What 2025 Taught Us About Getting DAM Right in 2026

Chris Lacinak: 00:00:00

Is DAM dead.

Shawn Averkamp: 00:00:01

We're going to have to start thinking about agentic AI as another user, and we'll have to think about how we create metadata that AI can use as well. We'll just have to start thinking more about non human users in addition to our human users.

John Horodyski: 00:00:15

The biggest surprise for me this year was the continued rise of the DAM adjacents. Will the DAMS be the ones to, you know, be more innovative? Will the adjacents get there?

Kara Van Malssen: 00:00:25

the question looking ahead to: 2026

Chris Lacinak: 00:00:43

Use AI to add metadata, natural language search capabilities and things like that, but if you don't have your permissions in order, if you don't have your rights management in order, you're essentially creating greater discoverability of assets that could be misused.

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:00:58

I think there's a lot of like set it and forget it kind of thinking, and it's the very opposite of that.

Chris Lacinak: 00:01:04

Welcome back to DAM Right. I'm Chris Lacinak, your host and CEO of the best DAM consulting company in the business, AVP. This episode is not a traditional year end recap.

nouncements or headlines from: 2025

Over the last year, we have worked with organizations across industries, sizes and DAM maturity levels, new buyers, teams migrating platforms, organizations trying to scale AI, and others simply trying to get the fundamentals right. Across all of that work, a few patterns became impossible to ignore.

The technology is moving fast, AI capabilities are accelerating, DAM tools are becoming more. Powerful and more accessible.

showed up again and again in: 2025

So in this conversation, we're talking about what actually mattered, what turned out to be distraction or hype, and where DAM teams need to focus next. This is about practical insight, not hindsight.

esigned to help you move into: 2026

the last DAM Right podcast of: 2025

or phrase that sums up DAM in: 2025

Kara Van Malssen: 00:03:01

All right, Kara Van Malssen, Managing Director and I lead our services team. My one word is essential.

Chris Lacinak: 00:03:11

John, let's go to you next.

John Horodyski: 00:03:13

All right, John Horodyski, Managing Director, Strategic Client Growth. And my word or phrase is DAM is a human endeavor.

Chris Lacinak: 00:03:24

Amy, coming to you.

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:03:26

Yeah, my. Well, I'm Amy Rudersdorf. I'm the Director for Consulting Operations. And my word is foundational.

Chris Lacinak: 00:03:34

All right, so Shawn, come in to you.

Shawn Averkamp: 00:03:37

personally and for me, DAM in: 2025

Chris Lacinak: 00:03:52

All right, all right, wonderful.

I'm thinking looking back on: 2025

acterize the DAM landscape in: 2025

green? What does the story of: 2025

Anything in there?

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:04:31

Yeah, I have some thoughts on that. So looking back, I feel like it was a year of both disruption, but then sort of wrapped in familiar patterns.

So for me, the biggest surprise, and I do a lot of selection work at avp, so I see a lot of DAM demos and what I'm seeing is that low cost DAM solutions are proving that they're no longer lightweight. The cost might be, but the systems are not. Some of them are genuinely powerful and innovating faster, I think, than many enterprise tools.

They're closing the feature gap in real time. And I think it raises a real question, and that is how will high cost vendors justify the premium if this trend continues?

So to me, that's a big surprise. I was not fully aware of that this year, as far as constraints go, I think it's the belief that AI can fix anything. It's still alive and well.

I think some organizations dove in headfirst, some stayed cautious.

But what I think is encouraging is that more DAM admins are realizing that their structured data is the real engine behind responsible and effective AI. So once they understand that, the tech becomes less mysterious and I think more manageable. Hype is eternal. AI is today's hype.

cle resets, so we'll see what: 2026

This kind of goes back to the foundational and familiar points that I've made. Tools are getting more accessible, admins are getting more strategic.

And I think the field took a noticeable step toward smarter automation this year and that's grounded again in foundational data, strong metadata, not just hype.

Chris Lacinak: 00:06:22

Love that. Yeah, I think the, the, the opening sentiment there around the gap lessening.

