Composable DXPs: Where Content, Data, and Intelligence Converge
Why brands are shifting from content creation to orchestration, and how composable platforms make it possible.
The challenge used to be producing content.
Creating enough of it to meet the demands of an information-hungry audience used to require a large team of capable writers with deep knowledge of your business. But AI has given content creators a massive boost on the creation side. Now the challenge isn’t creating content, it’s orchestrating it.
As customer journeys stretch across devices, channels, and moments—and as AI makes everyone a content creator—precision matters more than volume. Now, brands need to deliver the right story, to the right person, at the right time, consistently and intelligently. That’s where the new generation of digital experience platforms (DXPs) comes in.
Composable DXPs are a strategic response to this new suite of challenges. Unlike traditional monolithic systems, composable architectures give enterprises the flexibility to integrate best-in-class services—like CMS, DAM, personalization engines, analytics, AI, and more—into a cohesive, adaptable whole. But more than just a tech shift, this is an operational evolution: from creating content to coordinating it across teams, systems, and touchpoints.
Platforms like Contentstack are leading this evolution, embedding automation and intelligence into the core of the experience stack. And Gartner now includes composability as a requirement for inclusion in its Magic Quadrant for DXPs and predicts that by 2026, 70% of organizations will be mandated to adopt composable DXP technologies— up from around 50% in 2023.
Instead of mere content hubs, these platforms are forming orchestration layers that turn static assets into dynamic, data-aware experiences. By weaving together content, context, and computation, they help brands scale storytelling without sacrificing relevance or speed. The implications are clear: composability is becoming table stakes.
The Coordination Imperative
Content volume isn’t the problem anymore. (If anything, most organizations suffer from content overload: thousands of assets spread across teams, tools, and regions.) The real challenge is coordination. How do you ensure a localized campaign pulls the right approved images? That personalization logic references the most up-to-date product copy? That analytics inform not just what was published, but what should be published next?
The cost of poor coordination is high: delayed launches, disjointed experiences, brand inconsistency, and wasted resources all add up. In contrast, brands that excel at orchestration move faster, respond smarter, and deliver more coherent experiences across touchpoints, making content orchestration a strategic concern.
What Makes a DXP “Composable”?
Composable DXPs are built on modular, interoperable components connected via APIs. This design philosophy allows enterprises to swap, integrate, or upgrade parts of the stack without disrupting the whole— instead of being locked into a rigid suite, teams can pick best-of-breed tools for content, data, commerce, search, experimentation, and more.
That flexibility translates into adaptability. A composable DXP can scale with the business, pivot quickly when market conditions change, and support experimentation without massive replatforming. For digital leaders tasked with balancing innovation and stability, composability offers a pragmatic path forward.
And while not all DXPs are created equal—Forrester makes specific note that not all vendors marketing themselves as "composable DXPs" truly meet the bar and encouraging enterprise buyers to scrutinize actual capabilities, not just labels—the impact a true composable DXP can have on a business is becoming a key differentiator.
Platforms at the Forefront: Contentstack and Beyond
Through integrations, automation workflows, and AI-powered capabilities, composable DXPs are allowing teams to do more than just publish content; they’re defining what it means to operationalize orchestration. They can set up triggers that localize assets automatically, use machine learning to tag and organize content libraries, and connect analytics to editorial planning tools.
Composability undergirds these platforms, and these platforms amplify the importance of composability. Open APIs and extensibility mean enterprises can tailor orchestration to their specific needs, integrating with everything from legacy systems to bleeding-edge martech.
Case in point: GetYourGuide, a leading travel platform, reduced deployment times by 90% and slashed content approval times by 75% after moving to a composable stack. And Chronodrive, a French retailer, cut its content update time by 30% and saw a 16% increase in mobile app traffic. The opportunity for upside here is massive.
Content Orchestration in Action
So what does this orchestration actually look like?
Imagine a retailer launching a seasonal campaign across five regions. With a composable DXP, content variants are automatically generated and routed for local review. Product data syncs from a centralized PIM, and campaign analytics feed into the personalization engine to optimize message sequencing. Teams collaborate asynchronously, governed by workflows that enforce brand and compliance standards.
This goes way beyond just publishing. Aligning content, data, and logic to deliver intelligent, timely experiences is orchestration, and it reduces manual work, minimizes error, and increases agility— especially at scale.
The payoff is significant. Composable DXPs:
- Reduce time to market by simplifying workflows and automating low-value tasks
- Enhance customer experience by enabling personalization and consistency
- Improve ROI by maximizing the use of existing assets and minimizing redundant effort
- Reduce long-term risk by preventing vendor lock-in, easing new-tool integration, and enabling iterative development.
They’re a way to future-proof the experience stack while delivering measurable gains today.
Getting Ready: What Digital Leaders Should Do Next
Adopting a composable DXP isn’t just about picking new tools. It requires shifts in mindset, process, and governance. Leaders should start by auditing their current content operations: Where are the bottlenecks? What tools are duplicative or outdated? Where are human hours spent on coordination that could be automated?
Next, invest in enablement. Composability thrives when teams understand how to work across systems. This includes training, documentation, and clear ownership models. Governance is also critical: without it, flexibility becomes chaos.
Finally, move incrementally. Composable doesn’t have to mean a wholesale rebuild. Start with a priority use case, prove value, and scale from there. The shift from content creation to content orchestration is a strategic capability to build over time, not a one-time transformation.
The most important thing? Don’t stop at theory. Choose one content-heavy campaign, process, or region and map out how orchestration would improve outcomes. Use that as the lens to spark internal conversation. Ask: what would it take to automate this, and what would we gain if we did? Then identify one modular starting point to test orchestration in practice and build from there.
The brands that embrace this shift will be the ones that turn content from a cost center into a competitive advantage with speed, intelligence, and precision.
Leigh Bryant
Editorial Director, Composable.com
Leigh Bryant is a seasoned content and brand strategist with over a decade of experience in digital storytelling. Starting in retail before shifting to the technology space, she has spent the past ten years crafting compelling narratives as a writer, editor, and strategist.