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Choosing a Mobile CMS: A Buyer's Guide for Marketers and IT Teams

Brent HeslopMar 12, 2021

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The phrases “mobile CMS” and “CMS mobile apps” are often used by marketing and IT decision-makers that need a platform for keeping content consistent across various devices (like smartphones and kiosks), platforms (like iOS and Android), or channels (like websites and social media).

It’s a term that makes a lot of sense for those accustomed to working with traditional, monolithic content management system (CMS) platforms, which connect content creation to how the system delivers the content to a device or channel. That’s because traditional CMS is an outdated solution in today’s omnichannel, mobile-first world.

The following explains why it’s now or never when it comes to choosing a modern CMS and how enterprise marketers and IT leaders can choose a mobile CMS ready to deliver on current demands.

Today’s Demands Mean It’s Time to Switch to Mobile CMS

If you’re using a CMS that isn’t built to work with mobile applications and other modern technology, you better find an alternative that is — that is, if you want to keep up with the competition.

Mobile apps are projected to generate more than 900 billion dollars globally by 2023. And, mobile purchases are expected to account for close to 54% of all ecommerce sales in 2021 alone.

Already, over 90% of all websites report seeing more unique visitors come from mobile devices than from desktop. And we’re inclined to listen when the search master — Google — tells us, “Mobile-friendly sites show up higher in search results.

Many organizations still think it’s enough to take shortcuts when it comes to mobile-focused content delivery — such as simply shrinking their desktop-optimized marketing websites to mobile size and hoping that consumers are willing to navigate tiny navigation and deal with slow load times.

Unfortunately, today, that isn’t enough. When your website is not optimized for mobile consumers, they are five times more likely to leave your website.

All of the above is why mobile CMS isn’t just the way of the omnichannel future — it’s the way of today.

If you’re shopping for a truly mobile CMS, it’s time to ditch traditional and go headless.

What Makes a Mobile CMS?

Let’s start from the top because, ultimately, exploring what mobile CMS is more about what it isn’t. With a traditional CMS, the content is the “body,” and the front-end display (made up of things your audience can see like formatting, navigation, and layout) is the “head.” A traditional CMS is monolithic, meaning the body and the head are interconnected, so that content is formatted in the system for the devices on which it is to be published. This system worked fine when marketing was as simple as publishing static content to a single, static, web-based site.

Increased demand for content across more channels and devices — especially mobile ones — calls for removing those front-end handcuffs to create a headless CMS. A headless CMS is by its very nature mobile-friendly (and smartwatch friendly, and social media platform friendly, and so on) because no built-in front-end system determines how to display content to your audience.

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With a headless CMS, content creators have all the tools and flexibility they need at their fingertips to create content, publish it to various sources, and even reoptimize and reuse content to create a new experience on every new platform that hits the market.

And at the same time, your front-end development and design pros have the freedom to create whatever display is best for a specific piece of content. All they have to do is use application programming interface (API) technology to pull in that freshly-created content, and your organization will have a cutting-edge content experience up and running in no time.

If you’re in the market for a headless mobile CMS, here are several traits we urge you to look for to ensure the growth of your enterprise.

Choosing a Headless Mobile CMS: Key Traits Enterprise Marketers and IT Teams Must Consider

With mobile usage exploding, you’re wise to start seeking out a mobile CMS that meets IT’s requirements while delivering the quick and creative marketing that will set your enterprise apart. Use this shopping list to make sure you don’t overlook any vital considerations when choosing a mobile-friendly headless CMS for your enterprise.

Built with Enterprise IT in Mind

It’s imperative to select a mobile CMS built to handle enterprise-level IT needs. While you should develop your parameters, we believe the most basic requirements should include the following:

  • Guaranteed performance measures that ensure you’ll have steady uptime even when traffic spikes
  • Security that includes various encryption methods, two-factor authentication, secure APIs, authenticated Webhooks, and more
  • Rich developer tools like SDKs, migration scripts, web frameworks, static site generators, and APIs
  • The flexibility to code in your preferred language, framework, and IDE so you can keep up with the latest technology

Another primary measure of whether or not a mobile CMS is enterprise-ready is how it scales. A typical solution is to add multiple time-consuming and expensive servers to run the CMS when traffic increases with a traditional CMS. A more enterprise-friendly solution would be a headless CMS platform. Since most headless platforms are cloud-hosted, the cloud infrastructure can automatically adjust to keep up with demand and avoid database bottlenecks when traffic grows.

