KI, Storytelling und der Mensch im Mittelpunkt

Few years have shaped the digital industry as profoundly as the past one. AI has moved from buzzword to everyday tool, while expectations continue to rise and topics such as storytelling, accessibility, and sustainability are gaining importance. In the interview, we reflect on a year of AI between hype and reality, explore new opportunities in content, discuss the growing AI adoption gap, and highlight the insight that technology alone does not create great digital experiences. Human curiosity and experience remain essential.

Janus Boye is the founder and CEO of Boye & Co., an international network of experts focused on digital experience, content, technology, and organizational design. For more than 25 years, he has been advising companies, agencies, and software vendors on the development of digital products and strategies. As the organizer of renowned conferences such as the CMS Summit, he regularly brings together decision-makers, experts, and practitioners from across the digital industry and is regarded as a neutral thought leader on content, design, digital transformation, and AI.

It was once again a year dominated by AI. A lot has happened, and the term AI is now being used for almost everything. As a moderator, I have to be careful that “In the Age of AI” doesn’t end up on every agenda. I find it fascinating how quickly things are evolving, and I may have underestimated that pace myself. ChatGPT has already become a household term for many, which feels very different now in December compared to June. None of this is perfect yet, but seeing how our members, customers, and conference participants are actually using these tools is incredibly interesting. And in a short time, we’ve come a long way.

At the beginning of the year, there was clear top-down encouragement, for example from executive boards, to do something with AI. Even industries that were under financial pressure invested in AI. Customers now expect it and ask in tenders and new projects how AI can be used to support their goals. At the same time, a gap is slowly emerging, which I find interesting to observe. The entire discourse around AI is highly polarized. On the one hand, it is seen as a tool that can solve many problems and make things better and faster. But most people now also understand that it comes with downsides, such as bias and energy consumption. Toward the end of the year, I see a much greater awareness both of the problems AI can help solve and of where its limits lie.

For digital projects, we need people who come together to think through requirements and deliberately explore how things can be done better. ChatGPT can translate a landing page quickly and effectively into 17 languages, but questions around content and design still remain. This is where human experience and curiosity are essential, qualities that truly define us.

There are significant opportunities, especially in the area of content. Many companies consider content audits essential, but they are often too time-consuming. In 2025, skilled editors can complete these tasks much more efficiently with the support of AI by analyzing tone of voice and identifying content gaps. AI can offer recommendations, while the final decisions remain with humans. One example I found particularly compelling was the idea of “demilitarizing the language of a website,” where AI searches for terms such as “mission-critical” or “battle plan.” This is a meaningful use case and far less time-consuming than in the past.

There were several takeaways. For the first time, it really became clear to me that there is something like an AI adoption gap. Customers talk about AI, buy solutions from vendors, and hire agencies, but what actually gets implemented in the end is often unclear. In my view, this gap has grown even wider this year. My perspective also shifted. The discussion is not just vendor-specific anymore, focused on questions like what Umbraco is doing or what’s happening with Laravel. In Frankfurt, it became clear to me how hard this shift is also hitting agencies. Are customers still willing to pay for hours worked? They expect AI to be used, and agencies that have been around for a long time need to adapt and may require different skill sets. What is the real value from an agency perspective? That’s a very interesting question.

We had a talk from Dr. Oetker, for example, that made one thing very clear. In the future, users may no longer visit the Dr. Oetker website at all because they ask ChatGPT first, and the hope is that the content will be surfaced there. That felt like an early warning signal in Frankfurt. There are already several large companies whose traffic has dropped significantly. I don’t think websites will disappear, but rather that they will become more like print. They will increasingly turn into something special, and this may play into the hands of designers. When people do visit a website, they won’t just expect to book or buy something. They will expect an experience. Customers want to learn something about the brand and be drawn in through storytelling.

I’m jumping a bit here, but I would say that storytelling has gained much more importance over the last four to five months. AI helps us understand things faster, but authenticity and digital storytelling, like what Red Bull does, are truly fascinating. The products almost fade into the background compared to the extreme sports content. After 30 years of the web, we are now slowly seeing content that is digitally native, content that didn’t start in a Word or Google document, but perhaps on TikTok or LinkedIn.

