, boosting your chances of securing additional resources.

“Drupal Next-Gen Navigation: Enhanced Admin UI and better UX” — by Cristina Chumillas and Pablo López

As Drupal strives for ultimate intuitiveness and user-friendliness, enhancing admin experiences is a key milestone in this journey. The first implementation of the modern, sleek, and easy-to-use admin navigation menu was introduced in the Drupal 10.3 release in 2024, and it keeps improving.

Immerse yourself into the exciting transformation of Drupal’s administration with Cristina Chumillas (ckrina) and Pablo López (plopesc). They know all the ins and outs because they are the lead creators of the new navigation. Cristina and Pablo will discuss the strategic goals behind it and explain how it enhances site management and improves the overall user experience.

In their session, you’ll also hear about specific admin navigation improvements made in Drupal CMS and what is planned for the future. Additionally, you’ll get an in-depth look at strategic UI updates, such as the new Top Bar, developed in collaboration with the maintainers of the Experience Builder, the Gin admin theme, and Drupal core.

Driesnote by Dries Buytaert

At every DrupalCon, there’s always that one session where excitement reaches a peak, and the main auditorium fills to capacity. After a few words from the organizers, the moment everyone has been waiting for arrives: Drupal’s creator, Dries Buytaert, takes the stage.

What does he have in store for us this time? The anticipation is palpable as it could be anything — a bold new initiative, an ambitious breakthrough, or perhaps a remarkable demo of game-changing features.

Whether Driesnote is themed as a fairy tale, the Apollo 11 space mission, or another imaginative concept, one thing is certain: you’ll leave feeling inspired, amazed, and proud to be part of the Drupal community. Dries’s message, driven by passion and values, will resonate with you long after the session ends.

Summits for specific industries

At DrupalCon Atlanta 2025, you can explore industry-specific challenges and solutions through specialized summits. These focused sessions cover key sectors like Healthcare, Higher Education, Government, Nonprofit, and Community, offering valuable advice, networking opportunities, and collaboration tailored to each field.

Designed to help you leverage Drupal effectively within your industry, these summits provide actionable strategies to align technology with your goals. While most summits require an additional $250 fee, the Community Summit and Nonprofit Summit are free to attend.

With great joy, we’d like to announce our team’s speakers at the Higher Education Summit. Ashley Stagg, our Sales Director, and Chris Gray, our Senior Portfolio Director,

will be facilitating table lead discussions about international students and enrollment. Web development for higher education is one of our areas of expertise, and our team is well-versed in the unique challenges and requirements of this industry.

Final thoughts

While we’d love to include all the brilliant sessions in this collection, it would be never-ending. DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 is set to be an unforgettable experience, and we can’t wait to share it with all of you. Be sure to visit our booth, and stay tuned for the upcoming article about what to explore in Atlanta beyond the conference.

Are you ready to be part of all the action? See you on March 24-27!