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Comes Equipped with a Mobile SDK and Optimized Delivery Features

Mobile apps have unique development needs and follow vastly different conventions than websites. If you’re shopping for a CMS that’s optimized to work with mobile apps, make sure to look for one that comes with a mobile-specific software development kit (SDK) that equips developers to build dynamic, custom mobile apps.

A headless CMS with a mobile SDK is beneficial. It allows developers to pull content into the app via API, enabling IT and content teams to work in tandem to get the app queued up for approval and launched that much faster.

If you’re curious what it looks like when a headless CMS and a mobile SDK come together to create a mobile app or mobile-friendly website, Contentstack has plenty of examples and documentation to help.

Additionally, your mobile CMS should be optimized to meet the nuances that accompany mobile content delivery. This optimization could include accounting for slow or impaired network connectivity and data transfer rates, minimizing media assets for faster load times, and more.

Caters to All Channels, Not Just Mobile

Implementing a CMS that only caters to mobile websites and apps misses the whole point of going omnichannel in the first place — to deliver content wherever it’s needed. Going headless with your mobile CMS is the only way to separate content and presentation so that whatever you publish will feel both consistent yet still natural no matter the device, platform, or operating system.

To take omnichannel a step further and tap into the powerful personalization that modern consumers crave, partner with a tech-agnostic mobile CMS provider. By plugging in their third-party customer insight applications, marketers and content managers can quickly personalize content without ever leaving the editing screen. 

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Allows for Content Updates Without Breaking or Resubmitting Your Apps|

A mobile CMS has a lot to offer when it comes to increasing agility in the marketplace. With a headless mobile CMS, marketing and content teams can start creating and publishing content even while your app sits waiting for app store approval. And once it is live, there’s no need to repeat the build/release/approval cycle every time you need to update the content. Because the app’s content and functionality are separate, you can tweak the content at any time.

This agility empowers organizations to keep up with fluid marketing goals and distribution channels without completely maxing out IT’s resources (and sanity).

Has Powerful Content Management and Collaboration Tools

Any mobile CMS you choose shouldn’t focus so hard on mobile-specific features that it loses sight of the people who use it to manage and publish content day after day. We recommend choosing a mobile CMS with a built-in editor with intuitive yet powerful features for creating, publishing, and managing content across the entire organization. That feature list might look a little something like this:

  • In-line content previews that allow you to view content in a safe staging area before committing to the changes — complete with versioning and rollback if something does go wrong

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  • Powerful custom fields that let you do almost anything from adding a video to implementing SEO recommendations to pulling data from one of your third-party marketing applications
  • Access controls and approval workflows so you can define content processes that align with business processes; all while enabling safe publishing and preventing unauthorized changes
  • Internationalization and localization features that allow for easy deployment across multiple languages and locales
  • Grouped content releases that simplify publishing the content around a specific project, event, or campaign

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  • Automated publishing that allows you to schedule time-sensitive content pushes ahead of time for hands-free updates
  • The ability to create unlimited development, testing, staging, and other content environments
  • Drag-and-drop features that allow non-technical users to build and edit dynamic pages without a developer’s help


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Contains All the API Capabilities You Need

A headless mobile CMS allows you to leverage content creation and management features without sacrificing eye-catching design features or powerful functionality.

If you do end up looking at a headless mobile CMS, we recommend one that’s “API-first” — like other modern MACH technologies in its class. Many traditional CMSs tack on API features. Be sure to look for well-documented APIs that meet your querying complexity and flexibility requirements.

Integrates Into Your Existing Marketing and IT Systems

It often takes a good amount of trial and error before marketing, IT, and content teams can find a workflow that fits their unique needs for creating, publishing, and managing essential content assets. The right mobile CMS will complement that workflow instead of upending it and sending you back to square one.

Again, we have to recommend a headless mobile CMS platform for smoothly integrating into existing systems. A headless CMS is built to empower content-focused and tech-focused users to work together without stepping on each other’s toes.

