Dries Buytaert on AI and the Future of CMS: Interfaces Flatten, Foundations Matter More

In his blog post AI flattens interfaces and deepens foundations, Dries Buytaert examines how AI is changing the role of content management systems. He opens with a striking example: Lee Robinson migrated Cursor’s marketing site away from a headless CMS for just $260 using AI coding agents, arguing that CMS abstractions slow AI down. A rebuttal from Sanity’s Knut Melvær reframes the story, pointing out that the CMS complexity didn’t disappear; it was simply redistributed across GitHub, deployment tools, and custom scripts. The exchange highlights a broader shift: while AI-first tools like Lovable are rapidly gaining traction, organisations still rely on the invisible foundations that CMSs provide.

Dries argues that AI fundamentally changes how CMSs are used. The visible layer—page builders and editing interfaces- no longer serve as the primary place where content is created, but instead become a space for refinement, review, and accountability. Meanwhile, the invisible layer grows in importance, evolving from content management into context management, supplying AI with structure, rules, permissions, and compliance constraints. This thinking underpins Drupal’s direction, including the launch of Drupal Canvas 1.0 and its focus on AI-driven page generation. The conclusion is clear: AI will do most of the work, but humans remain responsible for direction, judgment, and outcomes, and CMSs must evolve to support that shared responsibility.