There’s a persistent myth in technology: that innovation is the domain of proprietary platforms, driven by R&D budgets and glossy product launches. Open source, the story goes, is always playing catch-up.
Drupal’s trajectory tells a very different story. Far from lagging, Drupal has consistently shown that a decentralised, community-driven project can adapt quickly, adopt new technologies early, and even set the pace.
Why open source is underestimated
This misconception didn’t appear out of nowhere. Tech giants dominate headlines with new AI assistants, proprietary APIs, and billion-dollar investments. Their marketing makes it easy to assume that true innovation only happens behind closed doors.
By contrast, open source projects like Drupal work in the open, with hundreds of contributors building in public. That can make progress feel less visible - even when it’s happening faster than many commercial competitors.
“Innovation comes from creative individuals who have a passion and their own itch to scratch. That flexibility means innovation is able to occur on many fronts, and often in the areas most needed at the time,” said Murray Woodman, Managing Director at Morpht.
Kurt Foster, CTO at Salsa Digital, points out that Drupal has always been different.
“It’s been a very open and distributed system for many years. Having the Drupal Association has also allowed for coordination. It’s not stagnant. Drupal was one of the first, really, to be building and deploying with AI,” Kurt said.
The Drupal difference
Drupal has long thrived on distributed innovation. Its modular architecture and strong contributor base make it a natural testbed for emerging technology.
The Drupal AI Initiative is one example. Rather than waiting for a single vendor to package and release AI features, Drupal developers have already delivered capabilities like semantic search, content augmentation, and even site-building through AI prompts.
“Most things that you would want to do in any of the other big AI-focused open source systems, you can do in Drupal AI right now. Vector databases, multi-agent orchestration - they’re already there,” said Kurt.
For Murray, the initiative is part of a broader wave.
“In the last couple of years Drupal has had a fresh change of direction. We’ve seen the Marketplace, recipes for site building, Drupal Canvas, project browser, automated updates - and of course the AI Initiative. Drupal’s progressing on a number of fronts,” Murray said.
Innovation in practice
AI use cases in Drupal are no longer theoretical. They’re working in live projects today.
- For end users: Semantic search and chatbots are unlocking the knowledge held inside content stores, moving beyond keyword lookups to true conversational discovery. For content editors: Large language models can suggest edits for tone, enforce style guides, or generate summaries and new ideas.
- For site builders: Initiatives are under way to let AI agents build out site structures from prompts, a major shift in how Drupal sites can be created.
- For enterprise workflows: Modules like ECA allow AI and content workflows to be orchestrated across multiple systems.
Kurt points to another simple but clever innovation: a Kanban board module that integrates AI to move tasks automatically.
“It’s really basic, but having a little AI project manager coordinating tasks was such a great idea - and it came before the whole market started moving in that orchestration direction,” Kurt said.
The open source edge
One of Drupal’s greatest strengths is that it’s not tied to a single vendor. Organisations can integrate any AI service or API, experiment quickly, and adapt as new tools emerge.
That adaptability has helped Drupal stay relevant through wave after wave of change over the past 25 years. Murray describes it as “anti-fragility”.
“Drupal has had to survive a number of technological, cultural, and organisational challenges over the years. Those processes and ways of working make it anti-fragile, or stronger because of the change,” he said.
Kurt points to the size and diversity of Drupal’s backers.
“There’s a huge community behind Drupal - not just developers, but governments and corporates worldwide. A lot of proprietary systems come and go. Drupal’s been here a very long time, and it’s going to be here a very long time into the future,” said Kurt.
Voices from the field
Both developers and clients are already asking for AI in Drupal. Some requests are straightforward - better content search, automated summaries, image tagging. Others are pushing into new territory with AI-assisted editing, personalisation, and content orchestration.
Murray sees momentum building across sectors.
“We’ve seen interest in personalisation via AI-powered recommendations, metadata extraction and image tagging, and semantic search. These were once huge, resource-heavy tasks - now they can be easily integrated into Drupal,” said Murray.
Drupal’s speed of integration is a major advantage.
“Most of the time, there’s already a module. You can be up and running in hours. And if not, Drupal’s module system makes it simple to build your own,” Kurt highlighted.
The path forward
The idea that open source trails behind in innovation doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Drupal’s community is proving the opposite: distributed collaboration, adaptability, and a willingness to experiment are powerful drivers of change.
AI integration is just the latest example of Drupal keeping pace - and often leading - in ways that matter for organisations today.
If you want to explore what’s already possible, check out the DrupalSouth partners page and discover how the community is shaping the future.
DrupalSouth Partners
If you want to explore what’s already possible, check out our partners and discover how the community is shaping the future.