You want to choose a headless CMS with a comprehensive API library that allows technology teams to build out the best front-end display. Additionally, you want a user-friendly editing tool where content editors can create entire pages without requiring developer support and opportunities for marketers to integrate the applications they rely on to launch effective campaigns.

While we can’t speak for every headless CMS provider, at Contentstack, we take integration seriously. That’s why we built out Experience Extensions that allow the content editing experience to be customized and extended and empower developers to create richer content experiences.

What you can create with Contentstack’s customizable fields and extensions is nearly limitless, but here are some common ways enterprise businesses are taking advantage of this exciting feature:

Video selector: Browse and select videos

This field displays the visual interface of a video platform like Brightcove or Ooyala to the user. The user can browse videos and select the required one from the available videos directly from Contentstack’s editor.

Conditional fields: Auto-populate a list of languages based on a selected country

When you select an option in the Country field (e.g., U.S.), the Languages field automatically populates that country’s languages (e.g., English, Spanish, French, and Chinese). The user can then choose from the options provided.

Code editor: Input and edit any code in the code editor

This field provides a code-editor interface to users for entering code. It helps the user format the code and enter relevant syntaxes, methods, etc.

Product catalog: Search external product databases

A product catalog search displays products from your ecommerce website to the editor in Contentstack. The editor can choose any product as the value of that field.

Add Marketo, Salesforce, or another cookie: Track user interaction across the web, Marketo, Salesforce, etc.

This field lets you track users’ details on your website, in your Marketo account, or on your Salesforce instance using a simple JavaScript code snippet.

Integrate field storage system: Fetch files saved in your DAM

This field fetches and displays files you have saved in a DAM platform like Egnyte. The user can then browse these files and select the required one from the available options.

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Which Mobile CMS Will You Choose?

The key to choosing a mobile CMS is making sure it’s easy to integrate into your enterprise IT stack. Additionally, the more user-friendly the CMS is, the more likely it is that content editors will use the CMS. Having an easy-to-use CMS is critical for fast-paced marketing teams who need to serve consistent content everywhere from websites to apps, kiosks, chatbots, smartwatches, voice assistants, and other home and IoT devices.

To be sure that your mobile CMS checks every single box on your requirements list, make sure that you get to try it before you buy it. It would help if you also looked into finding out what your ROI is going to be. In many cases, companies are finding that they can save thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars when switching from a traditional CMS platform to a headless, mobile-ready CMS like Contentstack.

You can sign up for a free, no-obligation demo today with Contentstack or use our ROI calculator to estimate your savings.

Some other things to consider are reliability, scalability, and support. Choosing an enterprise-ready, mobile-first CMS that includes the features mentioned in this article ensures that you can speed up your time to market and guarantees that you can handle omnichannel delivery.

Contentstack’s ease of use, reliability, and return on investment are things we can guarantee so that you can handle omnichannel delivery today and tomorrow in our constantly-changing world.

Recommended for you:

5/26 hands-on workshop, "How to Use Behavior Tracking to Personalize Content With a Headless CMS."

