Driving Drupal AI: 1xINTERNET at DrupalCon Chicago 2026

This week, the 1xINTERNET team lands in "Windy City" as DrupalCon Chicago 2026 takes place. From March 23-26 DrupalCon brings together over 1.300 developers, designers, strategists, and business leaders from all over the world to shape the future of the Open Web. 1xINTERNET is there to contribute to Drupal and to its AI initiative, with 1xINTERNET playing a leading role in it. 

Much more than a tech conference

DrupalCon is the heartbeat of the Drupal community. It is an international educational event that unites the people who use, develop, design, and support the Drupal platform. Both professionals involved with the open source CMS and those curious about the platform are attending. It’s more than a tech conference, it is a mission-centric gathering designed to foster community, provide professional development, and use momentum of the Drupal project. 

Dr. Christoph Breidert and Artem Dmitriiev led a practical workshop in which participants learned how to install the Drupal AI module, automate content workflows, and build retrieval augmented generation (RAG) search experiences. The session also created space for attendees to raise detailed questions and explore real use cases. He is a member of the Drupal AI leadership team, serving as Product Manager for Drupal AI.

Also Paul Johnson is on site, as one of the driving forces behind the scenes of open source AI. He has been actively engaging with Drupal leadership, helping to shape ongoing discussions around the future direction of marketing. Joined by fellow leaders from the Drupal AI Initiative he presented at the AI Summit, where he contributed a perspective on AI marketing. Paul is co-organizing the Drupal AI summit in New York City that's coming up in May.

Artem Dmitriiev is involved in many contributions to Drupal. He is exchanging ideas with lead developers at DrupalCon Chicago and involved in architectural decisions for the upcoming roadmap of AI in Drupal.

This year’s program is packed with over 75 sessions and several keynotes. Key highlights include:

• Industry Summits: Dedicated days for Healthcare, Government, Higher Education, Nonprofits, and a special AI Summit.
• The "Driesnote": The tradition continues on Tuesday, March 24, where founder Dries Buytaert delivers his keynote on the vision for Drupal.
• Drupal CMS 2.0: Sessions showcasing the launch of the new-generation page builder, "Drupal Canvas," which allows for intuitive drag-and-drop site building.
• 25th Anniversary Gala: A special celebration marking a quarter-century of Drupal’s impact on the web.

Scaling marketing with AI 

Paul Johnson is involved in scaling marketing efforts behind Drupal AI. He has worked to  mobilize 10 leads focussing on key areas of marketing, including media relations and events management. 

Another major announcement coming from DrupalCon Chicago is a surge in support for the Drupal AI Initiative: companies are contributing funds and committing team members totalling 31 agencies and 1.5 million dollars investment. The Drupal ecosystem is united in working in one direction. AI features in Drupal are maturing rapidly, with secure chatbots now becoming mainstream and content can be optimized instantly with the help of AI. 

Drupal roadmap

Dries Buytaert is the founder and project lead of Drupal. Dries created Drupal in 2001 while studying at the University of Antwerp. Today, he is a leading advocate for the Open Web and serves as the CTO of Acquia. His leadership focuses on maintaining the makers-takers balance: ensuring that those who benefit from open source also contribute back to its sustainability.

In his biannual keynote, called Driesnote, Dries highlights recent developments in Drupal and also talks about its roadmap. Drupal is one of the most AI driven, open source content management systems in the world. AI brings much power and efficiency to its end users. At the same time, the impact of AI-generated code flowing in without human ownership is also a threat to any open source project. Dries’ call upon people to own your own code is therefore justified. 

people to ask questions. This time the Drupal Association did not go through an official agenda, but gave space to the audience to engage in conversations about various topics. The latin american community stepped up, expressing interest in hosting a DrupalCon South America. 

The Drupal Association is the non-profit organization dedicated to maintaining and accelerating the Drupal software project and supporting its global community. The conference is a massive collaborative effort, powered by the Drupal Association's staff alongside a dedicated steering committee and a global team of volunteers and sponsors.  Baddy Sonja Breidert and Imre Gmelig Meijling both serve as board members. The board had its retreat last weekend, evaluating strategic goals and driving the project forward. 

What is Drupal?

Drupal is an open-source Content Management System (CMS). It powers roughly 1 in 30 websites worldwide. The Union for International Cancer Control, the European Commission and Nestlé are among its user base. Drupal is flexible, robust and frees organisations from using it from vendor lock in and ensures data ownership. 

1xINTERNET is one of Europe’s largest Drupal service providers. Our mission is to build the world's most innovative and beautiful digital experiences, provide holistic service and be always on the forefront of new trends on the market.

Are you at DrupalCon Chicago this week? Follow the live updates and the Driesnote livestream at events.drupal.org/chicago2026.