Session 1 - The Future of DAM: Navigating AI, Trust, and the Next Generation of Content
Thursday February 11, 2027
8AM PST / 11AM EST / 4PM GMT / 5PM CET
Digital Asset Management is entering a defining moment.
AI is transforming how content is created, discovered, governed, adapted, and delivered. As platforms evolve rapidly, DAM professionals must make strategic decisions before the technology landscape has settled.
But adding AI to a DAM does not make an organization AI-ready.
Success depends on trusted content, metadata, governance, workflows, and operating models that enable people and intelligent systems to work with confidence.
This online masterclass explores the developments shaping DAM in 2027, from generative AI and intelligent search to semantic metadata, workflow automation, content intelligence, and orchestration.
What must DAM professionals do now to prepare their platforms, teams, and content ecosystems for the next generation of content?
Drawing on market analysis and real-world transformation experience, the session separates lasting innovation from product hype, explains why trust and governance matter more than ever, and identifies the capabilities worth investing in today.
The call to action is clear: DAM professionals cannot wait for the technology landscape to settle.
Participants will leave with a clear view of the evolving DAM landscape, a practical framework for evaluating emerging capabilities, and a focused set of priorities for their organizations.
Thomas Stilling, Digital Strategy & Transformation Leader
Session 2 - Metadata & Taxonomy Strategy
Thursday February 18, 2027
8AM PST / 11AM EST / 4PM GMT / 5PM CET
This masterclass provides a practical foundation in metadata and taxonomy for Digital Asset Management (DAM). You'll learn the core concepts, standards, best practices, and governance needed to organize, manage, and scale your digital content effectively.
Metadata does far more than describe files—it provides the structure, context, and meaning that enable content to be discovered, understood, governed, and reused. It is the foundation of every successful DAM and a critical enabler of search, automation, personalization, analytics, and AI. Without metadata, you have nothing for your DAM.
Whether you're implementing a new DAM, improving an existing one, or developing a long-term content strategy, this masterclass will equip you with the knowledge to make informed decisions. You'll gain the skills to better understand your organization's content, advocate for effective metadata practices, and design information structures that help users quickly find, trust, and use the right assets.
Topics include:
- Metadata and taxonomy concepts, principles, and terminology
- Business benefits of metadata and taxonomy, including practical exercises
- Guidelines for designing metadata schema
- Metadata maturity model and planning
- Governance, change management, and AI considerations
- Analytics and measurement
- Best practices
John Horodyski, Managing Director, AVP
Session 3 - Asset Lifecycle Management & Governance in an Age of Complexity
Thursday February 25, 2027
8AM PST / 11AM EST / 4PM GMT / 5PM CET
In the not-so-distant past, asset lifecycles were relatively straightforward - assets were approved, available in the DAM and might have had a review or expiry date. More sophisticated DAM platforms allowed for workflows and notifications based on those expiration dates - if someone had correctly input that metadata - but the situation is vastly more complex now. With assets potentially inheriting usage information from a variety of platforms, not to mention the regional variations arising from layered rights, knowing when an asset is 'good to use' becomes ever more critical, especially in an era of automation and agentic workflows.
So, how can you get to 'good' in this state of constant change? In this session, we'll discuss basic asset life cycle definitions and governance, ways to grow your governance model as your content ecosystem expands, and how to keep your DAM platform and processes up-to-date so as to manage end-to-end asset lifecycles.
Lisa Grimm, MD & Principal Consultant, Antique Fuchsia Advisory
Session 4 - Search, Discovery, and Findability
Thursday March 4, 2027
8AM PST / 11AM EST / 4PM GMT / 5PM CET
Good metadata and taxonomy are the foundation of user search experience, discovery and findability in DAM. They also improve the quality and trustworthiness of AI-powered search features.
This session focuses on why metadata and taxonomy support search in DAM and recommends methods for creating elegant metadata schemas and taxonomies that support a wide range of use cases and user groups. It also addresses how to improve existing metadata and taxonomy in your DAM, through findability and metadata auditing and practical corrective actions. It also describes how using existing, out-of-the-box features can improve search, findability and discovery for both human and machine users.
In this session, learn how to improve search and findability in your DAM through:
- Creating search scenarios to stress test your existing metadata and taxonomy
- Conducting a findability audit to better understand search quality in your DAM
- Conducting a metadata audit to identify gaps and quality issues in your metadata and taxonomy
- Using existing features like portals/curated spaces, filters/search facets, back-end search refinements, and search synonyms to improve search and findability
- Establishing a robust metadata foundation that ensures content authenticity and supports the effective use of AI-based features
Stephanie Lemieux, President & Principal Consultant, Dovecot Studio
Katherine Black, Senior Consultant, Dovecot Studio
Session 5 - Change Management, Implementation, and Adoption
Tuesday March 9, 2027
8AM PST / 11AM EST / 4PM GMT / 5PM CET
Tom Sloan, Solution Lead: Content Management & Logistics, ICP
Session 6 - The Living DAM: How to Keep Your System Healthy, Relevant, and Trusted Over Time
Thursday March 11, 2027
8AM PST / 11AM EST / 4PM GMT / 5PM CET
Every DAM starts with good intentions. A solid implementation, a well-designed taxonomy, a trained user base. But over time, sometimes, something quietly happens. Metadata becomes inconsistent. Teams start working around the system. Shadow systems emerge that duplicate content already in the DAM. New team members get onboarded differently — or not at all. Documentation goes stale. Stakeholder communications drop off. The governance structures that were supposed to hold everything together exist only on paper.
The DAM doesn't fail dramatically. It drifts.
DAM drift — the slow erosion of metadata quality, adoption, and governance after go-live — is a recognized risk of unmanaged systems, though it rarely gets the same attention as the implementation itself.
But drift is not inevitable. A DAM can be a living system — one that grows alongside the organization, adapts to how work changes, and remains trusted and useful over time. That requires intention, accountability, and the right operational practices. This masterclass is about building exactly that.
Drawing on 15+ years of enterprise DAM experience across media, technology, consumer products, and the performing arts, the session covers:
- How to recognize DAM drift early — the warning signs most organizations miss until it's too late
- A practical health diagnostic you can apply to your own system after this session
- The governance structures and accountability models that keep a DAM on track long after go-live
- How to maintain metadata consistency as teams, use cases, and content volumes evolve
- What to do when drift has already happened — a realistic remediation path that doesn't require starting over
- How AI is changing what's possible in ongoing DAM maintenance — and where human judgment still matters
This session is designed for DAM managers, administrators, and information professionals who are past go-live and responsible for keeping their system working — and working well — for the long term. Beyond the basics, the class will share the practical, hard-won knowledge of what it actually takes to keep a DAM alive.
Jennifer Pflaumer, Founder & CEO, Paroo LLC