I think in some ways is true and in some ways I would say that it's, it's sort of perception that unusable assets or less usable assets in a low cost, less sophisticated DAM look exactly like the same assets in a really sophisticated DAM.

So I think if you put those things together, what you just said, it's like when the fundamentals are in place, when the foundation is in place, then the differentiation becomes greater, but there's work to do. It's harder to make the differentiation between these lower cost, pretty sophisticated DAMS for sure. Thanks for those insights.

Anyone else want to jump in?

Kara Van Malssen: 00:07:12

I can jump.

Doubling down on something that Amy said that I certainly notice very much a shift from the beginning of this year to the latter part of the year, that recognition that effective use of AI requires the foundational data and structure and governance and all that.

I think earlier in the year it was still in very much like mystery mode where AI was like this thing that could solve all our problems according to, you know, the, the, the market and leadership's buying that and, and you know, saying like implement it, do, do all the things AI, it'll solve all the problems that we have with our unstructured data and our challenge, you know, the assets that no one can find and et cetera. And now we know that's not true at all. I think the industry has really realized that through some painful experimentation and testing.

And I think we all understand the technology better and what it requires to be effective. So I Noticed that shift throughout the year, and I thought that was really interesting.

Chris Lacinak: 00:08:15

Yeah, that felt present at a Henry Stewart DAM, New York. I think a lot of pragmatic. More pragmatic discussions.

John Horodyski: 00:08:22

I can chime in. Yeah. I mean, I love the word that you used, Amy. It's foundational.

And I think that's probably a theme that we all sort of, you know, cling to as this industry is changing. I do think 25 was very much a. A year of fluctuation. I love that word. You know, we saw at the beginning. Still do see this whole interest in AI agents.

I think that's fascinating. I did pull 12 DAM systems. Only two appear to be doing it. Is it actually working? I kind of want to know.

Looking at U: 2026

I want to see more of that. I think that's quite exciting.

And as DAM evolves in this fluctuation mode, like, see who's going to outpace each other, will the DAMS be the ones to, you know, be more innovative? Will the Adjacents get there? I don't know. It's kind of interesting to see. Looking forward to 26.

And my constant for the year is I've been doing this for 20 years, and it still is a lovely surprise to meet new folk who are getting into DAM for the first time. Amy, a lot of your work is in that space of that selection process. And it's amazing. You know, here we are, 20, 25.

People are still going into DAM, and even those who are maybe reselecting and getting a new system, it goes right back to those foundational moments and steps, and I like that. That's a good thing. Yeah.

Chris Lacinak: 00:09:57

All right, quick break. Okay, listen, I've got a hot stock tip for you. Wait, what? Why in the world would I have a hot stock tip for you?

That's a different podcast, but now that I have your attention, I want to tell you about the only other place other than the DAM right podcast where you can get real deal ear to the street, news you can use sort of information. It's AVP's banger of a newsletter called DAM Good Advice, and it's packed with practical stuff about digital asset management.

Things like what to fix first, what not to overthink, and problems are maybe more of a lifestyle choice at this point. It's written by the AVP team who spend a lot of time Inside real DAM programs across every vertical.

So we're heavy on DAM street cred and light on hype. If you work with DAM and enjoy being quietly validated or warned just in time, you can sign up at weareavp.com/damgoodadvice.

That's weareavp.com/damgoodadvice. D A M. Of course it's one email, it's free, and if you hate it, you can unsubscribe dramatically and tell no one. All right, back to the show.

So let's move on to the something that I think we can bring a unique lens to here. You know, one of the advantages we have as being a services firm is that we get to work across all sorts of industries, all types of organizations.

And I think that's, that's pretty unique.

So this next few minutes I want to spend just kind of letting folks get the benefit of that perspective and expert expertise and experience we bring to the table there.

And I'd like to ask the question, when you look across industries, you know, what are some insights that are industry specific DAM trends that you've seen and what are some overarching trends that you see in DAM across all industries? Maybe we've already touched on that. If so, that's okay. But love to just get some of this cross industry perspective.

