As data and content proliferate, context is poised to become the new king

Data and AI were the dominant martech buzzwords in early 2025, but context is taking their place as the year wraps up. This isn’t entirely new; more than seven years ago, a MarTech article named content as king and context as queen.

But in the age of AI, the volume of data and content flowing into systems is bringing context back to the forefront. Context is what takes data and turns it into something more valuable, like relationships and experiences.

Today, Contentstack announced its Agent OS and declared the era of content management over, making way for context management. But it isn’t the only vendor interested in adding context to the waves of information people are drowning in. We’re operating in a noisy world, and the lack of context is partly to blame. Without context, much of the information we see and hear is simply noise.

As Contentstack sees it, three ingredients are needed to deliver great experiences to website visitors: data, content, and brand intelligence.

The company has a long history of helping brands manage content through its CMS. Its Brand Kit tool lets users manage their brand voice and compliance so AI-generated content stays within the guardrails. Contentstack Automate helps manage integrations between all the pieces and helps with workflows. Contentstack addressed data in January 2025 when it acquired real-time CDP Lytics.

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A new approach to personalization

With those pieces in place, Contentstack co-founder and CEO Neha Sampat is excited about what the company is building: the ability to capture and activate data in real time.

“The traditional way of doing personalized experiences was you had to segment people into different variations and say, ‘OK, if you’re in this demographic or you have these interests, then you go into this type of an experience,'” Sampat told MarTech. “You’re sort of labeled, and that experience might get served if you come in with a cookie or if you come in logged in.”

With Contentstack and others assembling the components to activate data with context, the customer experience could change dramatically.

“The difference now is you can take behavior from an unknown user who comes to a site and they’re clicking around and expressing interest in things based on what they’re reading, how long they’re staying on the page, how deep they’re scrolling, and all of that can be captured as events in real time to cater that experience to that individual in that session, without even knowing who they are.”

Businesses that can deliver a quality experience to anonymous users stand to benefit as the user engages further. Sampat said that if that customer buys something or chooses to create an account, the brand earns the right to deliver even more valuable experiences to that individual.

Vendors who can deliver experiences backed by content and data to their users will run laps around those doing one-to-many personalization.

Contentstack’s Agent OS will be generally available by the end of 2025, but Sampat is realistic about what it will take for customers to deliver real-time contextualized experiences to their users.

“Customers are at completely different levels of maturity in terms of their data integrity and data journey, essentially,” Sampat said.

Contentstack is implementing workshops, onboarding plays and an AI accelerator to help customers evolve. The company will add courses to Contentstack Academy as Agent OS approaches general availability.

Perhaps most importantly, Contentstack is also formalizing a change management program that addresses people, process, and digital experience maturity, which will explore how data and content interact with each other.

For years, marketing teams focused their efforts on content and basic personalization. Moving to an AI-powered context economy will be a big change for many.