I would say critical thinking. That’s the first thing that comes to mind, because it is becoming a key skill for making sense of information, questioning assumptions, and making sound decisions, especially as AI generates more and more content. It may sound a bit idealistic, but I believe it is absolutely essential. In December, we held a Boye & Co Collab Meeting in Amsterdam, where David Wieland from ABN AMRO said that in the future we will need designers who are able to say no, supported by critical thinking. Anyone can build simple prototypes with AI, but the real question is where the true value of a product lies from the perspective of customers and users.

The most important thing is to work as closely as possible with customers, to truly understand their requirements, and to support them through this period of change. Customers may present a problem, but there is often a different underlying cause. That is where we need to start, not only with the technical expertise that agencies naturally bring, but also with a deep understanding of the interplay between technology, creativity, and content. In particular, it means supporting customers with knowledge and capabilities that are not yet available in-house.

What truly motivates me is how much joy it brings to be able to meet in person again now that the pandemic is behind us. Over the past year in particular, but even before that, I’ve also noticed how much more diverse our speakers have become. In the past, it was often the same familiar names appearing again and again at conferences or expert group meetings. Recently, however, I’ve been discovering many new voices. I find it especially exciting to hear from younger people with limited professional experience. They bring not only fresh expertise, for example around platforms like TikTok, where I personally have very little experience, but also a completely different energy and perspective. That is something we have genuinely missed at times in the past. The connections that emerge from these encounters often lead to meaningful follow-ups, such as after the conference in Frankfurt, where work continued around the topic of accessibility. This is an area where all of us still need to do a better job.

In May, there was a bit of panic because the deadline for implementing the accessibility legislation was in June. Interest was very high, especially among universities and banks. Many websites had 20,000 or more images without alt text. For many, this was an eye-opener in terms of how large the market actually is when better work is done in this area. It motivates me greatly to bring topics like this onto the agenda, so that our conferences are not only about MCP or AI add-ons, but also repeatedly address long-standing issues such as sustainability.

When it comes to sustainability, we still have a long journey ahead of us. In the past, hardly anyone thought about the fact that every Google search consumes a bit of electricity and water. With ChatGPT, there is now a growing awareness that generating images or videos leaves a much larger environmental footprint. When a large corporation does this thousands of times a day, it’s not just a question of electricity costs or AI subscriptions. It also raises the question of whether it really makes sense, simply because it is technically possible. I find it encouraging that this debate is now taking place.

Then there are always new buzzwords. People are already talking about what comes after SEO, such as GEO or AIO. Everything continues to revolve around optimization for search engines and AI. It reminds me, and many others in the network, of the “Wild West” days 20 years ago, when some agencies promised instant number-one rankings if you worked with them. I believe we can benefit from past experiences today without turning it into a history lesson.

What ultimately motivates me is the opportunity to connect people and topics. For a long time, I wondered whether it was really that valuable to bring people together, for example connecting Chris with Bolette from Umbraco and letting others fill those connections with life. But creating exactly these kinds of connections excites me every single time. Closely tied to this is the idea of trust. You can feel authenticity, and strong relationships are essential. This goes far beyond methods, selection processes, or specific frameworks. And in my view, that is what truly matters.

I hope for a little less blind enthusiasm for technology and a bit more genuine human curiosity. I often get the sense that many people are almost proud of reinventing the wheel, and I find that tragic. What we do in digital experience has been around for quite some time. There is well-established literature on content audits, along with online courses and books. Sometimes it feels as though everyone believes their situation is completely unique. As a result, existing experience, rules, and conventions are often ignored because they are seen as not transferable. I would love for us to agree that we don’t need to start from scratch every time when discussing the differences between CMS and DXP, or between templates and systems. Perhaps we could simply start from a shared baseline and move forward together from there.

That, by the way, is also something that motivates me, since you asked about my motivation earlier. In the past, our gatherings often focused on projects that hadn’t gone well and what could be improved. Today, there are many success stories. A lot of projects have turned out really well. We have digitized processes, implemented better solutions, and often done so more cost-effectively than expected. Let’s take those positive experiences with us.

Thank you very much, Janus, for sharing your insightful perspective on what lies ahead in the coming year.