Kara, I'm going to throw it to you to kick us off there.

Shawn Averkamp: 00:11:56

Okay.

Kara Van Malssen: 00:11:56

I'm just going to represent one industry that I have been able to do some work in this year, which has been really fascinating. But I will, I will tie it to a broader trend as well. So that industry is in footwear and apparel.

And I think we could extend this to other manufacturing space where we've seen, we've started seeing in some cases in some companies that they're starting to think about DAM beyond the marketing DAM. So that's historically and traditionally, traditionally where DAM has lived in these companies.

But to see DAM as a key tool in the product creation process.

So in the process of making a shoe or a jacket or whatever, there's a, there's a ton of visual assets that are created media files and some of these are like Adobe Illustrator files, some of them are 3D files, some of them are, you know, renders from these tools. There's just a ton of them out there and the default way of dealing with them has historically been things like SharePoint and Dropbox, et cetera.

And there's a lot of sharing across global supply chains.

There's a lot of security concerns, IP concerns, version concerns, because you have to deal with a lot of different stages of the product development process, different milestones and phases of that work. And so DAM solve so many of those problems. It just wasn't a part of the. It wasn't a part of the tool set until recently. It's starting to become that.

So I think this is very cutting edge there.

There are just a few companies who are starting to really seriously implement DAM upstream into the product creation life cycle and then connect that downstream to marketing because ultimately those visual assets flow into what gets put onto the website. The E Comm platform goes out to partners, distributors, retailers, et cetera. So I think we're still a little ways off from that end to end. But.

But it's really interesting to see where DAM is popping up not in its kind of in the historical place that it's always lived.

And I think that that is the broader trend that I'll point to, which is that centralizing and kind of coming up with a truly enterprise solution to digital assets that is not just marketing centric is a thing we're seeing in other industries as well. So that's. I'll start with that.

Chris Lacinak: 00:14:28

That's great.

ut the underlying DPC report,: 2026

Any other perspectives folks want to bring to the table?

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:14:49

I have something, but I want to wait and see if anyone else does because mine is sort of off in its own little world.

Chris Lacinak: 00:14:56

Jump in. Bring it, Bring it. Let's do it now.

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:14:59

Jump. All right, so this is something that I've had to think about for the last couple of years, and that is we're going to talk about metadata again.

So when you're in some of these industries, like what Kara talked about or finance or, you know, whatever it might be, metadata is pretty straightforward, right? It's kind of flat. It can be complex, but not as complex as what I'm about to talk about.

So I put it in quotes because it's not always the case, but it's often the case. So we are starting to see DAMS being used across the organization.

So we're starting to see this group of people that have not used these types of DAMS before, and I'm talking about librarian librarians and archivists. And so suddenly they're brought into these Machines that are not library and archive specific machines.

And they're really used to being bespoke systems that address their specific metadata needs.

As we start bringing these populations into what I'm going to call a corporate DAM or a marketing DAM or a brand DAM, there's a real tension there because libraries want these systems to handle their complex metadata structures. They want to stick with standards. And the DAMS don't like, they don't know what to do with this.

They're, they're, they're befuddled by this population.

And I think it's really important to keep in mind that it's not necessarily the metadata that's inherently complicated, but it's that it's operating in a context that the systems weren't built to handle. But it's a trend that I'm seeing.

We've, we've seen several libraries and archives across the US adopt certain systems that are under prepared for the complexity that.

Kara Van Malssen: 00:17:07

They'Re.

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:17:09

That they're bringing to the table. So that's what I'm seeing, I think.

Shawn Averkamp: 00:17:13

To add to that too, Amy, I like seeing vendors that are starting to rise to meet these new needs because I think some of these more specialized needs that we're seeing both in, you know, libraries, archives and museums, especially higher education, where they're being met with new requirements for access. So more metadata, more captioning, there's going to be more need for AI to help assist generate more metadata.

But even an industry with very fine grained access controls, maybe even at the metadata level, I think that these more specialized needs that we're seeing really do, are going to represent broader needs across industries. And it's good to see the vendors that are really to meet those needs.

