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We’re bringing you our monthly overview of top Drupal articles and news. We hope you enjoy our selection for July!
Drupal AI 1.2.0-alpha1 is out and ready to be tested
We’re kicking off this month’s overview with an announcement of the release of Drupal AI 1.2.0-alpha1 by Marcus Johansson. This release serves as a feature preview of what’s coming in Drupal AI 1.2.0, and already brings a rich set of new features.
These include Field Widget Actions, which make it possible to invoke AI from anywhere; a Prompt Library which enables shipping prompts as configurations; content suggestions on Block and Taxonomy terms in addition to Nodes; a mocking library for testing and replaying requests; new automator types; versioned documentation; and more.
Read more about Drupal AI 1.2.0-alpha1
What’s New and Exciting in AI for Drupal: Latest Innovations and Trends
Next up, we have another article about Drupal and AI, written by Nadiia Nykolaichuk of ImageX who takes a look at the latest AI trends and innovations that are the most relevant in the Drupal ecosystem.
The first thing Nadiia highlights is that the number of organizations using Drupal AI has tripled in just one year. The number of AI agents is also rapidly increasing, growing from 5 to 30 between DrupalCon Barcelona in September and DrupalCon Atlanta in March.
Of course, she also mentions the Drupal AI initiative, as well as other notable innovations and initiatives such as the AI Agents module which can be used to create custom AI agents.
Read more about latest AI news in Drupal
Automatic Updates: Is It Right for Your Drupal Site? 🤔
In the third July article, Amber Matz of Drupalize.me dives into the advantages and limitations of Drupal Automatic Updates, and when it makes sense to use the feature.
Automatic Updates can apply patch-level updates to Drupal Core (i.e. bug fix and security update releases), but it cannot be used for major version upgrades. Additionally, it can only be used on websites managed by Composer, on version 2.7 or higher, and it’s essential that you set up automated backups to eliminate the risk of an update breaking your site.
So, Automatic Updates can be a helpful tool for simple, low-risk sites, or for testing on dev and staging environments. However, Amber advises against it if your hosting provider already offers good update tools or workflows, or if you have your own CI/CD workflows already established.
Read more about Drupal Automatic Updates
Drupal BigPipe now uses HTMX
We continue with a post by Théodore Biadala about the Drupal BigPipe module now using HTMX instead of Ajax. This is part of a larger initiative to replace the Drupal Ajax framework with an HTMX based implementation, on the whole bringing Drupal closer to the spirit of HATEOAS (Hypermedia As The Engine of Application State).
Théodore does point out that this particular case is not the best part of Drupal to add HTMX to, but is still a good starting point for determining how well HTMX fits since Ajax is an older framework that can’t be replaced as smoothly.
Read more about the BigPipe module using HTMX
Can a Pure-Play Drupal Agency Survive? The Case for Reinvention
Moving on, we have a more business-oriented rather than technical post in which The Drop Times’ Alka Elizabeth recaps and breaks down a recent discussion in the Drupal Community about the future of pure-play Drupal agencies with regards to the current state and challenges in the industry.
The problem was originally highlighted on LinkedIn by John Faber of Chapter Three, with numerous other prominent community figures adding their own takes. One of the most important takeaways is that the problem goes beyond Drupal, affecting the very business model of digital agencies. However, there are still opportunities for Drupal agencies to deliver value, potentially via Drupal AI and/or product thinking.
Read more about the discussion about the future of Drupal agencies
Experience Builder has pushed the boundaries of what Drupal can do. Here's how we can push it further.
In the next article on this month’s list, Previous Next’s Lee Rowlands shares his thoughts on what features the upcoming Drupal Experiene Builder should focus on next.
The first feature Lee highlights is a true multi-user editing experience akin to the one provided in Google Docs. Despite utilizing React, the current Experience Builder still lacks that, with the back end preventing users from making changes if another user is editing and they don’t see the latest changes.
Lee’s second suggestion are real-time server-side events, which could be taken care of by the lightweight real-time event server Mercure. His third and final suggestion are client-side preview updates, which could be achieved in two different ways: either by shipping a WASM running Twig, or through Lee’s own library twigCASTer which enables converting Twig into a different component language such as JSX.
Read more about possibilities for Drupal Experience Builder
Why Drupal is built for the AI era
With all the news and excitement around AI, the latest article from Dries reminds us that ever since version 7, Drupal has been – accidentally – making decisions that are now making it an excellent fit for the AI era.
Specifically, Drupal’s structured access enables AI to make informed decisions based on content and configurations, and execute actions accordingly without manual handoffs at every step, rather than just performing surface-level orchestration.
As Dries points out, this simplicity and flexibility can serve to significantly improve the experience newcomers have with Drupal. Additionally, the Drupal AI initiative allows agencies to help shape the future of these tools in the Drupal ecosystem.
Read why Drupal is built for AI
The Drupal Association Announces 2025 Board Election Winner and Additional Board Members
Last but not least, we have the Drupal Association’s announcement of the 2025 Board Election winner and other new DA Board members. With 269 community votes, Maya Schaeffer is the winner of the community-elected seats for the 2025 At-Large Board Election.
Other new board members are Dominique De Cooman and Glenn Hilton, with Baddý Sonja Breidert returning to the board as a voting member and chair in the coming year. The new board members are replacing the retiring ones Fei Lauren, Lynne Capozzi, Rosa Ordinana and Owen Lansbury.
