Is ECM Dead? How AI Is Transforming Enterprise Content Management

Cold Open (00:00–00:10)

Franziska Thomas: [00:00:05] Is ECM dead?

Robert: [00:00:07] Is ECM dead? Of course, it's a tricky question and I would say a very provocative question. Of course.

Part 1 – Welcome & Setting the Scene (00:15–01:48)

William McInnes: [00:00:15] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Enterprise Content Show.

Franziska Thomas: [00:00:19] So hello everyone.

William McInnes: [00:00:21] So we're here to explore how organizations are rethinking content process and AI in the real world.

Franziska Thomas: [00:00:31] And we are asking a slightly dangerous question today. Is ECM dead?

Franziska Thomas: [00:00:41] And if so, what's next?

William McInnes: [00:00:45] A small question, nothing controversial at all.

Franziska Thomas: [00:00:49] Not at all.

Franziska Thomas: [00:00:53] Um, it's a really interesting one, though, because a lot is changing in the market right now. And it's not just technology. It's how customers actually think about content systems and also access to information.

William McInnes: [00:01:08] Absolutely, Franziska. And to help us unpack that, we're joined by Robert Jaksch. And Robert brings a really interesting perspective. So interesting that I wore a special shirt for today.

William McInnes: [00:01:20] Because Robert sees the space both as a Doxis customer and through a broader consulting engagement with the market in his day job.

Franziska Thomas: [00:01:31] And one important note before we start, Robert is joining us today in a personal capacity, sharing his own market perspective and not speaking on behalf of Adesso.

William McInnes: [00:01:42] So, Robert, please come on stage.

Franziska Thomas: [00:01:46] There you are. Hello.

Franziska Thomas: [00:01:47] Welcome.

William McInnes: [00:01:48] There he is. How are you doing today, Robert?

Robert: [00:01:51] I'm great. Thank you very much.

Part 2 – The History of ECM: Three Decades of Evolution (01:53–03:38)

William McInnes: [00:01:53] Really, really good. So let's just start simply like, what are you seeing in the market right now that has made this question of ECM—is ECM dead—feel worth asking?

Robert: [00:02:08] Oh, thank you, Franziska and William. Is ECM dead? Of course it's a tricky question, and I would say a very provocative question. To answer it, let me look at a short historic development of ECM over the last 30, 40 years.

Robert: [00:02:35] In the 80s, ECM started as a pure digital archive. What you did was replace your paper archive with a digital archive to save space. That's it. In the 90s and early 2000s, it moved closer to business processes, enabling workflows like invoice handling and approval. It became a real productivity enabler.

Robert: [00:03:00] Later, collaboration came in, cloud expanded, you had managed services, and you had an enterprise-wide information hub. That's how it is today. But today, I would say—and you gave an introduction to it—you have a fundamental shift. Organizations have used ECM for ten, twenty years or even longer to modernize their IT landscape.

Robert: [00:03:38] What they do is break down the monolithic platforms into more modular services. And very importantly, they put in intelligence. They want to do processes and automation, and customers want to consume content dynamically. They don't want to search. They want instant information and analysis. This puts ECM at a crossroad.

Part 3 – The Crossroads: Three Possible Futures (03:38–05:03)

Robert: [00:03:50] It can regress into compliant but largely invisible archiving backbones in the back. Or it can evolve into content services with AI-driven automation. Or it could be something in between—archiving with AI.

Robert: [00:04:17] Coming back to the question: is ECM dead? No, of course it's not. But it's being fundamentally transformed.

Franziska Thomas: [00:04:46] That was already a very interesting answer. So what do you think when people say ECM today? Do you think everyone is still talking about the same thing?

Robert: [00:05:03] That is a very interesting question. What is ECM at all? When we talk about it, we all maybe have a different view on ECM as a definition. The problem is when you talk to somebody for an hour or two hours or days, but you have different thinking about the terms, then maybe you mislead in definitions. So the outcome is not what you're expecting.

Part 4 – Who You're Talking
To
Matters (06:25–08:27)

Robert: [00:05:40] Very important is at the beginning to understand what ECM is. I go to my customers and ask them: what do you think is an ECM? They will define it to me, and then I come up with additional terms like document management system—the small sibling of ECM, just archiving and document handling. Or the bigger definition like content service platform from Gartner, which is more the modular service providing system.

Robert: [00:06:25] At the end, the term is not so important. It's more important where they want to go. Normally the customer does not talk about the same things at the same time.

William McInnes: [00:06:48] Love it, Robert. I'm putting my hat on—the document intelligence company hat. So I'm curious: when customers are discussing these definitions, are they increasingly trying to solve a different problem? Are you seeing a wave of new problems or changes in how technology solves old problems?

Robert: [00:07:25] Good question. When you come to the customer, it depends on who you're talking to. In a legal or finance department, you talk about archiving. That's important for compliance. When you talk to business departments, the most important thing is fast retrieval of information. They want to use content intelligently.

