Key takeaways:
The content gap: Content demand has doubled in 12 months, yet marketing budgets have shrunk by 25%, creating an operational crisis that traditional tech upgrades alone cannot fix.
Simplification over customization: Legacy systems are often over-customized and bespoke, leading to change inertia. The first step to scalability is simplifying the underlying process before adding automation.
Agentic AI as an orchestrator: We are moving toward agentic AI workflows that act as a strategic catalyst for decision-making, rather than just simple content generation.
Value is velocity: In retail, success is measured by the speed from the production line to the digital shelf. Content latency is a direct drain on revenue.
Ecommerce content operations are under serious strain. Content demand has transitioned from a steady stream to an exponential flood. Research from Deloitte Digital shows the demand for content has doubled over the last year alone.
Yet, as demand spikes, marketing resources are under extreme pressure. Gartner reports that marketing budgets have faced a functional decrease of nearly 25% since 2020, with average spend dropping from 11% to just 7.7% of total company revenue.
This creates a more with less paradox that cannot be solved by simply working harder. This widening gap between content velocity and operational capacity is what we call the content supply chain crisis: the inability of traditional ecommerce content workflows to move product content from creation to live channels fast enough to meet market demand.
To solve this, we must first understand the scope of the system. An ecommerce content supply chain is the end-to-end process of creating, enriching, approving, and publishing product content across digital channels. It includes everything from raw product data and imagery to localization, governance, and performance optimization.
At Amplify25, held at the iconic Abbey Road Studios, this challenge took center stage during the keynote session The Content Revolution: Turning Strategy into Solutions. Jeremy Straker, Co-CEO & CCO at Amplience, was joined by Matt Clark, Director, XD Studio at Deloitte Digital and Stuart Gough, Associate Director at Deloitte Digital, to unpack the reality of the modern content supply chain.
The conversation made one thing clear; the bottleneck is a lack of strategic flow, not a lack of tools.
Why do legacy content management systems fail to scale?
For years, enterprise retailers have followed a predictable cycle. Every few years, they commit to a generational upgrade, which is a massive capital outlay for a new system intended to fix their content challenges. Fast forward three years, and the same problems remain. Teams do not know what content they have, where it is, or how it is performing.
The issue is that a tech-first conversation often masks a deeper operational crisis. When content processes are too complex and highly customized, they become almost impossible to change. You cannot automate chaos. Before you can achieve content workflow automation, you must simplify the underlying process. Stuart Gough noted that scalability is often sacrificed for immediate velocity, leading to systems that are too rigid to evolve.
How to scale content operations with agentic AI workflows
We are currently exiting what Matt Clark described as the “fizz“ phase of AI: t the initial excitement of point solutions, such as generating alt-tags or basic SEO copy. Now, we’re entering a deeper discussion about agentic AI workflows.
In retail content management, agentic AI refers to a system of digital agents that do more than just write text. These workflows function as an automated orchestrator for product data and creative assets. Rather than simply generating text, agentic systems reason across fragmented systems, such as the PIM, ERP, and CMS, to ensure every piece of content adapts to changing brand contexts and regional requirements. They execute complex, multi-step tasks autonomously, reducing the manual overhead that typically stalls high-volume product launches.
During the session, the panel highlighted how these workflows function as a digital collaborator. Instead of a human copying data between systems, a multi-agent system can:
Research & enrich: Automatically extract product attributes from images and enrich them with social trends.
Orchestrate: Coordinate between the PIM, DAM, and CMS to ensure real-time inventory visibility and consistent messaging.
Self-correct: Monitor performance data and recommend, or execute, content pivots when a category is underperforming.
How to build a scalable foundation for agentic commerce
To move from pilot programs to enterprise-scale value, AI must be aligned with strategic intent.
Matt Clark highlighted how organizations are now moving past the hype, using AI for strategically important outcomes rather than just task acceleration.
In 2026, leading organizations are treating AI as a foundational element of their content operations platform. They are focusing on:
Strategic intent: Knowing exactly where the organization is going and why.
Learning agility: Cultivating a culture where teams are empowered to apply new information and tools to their daily flow.
Balanced governance: Acknowledging that while more governance typically equals less speed, smart automation acts as a patch to maintain brand trust.
Redefining retail content metrics for the AI era
Measuring content success requires moving beyond vanity metrics such as asset volume or publish frequency. At Amplify25, this was referred to as “value is velocity“: the faster accurate product content reaches the digital shelf, the higher its revenue potential.
While high throughput is a good indicator of an efficient process, the real wins are found in tangible productivity gains. Matt Clark mentioned that Deloitte recently achieved over 11 hours of savings per week, per marketer, by implementing smart AI integrations.
In enterprise retail, where the window between the production line and the discount rail is shrinking, every second of latency in your content workflow is lost revenue.
Maximizing the shelf life of your content requires a platform that moves as fast as your ideas.
How to bridge the content velocity gap
The insights shared at Amplify25 provide a blueprint for moving beyond the content supply chain crisis and reclaiming operational flow. To see the full conversation, you can watch the keynote session in its entirety on the Amplience YouTube Channel.
However, viewing the session is only the first step. While content demand continues to explode, retail organizations remain slowed by the very manual processes and fragmented workflows discussed on stage.
Book a Content Consultation to translate these strategic insights into a practical roadmap for your own organization. Our experts will help you map your current supply chain, identify the specific bottlenecks costing you time, and show you exactly how to implement agentic AI workflows at scale.