In Episode 36 of Beyond the CMS, host Chris Bryce welcomes William Borg Barthet, CMS Practice Lead at BloomReach, for a deep dive into how generative AI is transforming enterprise content management and what it takes to deploy AI at scale without losing control.

William brings 15 years of CMS expertise and Java architecture experience to discuss BloomReach's approach to serving large enterprises including global banks, government agencies, and national health services. The conversation moves beyond surface-level "AI features" to explore what meaningful AI integration actually looks like in production environments.

Key topics include:

• Why context-setting separates real AI integration from "ChatGPT in another tab"
• The shift from bundled LLMs to enterprise-curated models with organizational guardrails
• How AI connects across CMS, CDP, ticketing systems, and Confluence for deeper insights
• Use cases beyond content generation: lifecycle management, compliance checking, and design system validation
• Why enterprises aren't ready to trust fully AI-generated experiences (yet) and what needs to change
• Architectural patterns for integrating PIM data with CMS content using AI synthesis
• The reality of AI discoverability: why good SEO hygiene matters more than ever for LLM crawlers
• Signs of retrenchment from headless/microservices architectures in traditional enterprises
• How personalization at scale requires CDP integration and machine learning-driven segmentation
• Server custody concerns driving European enterprises toward non-US cloud alternatives
• BloomReach's roadmap: DOM-level analysis, accessibility auditing, and content lifecycle AI

William emphasizes that successful AI adoption in the CMS isn't about adding chat interfaces. It's about connecting organizational context, enforcing governance, and making AI work within existing enterprise workflows. For large organizations managing hundreds of websites across brands and markets, this means treating the LLM as shared infrastructure rather than siloed features.

The conversation also touches on emerging challenges: preparing content for AI crawlers, the tension between AI-generated personalization and brand control, and whether the traditional web might eventually give way to agent-first interfaces.

Whether you're a CMO evaluating AI capabilities, a digital leader managing complex multi-site operations, or an enterprise architect planning your next-generation content stack, this episode delivers practical perspective on making generative AI work at enterprise scale.