DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 is just a weekend away. From March 24–27, the Hyatt Regency will host the largest open-source event in North America—and this year’s focus on innovation is unmistakable. The DropTimes had a chance to speak with many of the speakers of the event.
On March 25, three sessions stand out, each reflecting a key part of where Drupal is headed: automation, dev tooling, and user experience. I spoke with Marcus Johansson, John Locke, and Pablo Lopez—three of the voices leading the charge—to get a deeper look at their sessions and what they hope attendees take away.
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Marcus Johansson: AI Workflows Without Code
Marcus Johansson is on a mission to make AI useful, flexible, and accessible—especially for those without a development background. In his session, Meet the AI Automators that Power Everything in Drupal CMS, he’ll introduce a system that brings lowcode AI workflows directly into the heart of Drupal.
Marcus Johansson
“While the name gives it away—AI Automators automate AI processes—it’s really about internal tools for AI workflows,” Marcus explained. “This approach is often easier than writing code or building custom modules, especially when the workflows are specific to a business.”
A highlight of his talk? A showcase of how Drupal is ahead of the curve in leveraging video as input for AI—a development that’s even catching attention from the video engineering field.
But the session isn’t just about what’s possible—it’s about who can use it. And that’s where Marcus really shifts the conversation.
“The Automators weren’t originally built for developers. They were for social media managers handling crisis communications,” he said. “We needed to empower them to define how to assess potential harm in a tweet without needing us. That meant making the setup intuitive from day one.”
Marcus will walk through both the basics and more advanced examples of setting up AI Automators, showing how even complex workflows can be configured by site builders.
As a keynote speaker for the Drupal CMS Spotlight, Marcus is also offering a broader view of Drupal’s future. His central message? Don’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, build smarter.
“We’re working on triggering AI Automators through widgets. The goal is to let users build business-aligned editorial AI solutions using only site-building tools or recipes.”
This vision of Drupal's future hinges on abstraction, portability, and ease of use. With provider agnostic AI modules already in place, the next frontier is making AI setup a standard part of site configuration—no custom code required.
He’s also bullish on Drupal’s competitive edge.
“Drupal already gives you secure, low-code, interoperable foundations. With Drupal CMS and Recipes, we can build holistic, business-aligned AI workflows that no other CMS currently supports,” he said. “And that’s before you look at what Georgi’s team is doing with MCP or how Experience Builder is evolving.”
For Marcus, Atlanta marks a major leap forward in the AI conversation. “Barcelona was the first DrupalCon where AI had a real spotlight. In Atlanta, it’s taking center stage.”
John Locke: Rethinking Local Dev with Nix
Containers are everywhere in modern dev workflows but John Locke wants you to consider something different. His session, Container-less Dev Environments for Drupal Development with Nix, introduces Nix as a powerful, flexible alternative to Docker-based setups.
John Locke
“Nix can be overwhelming,” John said. “The documentation is dense, and there’s a steep learning curve. But once it’s set up, it can be surprisingly easy to use for one-off challenges.”
For example, with Nix and Flake support enabled, spinning up a full Drupal CMS instance takes just one command. Adding a full dev environment—with MariaDB, PHPFPM, and a web server—is just a few extra steps.
And you don’t need to switch your entire workflow to start seeing benefits.
“You can dip your toes in,” John said. “Try using Nix for a specific problem. If it works, great. If not, uninstalling is simple.”
His own journey started out as curiosity. “I pitched the topic without a working solution, thinking if it got accepted, it’d push me to figure it out,” he laughed. “And it worked—I now have a great setup.”
The flexibility of Nix won him over. Whether he needed to recreate an old NodeJS + React stack from 2015 or build a custom dev environment for a project with unique dependencies, Nix delivered. It’s especially helpful for juggling multiple PHP versions—something many Drupal shops wrestle with.
“Our sites run PHP 8.1, some still on 7.4, and now we’re testing 8.3. With Nix, switching PHP versions is just a line change in the environment file,” John said. “It’s all configurable in the site’s repo. That’s powerful.”
While he still respects tools like DDev—“Randy’s doing an amazing job”—John finds Nix’s integration with his personal shell tools, simpler Drush access, and more flexible debugging make it a better fit.
But what really sold him?
“It’s the confidence. Once you solve a problem with Nix, it stays solved. And if you break something, rolling back is trivial. That infinite undo feeling is what makes Nix exciting.”
At DrupalCon Atlanta, John is looking forward to geeking out in person with fellow devs and diving deeper into tools like Experience Builder and Member Platform. And if you're curious about Nix? He’s ready to help you take that first step.
“Our goal is to give site administrators more control over how they organize Drupal’s back end,” Pablo said. “The new Navigation isn’t just prettier—it’s more usable, more configurable, and more modern.”
Unlike the old Toolbar, the nextgen Navigation lets admins directly manage and personalize menu structure. While it’s still in progress before core adoption, it’s already available in Drupal CMS and actively being tested and refined.
Pablo’s second session, Leveraging Drupal SaaS to Power 400 Websites as Unique as Independent Bookstores, brings those usability priorities to the real world. Through IndieCommerce 2.0, his team supports hundreds of bookstore sites—each run by administrators who aren’t developers.
“It’s critical to deliver a great admin experience,” Pablo emphasized. “If the store is hard to manage or doesn’t perform, customers will either leave—or worse, ignore it entirely.”
The challenge? Providing powerful customization without overwhelming complexity. “We’ve learned to strike a balance—enough flexibility for each store to feel unique, without making maintenance a nightmare.”
For Pablo, these sessions tie into a broader evolution in Drupal’s strategy. Admin experience is now front and center—not just for core, but for SaaS and client projects too.
“Drupal needed a push to modernize the admin UX, and we’re seeing that happen. From new themes to Navigation, and now Experience Builder—it’s a huge leap forward,” he said.
At DrupalCon Atlanta, Pablo’s excited to connect, share ideas, and help shape the next phase of that work. “These sessions are about more than features—they’re about how we make Drupal better for the people using it every day.”
From no-code AI workflows and experimental dev environments to serious UX upgrades, these sessions on March 25 show the depth and range of where Drupal is going—and why it matters. This is the first in a series of conversations The DropTimes will be sharing with DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 speakers. Stay tuned for more insights from the people building what’s next.
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Starshot is an ambitious initiative designed to enhance the Drupal platform, aimed at simplifying and accelerating the process of building Drupal sites for users without prior Drupal experience.
Alka ElizabethMy puns are intended.