Robert: [00:08:00] They want to ask in natural language: what are the numbers of my quotations? What contracts do I have? Is this displacing? So when you look at document management, it depends on who you're talking to. Both the compliance perspective and the business intelligence perspective must be addressed with document management.

Franziska Thomas: [00:08:27] What do you think are the old assumptions behind ECM that no longer really hold up?

Robert: [00:08:34] One of the key outdated assumptions is the idea of having one centralized repository that solves everything. It's more moving toward microservices and decentralized approaches, with an archiving backbone that's still necessary. When you look at big ERP players like SAP, they still don't offer something like that. They implement it with external ECM systems.

Robert: [00:09:18] But the intelligent part—that's what's driving forward so fast. That's what ECM needs to evolve into.

Part 5 – Technology Push vs. Customer Pull (09:19–10:37)

William McInnes: [00:09:19] Do you see this change being driven more by new technologies like AI, which you've mentioned multiple times, or by customer frustration with the old ways of doing things?

Robert: [00:09:34] Very short answer: both ways. You need to have AI technology, but there's still frustration on the market. Let's say you have one monolithic system that's not easily controllable. And to be honest, vendors are developing too. They have to save costs, so they don't provide the best perfect service.

Robert: [00:10:12] It's a kind of changing frustration. But AI is also very important. It's both.

Franziska Thomas: [00:10:12] When we speak about modernization across organizations, what are they really asking for? Business people want automation, better user experience, faster access to information. Is it more intelligence? Is it better technology? Where do you see most of the market need?

Robert: [00:10:37] From my point of view, having insight into content is the most important part. It's driving at the moment. The user experience is interesting, but at the end it's something like: I don't care if you have a fancy front end where you can do fun things. I know what I want to do. I'm going to ask my AI: can you give me this? Can you give me that? It doesn't matter anymore if you have a very good user experience with the front end, but it's very important to have the information you need right now, really fast. That's most driven.

Part 6 – The User Experience Debate (11:22–14:06)

Franziska Thomas: [00:11:22] I do disagree with that.

Robert: [00:11:24] That's my point of view.

Franziska Thomas: [00:11:27] I do think the user experience is absolutely important and the interface you're interacting with on a daily basis matters. That's my personal perspective. But I also see the impact when the insights feature works in Doxis chat, and results come back. I do think that makes a difference for enterprise applications. It has dramatically changed over the past ten, fifteen years. Ten years ago, I totally agreed with you. But now I see that people working with Apple and Mac are used to nice UIs, and I think that has an impact.

Robert: [00:12:24] I agree partly, but only partly. When I talk to customers, they say from a management point of view, I don't care how the front end is. What they want is their processes automated and fast information. I do agree you want a front end where you can easily access this. But maybe the most important thing isn't having a chatbot on the front end. For me, what's important is having one true single point where I can ask all this stuff.

Robert: [00:13:10] From my point of view, what management states to me is: they want automated processes. Even if it's just in the back end, it's fine. They want to work in Office. If this is fine, then it's fine.

Franziska Thomas: [00:13:31] It doesn't have to be one or the other.

Robert: [00:13:35] Absolutely. But when I ask management, they say processes and automation are essential. When they ask about evolving ECM, they say most important thing is compliance and archiving. Very important to have content available. But then they also say: no processes, no metadata exploration, no seeing like an E-file.

Robert: [00:14:00] But it's more like a nice to have. When they need it, they want to use it. But if they don't need it, they say: okay, I don't need it anymore. That's my opinion.

William McInnes: [00:14:06] If the classic model is under pressure, what comes next, Robert? Is it still ECM with new capabilities, or does the whole category need rethinking?

Part 7 – What Comes Next: A Rethinking of the Category (14:20–15:13)

Robert: [00:14:20] I think the truth is simple. As the Germans say, nothing is as constant as change. This applies to ECM too. So the category must be rethought. We still have classic archiving, but most importantly we have the AI topic and the content service providing part. We're moving toward platform and process automation. The category must be rethought from my point of view—having ECM intelligent with an archive backbone. Something in between.

Franziska Thomas: [00:15:02] When you look across the market, what separates the genuinely forward-looking approaches from the AI buzzword versions?

Robert: [00:15:13] That's a good question. You have to really go deep inside and think about what you can do with AI and what the real use case is behind it. If it's forward-looking strategy, you have to create outcomes. You take your content, ask questions, and get value that you need fast. You have fast retrieval of information and even discover things you wouldn't think about.

Robert: [00:15:50] The buzzword strategy is more like getting attention: look, we can do AI a little bit. But it's not really deep thinking—how to integrate it, how to use it, what's the best thing for different branches.

Part 8 –Doxis Like It's Hot: Rapid Fire Round (16:04–19:07)

William McInnes: [00:16:04] Super thoughtful. Love it. Thank you, Robert. Okay, so now it's time for Doxis Like It's Hot.