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Marketers, designers, and other business users can easily make updates without technical expertise and help from the IT team. Little to no coding is required to make changes to the presentation layer.Challenges of headless commerce architectureThere are a few challenges that businesses should be aware of before adopting headless commerce architecture, including:ComplexityHeadless commerce can be more complex to implement than traditional e-commerce architectures. This is because businesses need to develop two separate applications, the front-end and the back-end.CostHeadless commerce can be more expensive to implement than traditional e-commerce architectures. This is because businesses need to develop two separate applications, the front-end and the back-end.IntegrationBusinesses must integrate the front-end and back-end to deliver a seamless shopping experience. This can be a complex and challenging process.Choosing the best headless commerce solutionThere are many factors to consider when choosing the right headless commerce solution. TypeThere are two main headless commerce architectures: hybrid headless and pure headless. Hybrid headless architectures use a decoupled front-end and back-end, but the front-end is still connected to the back-end through a traditional API. Pure headless architectures have no front end, giving you the most flexibility in building your front end.FeaturesDepending on your business needs, choose a headless commerce platform that offers specific features, such as multi-channel selling, product recommendations, or personalization.Customer SupportThink realistically about the level of support your IT team will need when implementing headless commerce architecture. Some headless commerce vendors offer more support than others. If you need a lot of help with implementation or troubleshooting, you'll need to choose a vendor offering support without compromise.Current Tech StackIf you already have a lot of investment in a particular tech stack, you'll need to consider how well it will integrate with a headless commerce solution. Some headless commerce platforms are more flexible than others, so you'll need to research to find one that will work with your existing systems.BudgetThe cost of headless commerce can vary greatly depending on the platform you choose, the features you need, and the size of your business.Future plansIf you plan to expand your e-commerce business, you must ensure your headless commerce solution can support your growth. Some headless commerce platforms are more scalable than others, so you must choose one that can meet your future needs.Security requirementsSome headless commerce platforms have built-in security features, but you may need to add additional security measures to protect your data.Implementation: headless commerce best practicesTransitioning from a traditional, monolithic architecture to headless commerce can be complex. That’s why an incremental approach is often the best choice. Essentially, you can roll out different APIs over time rather than taking down your whole platform and building a new one. Here are some factors to take into account when implementing headless commerce architecture.Ensure your teams are readyTransitioning to headless commerce architecture requires buy-in and commitment from the top leaders to your marketing and IT teams. Getting this level of commitment may require education on the benefits of headless and training on how to use the system. It’s vital to have a skilled development team proficient in implementing headless commerce, so this team needs to get up to speed first. Then, before implementation, marketing and other business users may require training on previewing and publishing content and understanding workflow processes.Integrations with existing systemsUnderstand how your existing ecommerce systems and apps will integrate into the headless commerce architecture. Your IT team will need to understand what customizations will be required so that multiple apps and systems work seamlessly together.SecurityHeadless commerce can expose your e-commerce data to more attack vectors, so you must ensure your security measures are up to par. Some headless commerce platforms have built-in security features, but you may need to add additional security measures to protect your data.Learn MoreOur pioneering headless CMS empowers creative professionals and modern developers to deliver composable digital experiences at uncompromising scale and dependability.Schedule a free demo to see how Contentstack’s headless CMS can help your brand deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Aug 11, 2023 | 3 min. read

