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Enterprise content management has evolved steadily over the past 25 years, moving from content management to document management to ECM and then content services.
The emergence of generative AI raises the question of how enterprise content management will change, with some once again heralding this as the end of the monolithic ECM platform. Yet despite Gartner's infamous 2016 proclamation that “ECM is dead,” they have proven their holding power.
Content Services vs. ECM
Gartner defines contents services as an integrated product suite or separate applications that share common APIs and repositories, which tap diverse content types to serve multiple constituencies and numerous use cases across an organization.
Those services, when fused with generative AI, could provide a formidable set of flexible tools to manage and extract meaning from content stored in platforms and repositories. As a result, organizations are assessing if they need an ECM or if generative AI integrated with selected content services would serve their needs.
"Enterprise content management is still a crucial part of the business tech stack, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach to it,” Evelyn McMullen of Nucleus Research told Reworked.
The extensibility offered by microservices architectures can benefit some organizations, many lack the resources needed to manage the complexity that comes with this approach, she said. The alternative, the monolithic ECM, is more rigid, but simpler to maintain.
"I do see the introduction of cutting-edge capabilities, such as those powered by generative AI, to be a selling point for organizations thinking about transitioning to a microservices architecture," she said. "While monolithic application providers will continue to introduce new capabilities, organizations that require more speed, scalability and flexibility in closing functionality gaps can benefit from leveraging a microservices architecture if they are equipped to manage the extra work."
Related Article: Are We Really Having the 'ECM Is Dead' Conversation Again?
Content Services Can Work, But Come With Challenges
Association for Intelligent Information Management president and CEO Tori Miller Liu points to a Deep Analysis report which predicts investment in traditional ECM will be about $10 billion per year when asked if monolithic ECM platforms were going away. Even still, she acknowledged the rapid change the ECM market is undergoing.
“While it’s attention-grabbing to say a technology is dead, I think it’s more accurate to say ECMs are still in use as part of a larger, more complex ecosystem of information management systems,” she said. "AIIM research shows that more enterprises are moving to multi-repository environments. We found 26% of organizations use more than seven information management systems or repositories, which is a 12% increase since 2018."
She said the choice of whether your organization is better with an ECM or content services will depend on needs and the industry in question. She told us that organizations will still need content services at the very least as it makes unstructured data “searchable, explorable, organized and ultimately meaningful.”
A monolithic ECM may be the right system choice for those in heavily regulated industries, where centralization is necessary to manage retention of documents or to improve searchability/e-discovery. In other cases an ECM, like SharePoint, may be the most economical option for controlling content, she continued.
Miller Liu acknowledges it is possible to build a content strategy built on content services, but there are issues. Organizations need to respond to several questions before proceeding, including:
- Do all systems in use have available APIs?
- Does the organization have a way to extract and find critical data from systems?
- Is it possible to extract the most important data for use in a centralized repository, like a data lake, so it is usable for analysis and decision-making?
- Does the organization have the internal talent or external support to maintain integrations and disparate systems?
“The risk is that as content grows over time, information fragmentation and sprawl can occur without enterprise content oversight,” she said.
Related Article: Content Services Come in 3 Flavors
When Generative AI Comes to Enterprise Content
Cyber Command founder Reade Taylor said the infusion of generative AI and the adoption of microservices architectures are redefining enterprise content management.
The evolution is critical for digital workplaces that demand more agility and customization than what monolithic ECMs can provide, he said.
He also believes that the integration of generative AI and microservices is one of the ways forward for content management. “The adoption of microservices as part of a content strategy is not just feasible; it's becoming essential for businesses aiming for flexibility and scalability in their operations,” Taylor said.
Microservices, when powered by generative AI, allow for a modular approach to content management, he explained. The result is components can be updated, added or retired independently, avoiding the all-or-nothing updates required by monolithic ECMs.
Generative AI significantly boosts this architecture's effectiveness by enabling automatic content generation, personalized user experiences and sophisticated data analysis, transforming how organizations interact with and manage their digital content, he continued.
"Integrating generative AI with microservices architecture presents a compelling path forward for digital workplaces," he said. “It's about creating a more responsive, efficient and intelligent ecosystem for managing content that aligns with the dynamic needs of modern businesses and their customers.”
Traditional ECMs are adapting to this shift, he added, morphing into more fluid and adaptable systems that can meet the demands of today's digital environment.
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However, Daniel Li, co-founder and CEO of Plus Docs, calls rushing to adopt the latest technology an error. He said that rather than basing a content strategy on the technology, content strategies should be based on the content and the execution.
Microservices, he said, may be a more flexible way to deliver on a content strategy, but if they are more costly and require more setup or maintenance, the important part of developing the content strategy is focusing on the content and what it takes to create and deliver it.
Related Article: From Service-Oriented Architecture to Microservices
Gen AI Won't Replace ECM
“The idea that generative AI solutions will replace ECMs is quite far-fetched," said Ram Ramamoorthy, head of Zoho Labs and AI Research at Zoho.
AI is a tool, not a replacement for systems that need heavy human-powered moderating and management, he continued. In its present state, he said, Gen AI serves as a complementary solution, great at paraphrasing and making sense of content, but what it generates as original content should not be trusted implicitly or completely.
He cited the glitch last week with ChatGPT as an example — if this happened to your business content, and there was no one there to catch or fix it, what are you going to do?
Even the most seemingly minor adjustments to content need careful review, as an automated system can very easily diverge from approved messaging and requires a safeguard against misinformation or misrepresentation.
“So, while Gen AI has a real place in helping digest queries, spot trends in content, repackage material according to different purposes or audiences, and act as a general supplement to the work ECMs and the roles do, it should be treated as another tool in a content manager’s toolkit that empowers them to be more efficient, creative, and successful,” Ramamoorthy concluded.