Chris Lacinak: 00:18:04

I mean, cross industry.

All these comments make me think about something we were talking about last year around this time, which is adaptable DAM, which is something I've heard less about this year. And not everybody uses that term. But like it's what I think of as the real key characteristic of a true enterprise DAM.

When I talk about enterprise DAMS anyway, which is the ability to adapt to all sorts of different scenarios, use cases, requirements for given departments, business units across an enterprise in ways that make it really flexible.

So a DAM, a single DAM, can operate under lots of different business units and maybe look even like totally different DAMS, but in truth they're really one. And that's just an interesting, I mean that's where I see. Amy, you started early on in the conversation talking about this pressure coming from. The lower cost DAMS that's Where I.

See the biggest differentiation still there is that they're not quite to that adaptable. They have a lot of really slick features and they're doing really cool stuff. But we don't see them as adaptable.

And that's not really to make a judgment call to say adaptable is good or bad. Because every organization is going to have unique needs and maybe that's perfect for them and maybe it's not.

But it's a distinction that I think is worth noting and we do see across all industries adaptable DAM being something that's being implemented to all sorts of different use cases. Please support DAM Right by going ahead and hitting that Follow subscribe like button.

John Horodyski: 00:19:37

Thanks for Trends of the year. I mean it's without doubt that AI is still there, but I do think it's changing.

I mean the number one search term this year on Google was awkwardly Gemini. I mean, eating your own type of thing. But it's an interesting first search result for Google.

But I think we are seeing a little shift to the, you know, going back to my earlier point of the human side of AI. And it was a pleasure this year to hear more words like trust and authenticity, provenance and even C2PA.

And I think as the as we become more humanized, I think we're going to see in 26 a little bit more discussion of those things. There are two pieces of legislation coming into the United States as well as Europe on artificial intelligence, intelligent acts.

And just like we were in: 2017

So I think we're gonna have a lot more questions coming towards us, as we should, because there are some big changes coming.

Chris Lacinak: 00:20:40

You see all the archivists and the museum's professionals standing a little taller in the DAMosphere conversations when trust and authenticity come up. This is of course absolutely something they've been talking about for decades. Ye, yeah, that's great. Let's move on.

what's the word or phrase for: 2025

And that essentially is the disconnect between what we see platforms and technologies just moving at hyperspeed. You talked about that, Amy. Like we're just seeing innovation at a rate we haven't seen it maybe ever. And lots of promises, lots of possibilities there.

But there's this other picture that we see, and that's that organizations that are using DAMW, which are prospective customers of all these great AI features, are struggling still with the fundamentals. That's the word foundation, as you said, Amy.

And until the house is in order on the foundation side, they're unable to really leverage the possibilities and fulfill kind of that vision that's there. And Shawn, I'll point this question in your direction and it really is one.

Tell me if you think that sounds right to you or if you're seeing something different. But if that's true, are we at risk of overselling AI and DAM before most organizations really even have the foundation to support it?

Or what do you think the implications of that are and how does that play out?

Shawn Averkamp: 00:22:16

I think it's still really early and exciting days in AI, Dan.

You know, I think one of the benefits of commercial or consumer AI that we're seeing like ChatGPT and Gemini is that like we're all just getting firsthand experience learning using AI. We're all really learning about the risk involved. We're seeing it wrong. We're seeing all this AI slop.

And so we're all getting really steeped in that. We're getting a lot of experience in our own personal lives.

So when we come to DAM, you know, I think, I think most DAM users are coming to it with healthy skepticism.

You know, I don't think people are going to just be trusting AI features in DAM blindly need to see the possibilities and are starting to have like their own, you know, creative ideas about what they can do.

So I think it's really exciting that we're starting to see these AI features in DAM, but I think it's really going to take some of that experimentation and, you know, helping give DAM users the tools that they need to better evaluate some of these tools to be able to do their own benchmarking, to test on their own collections, as well as having some two way relationships, two way conversations with DAM vendors about like, what they want to see there. So I hope that DAM vendors are engaging users in developing out the features that they want to see.