Robert: [00:16:11] Sure.

William McInnes: [00:16:12] That's the rapid-fire edition with quick, instinctive answers.

Franziska Thomas: [00:16:15] Short answers, first instinct. No overthinking.

William McInnes: [00:16:33] Okay: ECM is dead. Yes, no, or too dramatic?

Robert: [00:16:41] Too dramatic. Of course ECM is dead at the beginning—ECM as archiving. But you still need content services.

Franziska Thomas: [00:16:47] Next one: one word you think will matter more than management in the future.

Robert: [00:16:51] Intelligence.

William McInnes: [00:16:54] Intelligence—I've got it somewhere on my hat. So Robert, what matters more now: storing information or surfacing it?

Robert: [00:17:06] Must be both. Storing is needed from a compliance point of view. The law says so. But you also need to surface it.

Franziska Thomas: [00:17:18] Biggest thing customers are no longer willing to tolerate.

Robert: [00:17:23] Something other than AI and automation: bad services. Customers expect good and fast results from the vendor.

William McInnes: [00:17:36] What's more dangerous right now: moving too slowly or adopting AI too blindly?

Robert: [00:17:50] I think it's something in between. Use AI, have it, but don't use it for everything and don't believe everything inside. And data privacy, of course.

Franziska Thomas: [00:18:06] One phrase in this market you would happily retire forever.

Robert: [00:18:12] That's how we have always done it.

Franziska Thomas: [00:18:15] Never change a running system.

Robert: [00:18:18] That's it. Always change.

William McInnes: [00:18:22] Repository, assistant, platform, or layer—what best describes the future?

Robert: [00:18:35] From my point of view it will be platform.

Franziska Thomas: [00:18:41] What will customers care more about in three years: where content lives or what content can do?

Robert: [00:18:48] What content can do. But we need where it lives for the archiving and historical point. Most important is getting business value from it.

William McInnes: [00:19:07] If we had you back in two years, what do you think we'd be calling this space instead of ECM?

Robert: [00:19:23] I would probably call it Intelligence Enterprise Content Management, or IX for short. I think this will come very fast.

William McInnes: [00:19:33] Love it. We're big fans of the intelligence word here at Doxis.

Robert: [00:19:38] That's a future that's really coming up.

Part 9 – Key Takeaways & Closing (19:41–21:20)

Franziska Thomas: [00:19:41] Thank you, Robert. That was a really fun conversation and I think very timely too. You were disciplined enough to come up with short answers.

William McInnes: [00:19:53] Really interesting perspectives and good to talk about the big elephant in the room. You were provocative but also real. We know customers are definitely rethinking what they need and evolving their approaches.

Robert: [00:20:08] Thank you very much for having me on the podcast.

William McInnes: [00:20:13] Yeah, thank you, everyone for listening. If this episode sparked a strong opinion in you—whether ECM is ending, evolving, or overdue a name change—we'd love to hear it.

Franziska Thomas: [00:20:25] Of course, definitely. It's always good to see the same topic from a different perspective. Robert gave us his perspective and we've seen the shift in how document management and ECM help people work with documents, use information faster and smarter, in a way that fits how people actually work now. I think that's most important—not how we name it, but the value it adds.

Robert: [00:21:03] That's it.

William McInnes: [00:21:04] Thank you for joining us, Robert.

Robert: [00:21:08] It was very nice. Thank you.

Part 10 – Post-Episode Reflection (21:12–22:32)

William McInnes: [00:21:12] The end of the Enterprise Content Show.

Franziska Thomas: [00:21:13] Bye bye. Thank you for listening.

Robert: [00:21:15] Have a good time. Bye bye.

William McInnes: [00:21:17] Another good conversation, Franzi. Did you enjoy that one?

Franziska Thomas: [00:21:21] Definitely, of course. Like always, always good to see our guests.

William McInnes: [00:21:26] Absolutely. Robert had some good perspectives. I like that he challenges the industry. I like that he's got a provocative point of view. Like, no one wants to drink the Kool-Aid all day, every day. The future requires change, right?

Franziska Thomas: [00:21:40] Yes, of course. He had very valid points. If you see how the market evolved from pure archiving—he said microservices backbone archiving again. I do have a bit of a different opinion in some parts, because I do think you can only really use document intelligence if you store the documents in one system. But it was a very fair approach that he shared and definitely worth talking about.

William McInnes: [00:22:08] How jealous of my hat are you?

Franziska Thomas: [00:22:11] Very jealous. Where can I get one? Is that the unofficial uniform?

William McInnes: [00:22:18] I will find out if there's one available for you. So thank you to all of our listeners and viewers. Please do like, subscribe, comment. We would love to hear from you and thank you for spending some time with us again.

Franziska Thomas: [00:22:31] Thank you. See you next time.

William McInnes: [00:22:32] Bye.