Inside the Drupal AI Strategy

Drupal’s AI strategy is a ground-up rethink, putting human control, open governance, and compliance at the core. This article breaks down how Drupal is moving beyond AI hype to deliver real, government-ready capabilities, what’s in the pipeline, and what public sector leaders need to demand to make it work for them.

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Date:
17 June 2025
Author:
Kurt Foster

Strategy, Not Hype: The Real Plan for AI in Drupal

Let’s be clear, Drupal’s AI InitiativeExternal Link isn’t a rushed bolt-on. It’s a full architectural rethink, designed to embed AI into the platform with a level of governance, flexibility, and transparency that most digital experience platforms can’t touch. The goal isn’t just to keep up with the market, but to set the benchmark for open-source AI in government and enterprise.

Architectural Principles: Human Control, Open Choice

  • Human-in-the-Loop, Always:
    AI agents generate content, layouts, and optimisation suggestions, but every change is logged, auditable, and subject to human review or rollback. Public sector and regulated industries demand this; Drupal is making it non-negotiable.

  • Outcome-Oriented, Not Tool-Oriented:
    Instead of “more features for the sake of features,” the roadmap is about letting users define outcomes. Like launching a campaign or building a service and letting intelligent agents handle the repetitive work. It’s automation that understands context, not just workflows.

  • Maximum Flexibility, No Lock-In:
    Bring your own LLM. Run it in-house, in-country, or via third-party APIs. This isn’t just a design choice, it’s essential for data sovereignty, supply chain assurance, and minimising offshore dependency. Choose how and where your data is processed. This level of “bring your own LLM” is rare, and essential for government agencies with bespoke compliance or data sovereignty requirements.

  • Open Governance and Transparent Funding:
    Oversight isn’t just window-dressing. There’s an independent leadership team, an advisory board with the Drupal Association and sponsors, and open reporting on decisions, funding, and roadmap. The community gets a say, and the process can be scrutinised at every level.

Delivering, Not Just Promising: The Roadmap

What matters is shipping working capability, not talk. By October's DrupalCon ViennaExternal Link , the aim is for a marketer (not a developer) to upload a brand kit, define campaign objectives, and have AI agents generate, optimise, and test landing pages; end-to-end, in minutes.
Three key workstreams are driving this:

  1. Smart Content & Page Creation:
    From brand kit and persona definitions to tailored, on-brand landing pages with all content and layouts generated by AI.

  2. Human Control Centre:
    Review, approve, or revert AI-driven changes with a clean, intuitive UI. Every action is tracked and explainable.

  3. Performance Intelligence:
    AI connects to analytics, suggests optimisations, and can automate improvements with human approval.

If the demo works as planned, it’ll prove that AI can deliver rapid time-to-value without sacrificing human oversight.

Where the Strategy Stands Up, and Where it Needs Watching

Strengths:

  • Designed for government-grade auditability and compliance, something sorely missing in most AI platforms.
  • Model and infrastructure agnostic: use what you need, where you need it.
  • Rapid development with serious, open-source contributors and a funding model that matches ambition.

Caveats:

  • Early-stage governance is robust, but will it hold up as the ecosystem (and money) grows?
  • The global open source agenda won’t automatically reflect Australian or APAC public sector needs. Without active participation, governance defaults to whoever shows up, which usually means North America and Europe.
  • As a founding member of the Drupal AI Initiative, Salsa Digital is actively representing Australian priorities, pushing for data sovereignty, security standards like the PSPF and ISM, and public-good outcomes that reflect our regulatory context.
  • Sustained public sector involvement is essential: if agencies want these features, they must participate, not just observe.

Final Word: Why This Strategy Matters for Public Sector Tech Leaders

If you’re tired of black-box AI and endless vendor lock-in, this is the open, transparent approach you should demand. But be clear-eyed: Drupal’s vision is ambitious, but it will only work for Australian Government if government stakeholders engage, test, and hold the initiative to account. This isn’t AI for show. It’s an inflection point for digital platforms, and the public sector has a rare opportunity to shape the outcome.