Navigating the headless commerce journey

E-commerce is evolving rapidly, in synch with customer expectations. Successful businesses must continuously implement new solutions to improve user experiences. Headless commerce architecture is a game-changer for businesses that want to stay ahead of the competition. In this blog, we’ll define headless commerce, explore key benefits, look at how businesses use it, and how to determine if it's right for your business.What is headless commerce?Headless commerce is an architectural approach that decouples the front-end display from the back-end e-commerce application. It differs significantly from traditional monolithic architectures, where the front and back end are tightly integrated. The back end houses application programming interfaces (APIs). These components can be developed and deployed separately from each other. This decoupling makes it easier for businesses to make changes or add new features without disrupting their e-commerce processes. Consequently, these organizations become more flexible and agile when delivering personalized customer experiences across multiple channels.3 benefits of headless commerceHere are three key benefits of transitioning to headless commerce architecture. Flexibility in front-end designHeadless commerce empowers marketers, content creators, and designers to create custom user experiences. They become empowered to tailor user experiences by brand, target audience, or specific customer segments. And they can work in the headless commerce platform without coding skills or technical expertise. These teams can experiment with layouts, visuals, and interactions on multiple channels. They aren’t limited by fear of making mistakes, back-end constraints, or developer availability.Headless commerce facilitates the development of responsive designs that seamlessly adapt to various devices and screen sizes. The result is a consistent and user-friendly shopping experience for customers on every device.Scalability and agilityHeadless commerce allows businesses to quickly add or modify features and functionality as they grow or expand into new markets. They can more quickly respond to market demands and customer feedback, staying ahead of competitors.As technology changes, headless commerce architecture has the capability to evolve in parallel. As new software and services become available that customers expect for convenience, businesses can effortlessly integrate these cutting-edge technologies, such as AI-driven personalization or virtual reality shopping.Omnichannel approachHeadless commerce enables customers to interact with your brand the way they want. Customers enjoy a consistent shopping experience across multiple channels, regardless of where or what device they use. They can even switch between channels without losing their shopping progress or data.Leveraging headless commerce, companies can unify their online and offline sales channels, inventory, and customer data. This approach streamlines operations, minimizes redundancies, and enhances the user experience.Is your business ready for headless commerce?The transition to headless commerce can be complex. However, it’s well worth it for businesses willing to take the plunge. Headless commerce is an especially good choice for businesses that have the desire to do the following.Create custom user experiences tailored to their brand and target audience.Quickly expand to new markets or channels with fast rollouts.Streamline management of multiple channels and websites with one platform.Deliver a seamless customer experience across multiple channels.Be agile and responsive to changing technology, customer feedback, and customer expectations.Here are several use cases to demonstrate how businesses are using headless commerce.Personalize customer experienceWith headless commerce, businesses can create custom user experiences for their customers with omnichannel reach by leveraging different front-end frameworks and technologies. These include analytics tools that gauge customer feedback, enabling unique and engaging experiences for each customer segment.Reach customers on new channels and in new marketsHeadless commerce makes it easy to add new channels, such as new websites, mobile apps, social media and physical stores. Integrate with existing systemsIntegrate headless commerce with systems you already use, such as CRMs, marketing automation platforms, and customer support systems. As data is shared across multiple systems, creating a more seamless customer experience is easier.Reduce technical debtHeadless commerce architecture enables the migration of new technologies with little disruption to ecommerce processes and user experiences. It’s also typically easier and less expensive to maintain.Choosing the right headless commerce platformThere are many headless commerce platforms available. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses. Some factors to consider when assessing each platform include pricing and customer support. Also, look at each platform’s:API capabilitiesIntegration capabilitiesSupport for third-party applicationsScalabilityPricingHeadless commerce implementationOnce you've chosen a headless commerce platform, you must integrate it with your existing systems and databases. This may involve integrating with your product catalog, your order management system, your payment gateway, and other systems.The integration process will vary depending on the specific platforms and systems involved. However, most headless commerce platforms provide tools and documentation to help you with the integration process.With a headless commerce platform, you can develop custom front-end experiences for your ecommerce website. This means you can create experiences that are tailored to your specific audience and business goals.There are a number of different ways to develop custom front-end experiences for a headless commerce platform. You can use a variety of frameworks and technologies.Learn moreImplementing a headless commerce platform can be a complex process in the beginning. However, making the transition can streamline, speed up, and simplify processes in the long run. As we’ve mentioned, the benefits are many. The most important one is offering customers seamless experiences that promote brand loyalty now and into the future.Learn more about the benefits of headless commerce in our guide, “The Ultimate Headless Commerce Roadmap.”Schedule a free demo to see how Contentstack’s composable content experience platform can help your organization navigate the headless commerce journey.

