Several Drupal Camp Asheville 2026 sessions will examine how Drupal teams make decisions, understand complex sites, build front-end layouts, and manage AI risk during the 9 July to 12 July 2026 event in Asheville, North Carolina. The programme includes conference sessions, training, and a community day at UNC Asheville Highsmith Student Union.
The DropTimes received written responses about sessions that move beyond implementation detail into the systems that shape Drupal delivery. The responses came from Chris O'Donnell, founder of COD Communications; Dan Hansen, lead developer at Sevaa Group; Will Jackson, senior solutions architect at Pantheon; and Matthew Saunders, AI Ambassador at amazee.io. Their topics include project storytelling, visual layout management, technical discovery, reporting automation, data sovereignty, and AI governance.
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The sessions reflect a practical layer of Drupal work that often sits between strategy and code. Teams need shared language before they can make decisions, current site knowledge before they can plan migrations, consistent layout tools before they can scale editorial work, and governance boundaries before they can adopt AI responsibly. These four talks approach those problems from different parts of the project lifecycle.
Chris O'Donnell will present From Tickets to Tales: Storytelling Patterns for Drupal Teams from 16:15 to 17:00 EDT on 11 July 2026 in Mt. Pisgah (228). The all-attendee session is listed under Project Management. It focuses on storytelling patterns that can help Drupal teams frame planning discussions, architecture proposals, demos, tickets, and meeting agendas.
Chris O'Donnell
Chris O'Donnell
My session is for anyone who wants to lead more effective meetings.
–Chris O'Donnell, Founder, COD Communications
Chris frames the problem as one of shared context. He said the session will present a simple framework inspired by storytelling concepts that teams can apply to meetings, presentations, tickets, and planning conversations. The goal is to support sharper decision-making and stronger buy-in before teams move into implementation detail.
Drupal work often involves tradeoffs between performance and flexibility, upgrades and features, or editorial experience and governance. Chris's session argues that project conversations can lose effectiveness when teams begin with implementation detail before clarifying who needs what, what is changing, what is at stake, and how success will be measured. He said attendees should leave with practical advice they can apply immediately to meetings, tickets, and planning conversations.
Dan Hansen will present Display Builder: Drupal's Unified Visual Builder from 14:00 to 14:45 EDT on 11 July 2026 in Current (225). The intermediate session is listed under Site Building, User Interface & Design, Site-Building, and Theming, Design, & Usability. It introduces Display Builder as a tool intended to bring more consistency to Drupal layout work.
Dan Hansen
Dan Hansen
Display Builder is a powerful tool designed to try to unify the many separate layout systems found across Drupal sites.
–Dan Hansen, Lead Developer, Sevaa Group
The session addresses a familiar challenge for Drupal site builders. Layout Builder, block layout, Views output, Drupal Canvas, and other display tools can require different mental models even when the goal is the same: arranging content and interface elements. Dan said the session will show the tool in use and include examples of how it can support front-end layout work.
Display Builder, developed by the UI Suite team, uses Drupal standard practices with newer HTMX architecture to manage layouts, blocks, views, and related display elements through a more unified interface. Dan said the session will include a live demonstration and explain the ideas behind the tool's creation. He said Sevaa Group is beginning to use Display Builder and that he hopes to build wider interest around the tool among other Drupal teams.
Will Jackson will present Bringing Clarity to Complex Drupal Sites with the Audit Export module from 13:00 to 13:45 EDT on 11 July 2026 in Mt. Pisgah (228). The all-attendee session is listed under DevOps, Emerging Technology, Site Building, and Site-Building. It focuses on using the Audit Export module to understand site structure during redesigns, migrations, inherited projects, and maintenance work.
Will Jackson
Will Jackson
The information exists, but gathering it takes time.
Will's session starts from the reality that Drupal sites rarely stay simple. Content types, fields, roles, menus, taxonomy vocabularies, views, and modules accumulate over years, often through work by different teams. He said auditing a Drupal site often means clicking through admin pages, exporting CSVs, and compiling spreadsheets before teams can answer basic discovery questions.
When a redesign, migration, or new feature begins, teams first need to understand what exists, what is still in use, and where it is configured. The presentation will demonstrate Audit Export's built-in reports from the admin UI, scheduled audits, CSV exports, and Drush-based workflows for discovery and maintenance. It will also cover custom reports for site-specific entities and business rules.
Will said the Audit Export Tool submodule can expose audits through Drupal's Tool API, allowing external tools, including AI assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT, to read audit data directly without manual exports or stale documentation. The practical value is a repeatable way to turn site discovery into a workflow rather than a one-off manual inventory. That makes the session relevant for teams handling inherited sites, redesigns, migrations, and long-term maintenance.
Matthew Saunders will present Your AI Decisions Are Creating Risk: What Agency and Business Leaders Need to Own Now from 14:00 to 14:45 EDT on 11 July 2026 in Mt. Pisgah (228). The all-attendee session is listed under Emerging Technology. It is aimed at people involved in digital product delivery or client work and does not require prior AI experience.
Matthew Saunders
Matthew Saunders
If you're building AI into websites, products, or internal systems, you're making architecture decisions today that will affect privacy, compliance, and vendor flexibility for years to come.
–Matthew Saunders, AI Ambassador, amazee.io
Matthew's session looks beyond model comparisons to the infrastructure and governance decisions behind AI-enabled work. The talk will examine where AI enters projects without clear oversight, how data moves through common workflows, and how vendor choices affect transparency, auditability, long-term flexibility, and organisational control. It also addresses the difference between open and closed ecosystems when teams need to explain how a system works.
In his written response, Matthew said attendees should leave with a framework for evaluating AI infrastructure through data sovereignty, model sovereignty, and operational sovereignty. He also pointed to the risks of shadow AI and said privacy policies alone are not enough to manage those risks. His view is that open source technologies such as Drupal can act as a governance layer that keeps AI systems portable, auditable, and under organisational control.
Matthew said he is also interested in how open source communities can help shape AI systems around transparency, interoperability, and trust rather than simply following the direction of the largest commercial vendors. That framing connects the session to broader Drupal questions about governance, portability, and long-term responsibility in AI adoption. It also keeps the focus on architecture choices rather than treating AI as a stand-alone tool comparison.
The written responses also point to the camp's community setting. Chris said this will be his first in-person visit to Drupal Camp Asheville after presenting remotely during the COVID period, while Dan said he is looking forward to sessions, local restaurants, and time in the mountains. Will pointed to the Sunday community day in nature, and Matthew said he wants to hear how others are approaching AI in the Drupal ecosystem.
Taken together, the sessions place Drupal Camp Asheville's technical programme inside a wider delivery context. Chris focuses on how teams explain decisions before work begins. Dan examines the interface systems used to build and manage layouts. Will looks at repeatable discovery for complex Drupal sites. Matthew addresses the AI governance questions that agencies and business leaders increasingly need to own.
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Kazima AbbasKazima Abbas is a sub-editor at The Drop Times
