Many of the thought leadership pieces we produce at Zoocha begin with listening. We respond to the questions, challenges, and aspirations of our clients, combining our deep Drupal expertise with research and hands-on experimentation to deliver insights we hope are informative, useful, and thought-provoking.
But writing about Artificial Intelligence feels different. AI is evolving so rapidly that traditional experience is quickly outpaced. While we’re already using AI across our business and within some Drupal projects, like everyone else, we’re learning in real time.
At a recent event in London, Paul Roetzer put it plainly:
“Nobody knows what they’re doing with AI right now, but you need to engage with AI because your competitors certainly will be.”
We agree. It’s not a question of if, but how and the time to start is now.
Drupal’s Approach to AI: An Open, Responsible Framework
Drupal’s Open Web Manifesto champions openness, decentralisation, inclusion, participation, and empowerment. Its newly launched AI strategy, underpinned by a strategic product vision and supported by the Drupal AI Initiative launched in June 2025, brings these principles to life in the age of AI.
Drupal will democratize AI-powered digital experiences through an open framework where innovation flourishes under responsible human guidance. We envision a world where organizations of any size can create intelligent, adaptive digital experiences without compromise and where advanced AI capabilities enhance human creativity rather than replace it.
By championing both innovation and accountability, Drupal will set the standard for ethical, powerful, and accessible AI in the open-source world.
This vision is backed by a framework rooted in:
- AI-Human Collaboration with humans always in control
- Trustworthy Governance, ensuring peace of mind
- Open Source Flexibility, eliminating vendor lock-ins
- Community Innovation, outpacing proprietary alternatives.
You can choose the models and agents that suit your needs, including self-hosted options for sensitive data, while retaining the powerful adaptability Drupal is known for.
What Can You Do With AI in Drupal Today?
Although no one can claim decades of experience in Drupal AI implementations, the community has already produced powerful, production-ready tools that Zoocha can deploy. These tools are often preconfigured with default prompts that can be adapted to suit your business needs, unlocking additional value immediately.
Here are categorised examples that demonstrate what’s possible right now.
Time-Saving Tools
Alt Text Generation
Automatically generate suggested alt text for uploaded images, which is often more descriptive than rushed manual inputs. This text is used by screen readers and is required under WCAG accessibility guidelines.
Video Transcriptions
Produce accurate transcripts quickly to meet WCAG accessibility standards and improve search indexing.
Auto-tagging & Categorisation
AI suggests relevant taxonomy tags based on content, streamlining editorial processes, removing cognitive load and increasing accuracy.
Podcast Creation from Articles
Transform blog posts or news items into AI-narrated podcasts, featuring the voices of your own in-house experts.
PDF Summaries
Extract summaries from web inaccessible documents to surface key info in search results or document previews.
Image Generation
AI can be used to create images right within Drupal. For example, the creation of a header image for a blog rather than using stock imagery.
Text-to-Speech
Offer spoken versions of content for users who prefer listening over reading.
Workflow Enhancement
AI-Generated Titles
Improve SEO by creating titles based on final content, rather than the other way around.
Readability Scoring & Rewriting
Avoid speaking up or down to the intended audience without losing message clarity. For example, if you’re selling a child’s bike, speak to the parent, if you’re selling a top of the range road bike use more technical terminology an expert buyer is likely to understand and expect.
Content Summaries for UX & SEO
Automatically generate effective labelling and signposting for content, meta descriptions, and search result snippets.
Meta Tag Optimisation
AI-driven meta tag generation improves SEO and social engagement, and can adapt based on ongoing analytics. For example, AI can be used to select an image from an article that adheres to minimum requirements for social meta tags as well as providing a strong summary of the content.
Functionality Improvements
CKEditor AI Integration
Draft, check, translate, and optimise content from within the text editor, including tone, brand alignment, and inclusivity.
Multilingual Content Generation
Tailor and translate messages to specific global audiences quickly and effectively.
Conversational Interfaces & Chatbots
Use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to deliver smart, natural-language Q&A on-site, drawing directly from your content to assist users on their journey through your website.
Improved Accuracy & Moderation
Form Validation
Implement logically complex validation using AI prompts. E.g. to ensure sensitive data isn't mistakenly shown in publicly visible content.
Contextual Validation
Check that entered values make sense in their expected context. E.g. to ensure a profile photo looks like a person and job titles make sense before going live.
Anti-Spam & Content Filtering
Automatically flag nonsensical or malicious submissions, comments, or uploads for further human inspection, allowing content considered safe to be published without further intervention.
NSFW Content Detection
Screen user-generated content to prevent inappropriate imagery or language from being published.
Analytics & Personalisation
Sentiment Analysis
Generate numeric scores from submitted comments or other content so extremes can be more easily identified.
Bulk Analysis
Summarise multiple pieces of feedback for easier consumption. For example, using AI to review all the visitor feedback from across the website to summarise and quantify that feedback to inform UX and content strategies.
Behavioural Personalisation
AI can learn user patterns to deliver personalised content, improve A/B testing, and refine segmentation strategies.
Tailored AI Solutions for Your Business
While the examples above are general, the most exciting opportunities emerge when we align these tools with your specific goals and customer needs. Whether you’re in e-commerce, education, finance, or running a not-for-profit organisation, AI can support your team and enhance the digital experience your Drupal site delivers.
Looking Ahead: Drupal AI’s Vision
AI is easily enabled in Drupal CMS, and provides agents that can create and modify content types, and build complicated pages for you. That’s getting more powerful every time we hear about it. The longer-term vision? Feed in your requirements, and AI will generate your site, monitor performance against KPIs, and make intelligent updates autonomously. For small sites, that is closer than you might think.
Much of Drupal CMS’s power will be built on enhancements to Drupal Core upon which it is based. Websites built on Drupal Core are less prescriptive and remain the platform of choice for larger corporate websites. Those sites will see transformational opportunities to leverage AI in ways we can only just start to imagine, enhanced by new features such as:
- ECA (Event-Condition-Action)
A modern rules engine that reduces the need for custom code and can trigger AI-based processes in response to defined events. - MCP (Model Context Protocol)
An open standard that connects AI tools across platforms, creating a scalable, unified ecosystem allowing disparate systems to communicate and share data.
Drupal is uniquely positioned to achieve amazing outcomes with AI because it is already a powerful, well-structured, open source, flexible solution, backed by a vibrant, innovative community.
Understanding the Costs
AI tools typically fall into two camps:
- Commercial Models
Access via API (e.g. OpenAI, Anthropic) involves usage-based pricing. Editorial tools have minimal cost impact, while user-facing tools may require budget planning. - Open Source Models
Free to use, these can be hosted privately for greater data control. While less powerful out-of-the-box, they shine when trained on your own data.
Implementation costs are generally modest, with many of the solutions mentioned here considered quick wins.
Ready to Explore What AI Can Do for You?
There’s no better time to start embedding AI into your website. Whether it’s saving your content team hours per week, improving accessibility and SEO, or delivering smarter personalisation, Zoocha can help you take the first step, confidently and strategically.
We're excited by what AI and Drupal can achieve together and we’re ready to explore that future with you. Speak to your existing client support manager or get in touch.