Mar 30, 2023 | 6 min. read

How to transform your content creation with generative AI

Content marketing is a key part of an effective marketing strategy. Unfortunately, content creation can be tedious, time-intensive and difficult to scale alongside your business. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) offers an alternative approach: Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and other AI chatbots can create pieces of content based on patterns observed in existing data resources.By leveraging the power of generative AI, businesses can produce high-quality, personalized content quickly and efficiently, without having to invest significant resources into its creation. In this blog post, we'll explore how generative AI works and the ways it can help transform your marketing initiatives.Benefits of using generative AI for content creationGenerative AI has the potential to revolutionize content creation. Using natural language processing (NLP), generative AI can create large amounts of content quickly and accurately, allowing businesses to scale up their content creation faster than ever before. In addition to saving time and money, generative AI opens up new content marketing possibilities for brands. Content creators can use machine learning to develop a better understanding of their target audiences and how best to reach and connect with them, then hone their content to align with the audiences’ needs.Content also plays an essential role in the customer experience. Your content is your opportunity to demonstrate to customers that you are listening to what they want and what’s most important to them. That means being able to react quickly to trends and news events, and with AI generated content, it’s easier to incorporate new information and developments more quickly, accurately and effectively to maintain a positive customer experience.Generative AI can also use its understanding of your customers to ensure the content is relevant to them. This kind of precisely targeted content would normally take content creators days or weeks to create; with generative AI tools, that process can be shortened to a few hours or less.How to get startedDefine your content strategyBefore you can begin using generative AI to create content, it’s important to establish a content strategy, and that starts with defining your vision for your content. What do you hope to achieve with your content, and what types of content are best to achieve it? What topics do you want to cover? What tone and style of writing are you looking for?The more information and guidance you can provide, the more efficient the generative AI can be in creating the content — and the more effective that content will be. Once you have a good understanding of your needs and a solid content strategy, you can start the search for the right tool to execute it.Find the right tool for the jobThere are a number of different AI tools on the market that can be used for content generation, and some tools are better suited for certain tasks than others. For example, Writesonic and Jasper are better suited to creating written content; Type Studio is more geared towards podcasts, streams, and interviews; for more design- or visually-focused content, Designs.ai may be a better solution. You’ll need to do some research on generative AI tools to find the option that best suits your content marketing needs.Train the AI toolWhat makes ChatGPT such an effective AI chatbot? Training. Using reams of text from the open internet, ChatGPT’s developers assigned the program a simple directive: Predict the next word in a text string, over and over. Over the course of trillions of predictions, the large language model (LLM) learned not just how to predict the next word but also learned to apply its training data to answer questions and complete tasks assigned to it. In other words, ChatGPT wasn’t always as advanced as it is today — it had to be trained.The same concept applies to other generative AI tools. You will need to train your AI tool on the finer points (such as your brand voice and the types of content you want it to generate) before it can start generating pieces of content that resonate with your customers. And the more data you can provide, the better the results will be.Generate, edit and publish your contentOnce you have trained your AI tool, you can begin using it to generate content. Depending on the tool you are using and your content needs, you may be able to generate large amounts of content very quickly.It’s important to remember that once you have generated your content, it will need to be edited and formatted before publishing. This is particularly important in the early stages of using generative AI tools: The editing process will help you determine if the AI needs more training on tone or your brand voice.Improving the quality of your AI contentUse high-quality dataTo ensure high-quality AI-generated content, you need to start with data that is complete, accurate and free of errors. If your data is of poor quality or contains errors, your AI-generated content will likely reflect that.Choose the right algorithmThere are a variety of AI algorithms that can be used for content generation. Some are better suited for generating short pieces of content like social media posts and blurbs, while others are designed with longer pieces of content in mind, so it's vital that you choose the right algorithm for your specific needs.Evaluate and improve your AI modelAfter you've trained your AI model, it's important to evaluate it to see how well it's performing. This can be done by having humans read and rate the AI generated content and suggest areas of improvement. Those refinements can then be fed back into the generative AI and used as additional training data, which helps the tool avoid similar missteps in future content.Keep an eye on future developmentsAI technology is constantly evolving and improving, and the AI landscape might look drastically different a year from now. It's important to keep an eye on where AI is going to ensure that you can capitalize on future developments and continue producing high-quality AI generated content.Potential challenges of using generative AI solutionsGenerative AI tools have the potential to revolutionize content creation, but there are still potential challenges you should be aware of.Generative AI is still in its early stages of development, which means there are limited data sets available to train generative AI models — and as a result, these models are often biased toward the training data set. If your data doesn’t align with the training data set, the generative AI tool might choose to ignore that data at first. It may take a few tries to get the model to accept your data and incorporate it into its learning.Generative AI models can also be expensive to develop and train, both in terms of money and IT resources. And even though they are a great tool for quickly creating robust and effective content, there may be a ceiling on the quality of AI generated content. If high-quality — i.e., exceptionally well-written and thoroughly researched — articles and blog posts are a priority for your brand, generative AI may not be able to produce the kind of content that meets your standards. (At least, not yet.)There is also the question of authenticity. As consumers become more exposed to AI generated content, will they develop an ability to tell the difference between content written by a human and content written using artificial intelligence? And if they do, will that affect how they view that content? It’s unclear if that will be the case, but organizations that use AI-generated content should keep a close eye on how those pieces of content are received by their audience.Generative AI is an ambitious and exciting technology that offers endless possibilities for content creation, from increasing efficiency to creating entirely new forms of visual and written content. But before you go all-in on generative AI, it’s essential to understand the complexities of generative AI tools so you can overcome any potential challenges you may encounter during implementation. With the right tools and planning, generative AI can play an invaluable role in transforming your content marketing.Learn moreWatch this episode of "Contentstack LIVE" with Contenstack VP of Product Conor Egan to learn more about the power of generative AI and how Contentstack leverages ChatGPT in our AI Assistant.Schedule a free demo to learn how you can scale content creation and elevate your digital experience using AI Assistant and our composable DXP.