AEM Champion Office Hours: Post-Adobe Summit 2024 Roundtable (April 2024)

After Adobe Summit 2024, the AEM Champion Office Hours hosted an open roundtable instead of a Q&A. Host Greg Dimeris, AEM Champions including RENY director Rami El Gamal and Brett Birschbach, and attendees shared what they learned at Summit and what it means for AEM teams.

What the session covers

• Edge Delivery Services and the Universal Editor: document-based and component-based authoring coming together, so Edge Delivery can work with existing implementations.
• AI at Summit: generative AI moving from demos to specific use cases, Firefly and Express integrations, and Adobe's AI pilot programs.
• Practical sessions: a shift from aspirational announcements to practical, real-world advice, and the value of customer-led sessions.
• Integrations: Workfront with AEM, and Content Hub.
• Platform choices: Universal Editor support on Managed Services, the cloud versus self-hosted debate, and life as a Cloud Service customer.
• Community: talking to Adobe experts on site and how to become a Summit speaker.

Key takeaways

• Summit 2024 was about refinement. After years of launching products, Adobe focused on making AEM as a Cloud Service, the CDN, Rapid Development Environments and APIs better to implement and use.
• AI needs a business case. Sessions framed AI around specific uses rather than tools. If someone pitches generative AI, the first question is what you will use it for.
• Cloud Service gets the new features first. Several attendees on Managed Services said the AI features made them want to speed up their move to the cloud, and the panel expects less backporting over time.
• Governance comes first in regulated industries. Financial services organizations at Summit were focused on frameworks and governance for AI.
• Use the experts on site. Conversations with Adobe product and support teams were among the most valuable parts of the event.
• Share your success stories. Teams with measurable results from a migration, a headless build or a personalization program should prepare speaker proposals early.

RENY's perspective

Our one-word summary of Summit 2024 was refinement. After a wave of new products, from AEM as a Cloud Service to Real-Time CDP, Adobe is in a second phase: refining them from the development, implementation and API perspectives. On AI, we compared it to the X-ray, a breakthrough that people at first applied to everything before learning its limits. The best sessions framed AI around a specific use, and our advice is to always draw the line between a technology and its relevance to your business. Embrace AI, but understand why you are embracing it.

Since Summit 2024

Many of the features discussed, including the Universal Editor, Edge Delivery Services with AEM authoring and Content Hub, are now generally available in AEM as a Cloud Service. See our summary of the AEM innovations from Adobe Summit 2025 for what came next.

How RENY helps

We help teams turn Summit announcements into a plan: moving to AEM as a Cloud Service, adopting Edge Delivery Services and the Universal Editor, and choosing AI use cases with a clear business case. Talk to an AEM architect.