Recap JoyConf25 in Amsterdam

Nils and Gökay at the JoyConf25 in Amsterdam

Last week, our Storyblok experts Nils and Gökay attended JoyConf25 in Amsterdam, Storyblok's major conference on headless CMS, content, and AI. We asked them a few questions to give you a recap of their impressions in case you couldn't attend.

We hope you enjoy reading it! ツ

Why JoyConf25?

JoyConf25 took place on October 14 and 15, 2025, in Amsterdam—at the historic Felix Meritis venue. Under the motto »Turning Content into Connection« the conference showed how content management systems today must be more than just tools: they should connect people, facilitate processes, and make content more intelligent.

For us as the Storyblok agency, a conference like this is an excellent opportunity to:

Feel the pulse of the industry
Network with like-minded people
Take away learning impulses that can be directly transferred to our projects
And yes: recharge our batteries – both professionally and personally

With this perspective in mind, we went into the interview with Storyblok experts Nils and Gökay.

What were your personal highlights of JoyConf25?

Nils MVP in Amsterdam at the JoyConf25 in Amsterdam

Nils: It was a great JoyConf with many highlights. And the first conference in this format where the Storyblok community met. This gave us the opportunity to get to know them better and exchange ideas with other Storyblok partners.
In terms of content, I was particularly impressed by Vitaly Friedman's presentations on AI and UI/UX. They gave me new ideas for working with our customers.
And, of course, my personal highlight was being named MVP on the main stage. The MVP party itself, as well as meeting and talking to the other MVPs, was the absolute highlight for me.

Gökay: My personal highlight of JoyConf 2025 was Vitaly Friedman's talk »How To Design AI Features People Use« I found his analysis of AI fatigue, i.e., the reason why many people have lost their initial enthusiasm for AI, particularly fascinating. The key insight was that we often lose sight of the basic principles of UX design when developing and integrating AI features. Instead of relying solely on text-based inputs, we should pay much more attention to designing the appropriate user interface and the most user-friendly form of interaction for each AI use case. This is because pure text inputs are often inefficient and limiting.

Another talk that I found particularly noteworthy was »How to Think Like a Performance Engineer« by Harry Roberts. He gave us an exciting insight into the work of a freelance performance engineer and made it clear that we as developers often carry out performance tests that are too pessimistic. Many tools often assume the worst-case scenario instead of representing realistic usage scenarios. Roberts emphasized that tests should be conducted in a manner that more closely resembles how real users utilize a website, for example, not with the cache disabled in DevTools. I also found his comment interesting that the biggest performance issues often occur in unexpected places, especially with redirects such as in breadcrumb navigation.

Session JoyConf25 in Amsterdam with a man as a speaker

What trends or innovations were the focus at Storyblok?

Nils: The big topic was clear: AI. I found the announcement of »StoryblokStrata — our breakthrough vector-based content layer for modern enterprises, allowing you to unlock deeper content understanding, personalisation, and operational clarity beyond what any CMS has offered before« particularly exciting. This means that content is no longer just stored, but understood semantically. This opens up more precise personalisation, better findability and greater operational clarity across content structures.

From a developer's perspective, the native automation layer Storyblok FlowMotion in combination with n8n was also a real highlight. Workflows can be modelled directly in the CMS, systems can be seamlessly integrated and AI agents can be orchestrated – from automated enrichment to approval and playback across multiple channels.

Both features clearly show where the journey is headed: away from the classic CMS as a pure publishing machine towards a platform that seamlessly combines content, automation and AI. For companies, this means faster time-to-value, consistent experiences and scalable content governance.

Gökay: In my opinion, Storyblok is expanding its capabilities to offer the right platform for a wide range of use cases. They are taking a promising step forward with the new FlowMotion feature. Unfortunately, we haven't had a chance to take a closer look at it yet, so we can't really assess its impact. But the prospect of being able to integrate almost any source into the content automation workflow sounds really promising.

Insights & learnings – what specific lessons have you taken away?

Nils: The combination of UI/UX patterns from Vitaly Friedman's talks and Storyblok Strata is ideally suited to the requirements of our customer BayWa r.e. We work with complex content, personalised playback and an architecture that must be scalable and durable.
Specifically, this means that our client BayWa r.e. has requirements that demand complex content, personalised delivery and scalable technical architecture. The new patterns show how AI features can be made user-friendly and how content and UI can work more closely together. With Storyblok Strata, we think about content semantically: not just »page with text and image«, but »content with meaning, relationships and context«. This enables more precise delivery, covers more complex use cases and makes projects technically future-proof.

There were also strong impulses in the area of performance and scalability. Many presentations at JoyConf dealt with topics such as scalability, performance and personalisation. This is a topic that is constantly on our minds in our daily work. Harry Roberts' talk ‘How to Think Like a Performance Engineer’ provided completely new insights in this area.

»It's not enough to just know the latest features. It's also about how to implement them in a way that is performant, robust and user-centred.«

Where is Storyblok heading – and what opportunities does this present?

Nils: I think that with the new AI features, the vector-based content layer for deeper content understanding and a powerful automation layer – combined with a headless architecture – we as a company are excellently positioned for the future. Headless remains relevant, but the focus is shifting: content must become intelligent – not just published, but semantically understood.
AI is not just a buzzword, but plays a central role as a mechanism with which content can be adapted, personalised and played out in real time. Automation is just as central: workflows, agents and integrations reduce manual maintenance and enable orchestrated, scalable processes. Those who establish this infrastructure early on secure clear advantages: faster time-to-market, more precise personalisation and significantly lower operational costs.

Gökay: Storyblok is increasingly evolving from a classic headless CMS into a central platform for content automation and orchestration. With the new »FlowMotion« feature, which is currently in the introductory phase, Storyblok is significantly expanding its capabilities: in future, it will be possible to link content and processes directly to a variety of tools and systems without additional integration effort.

This opens up new opportunities, including for us as the Storyblok agency: in future, content can be managed even more efficiently, automated and distributed across various channels. For companies, this means greater speed and consistency in their content workflows, and for agencies like us, it means the opportunity to develop even smarter content architectures that integrate seamlessly into existing system landscapes.

You can find one of our previous Storyblok projects here: Storyblok as a headless CMS solution for BayWa r.e. AG

Will you be attending JoyConf next time?

Our two days at JoyConf25 were very valuable, not only as a team event, but also for our work. With Nils winning the MVP title, the inspiration from Storyblok Strata & FlowMotion, and the discussions in the Storyblok community, we took away a lot that we can use directly with our customers.

So next time you're thinking about it: yes, events like this are more than ‘just’ conferences, they are an investment in the future.

Thanks for reading and see you next time ツ.