And I hope that users are going to feel empowered to be able to act, ask for what they want to see and be able to lead some of that creative development in dam.

Chris Lacinak: 00:23:49

Yeah, and I think we saw some of that early experimentation and kind of proofs of concept and think of the AI tech playoff, I think it was called that Christina Huttart did at the end of New York was like it was some of the more realistic. And your comments make me think of that, Shawn. Like we need to see some of these early proofs of concept. People have to inspire each other.

We got to move. There is a pace of evolution there that's just natural.

Kara Van Malssen: 00:24:13

I have a thought briefly, just. I agree with what's already been said. I think this idea of agentic AI is way ahead of its time.

I mean, just with that in mind, like, we are cautiously experimenting, testing and finding opportunities. But anytime you need accurate, precise, trustworthy results from an AI, you do not want to let that sucker run automatically.

And that's the premise of agentic is like it's just going to do, you know, it's a little agent and it does things for you. It'll take time to get there.

And maybe in a small scale there's a few ways we can use agents sooner than later, but at a large scale that is going to take time. And I don't see that adoption happening immediately. So I think there is definitely a gap on the agentic side of things, for sure.

John Horodyski: 00:25:10

I love the word you use, Shawn, of skepticism. I do think there is a healthy dose of that happening right now. And it's good to slow down. Sometimes we feel like we have to go faster.

This is a great time to slow down. One of our clients this year took six months to evaluate the AI component of their DAM to figure it out.

So as a calling card for everyone in 26, it's okay, slow down, think about these things and you know a word that you love, Kara? Governance. It's good. This can help, you know, for overuse, misuse, compliance, ethics, all those things.

If you're not doing governance in 26 as a gift to you. Governance. It's lovely. It's a good thing.

Chris Lacinak: 00:25:51

Yeah, I think about.

Well, all these comments make me think that one of the things that can be risky or a good reason to slow down or, or when you don't have the fundamentals in place, you think here about, well, we can use AI to add metadata, natural language, search capabilities and things like that.

But if you don't have your permissions in order, if you don't have your rights management in order, you're essentially creating greater discoverability of assets that could be misused. Right. So the rights management, the permissions have to be in place in order for that to be a positive thing. Otherwise it could be a big liability.

Amy, I want to chat with you as someone who, who I Think this question will, will leverage your expertise in doing a lot of DAM selection projects with customers and that I'm wondering, from our perspective, where do you see biggest disconnects and divergence between what platforms offer and what the customer realities are? And, and what do you think we can do about that to. To improve on it?

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:27:04

Yeah. Okay. So the biggest. I have three.

So I would say that what we hear from vendors and what customers really get is very different when it comes to AI, which we talked about when it comes to search and when it comes to integration. So I'll start with AI since that's where we all have been.

But I think vendors make it sound and I want to back up and again and say that I have sat through 30 demos this year. So I've heard directly from the sales folks and vendors make it sound like AI can just be flipped on tomorrow.

Like you buy this system, we flip it on, you're good to go. But I think, as we've already said, most clients aren't ready not because they're not interested, but because the foundations aren't in place.

So the real, I mean, the reality is that AI is only going to work when scaffolding is solid. And so that narrative coming from the vendor to the client just doesn't, doesn't feel right.

Kara Van Malssen: 00:28:08

Right.

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:28:09

The other one in the same, in the same vein is search. And this one to me is just relentless.

Like every vendor claims their search is unmatched, and then we see the search and in reality, most are doing basic phrase searching. Very few offer true natural language search, but again, that depends on good metadata. And the vendors don't always talk about that.

They talk about the functionality, but they don't talk about what needs to happen to make this work.

So the clients expect transformations, transformative or transformative findability, and end up right back where they started because they don't know how to make search and AI work. They've just been told it's easy just by the system. And then I think the third one is integration.

Again, we talk about integration like it's flipping on a switch. And it's really important that we're educating the, the clients that integration is complicated.

You know, if they already have an integration set up with Canva or something like that, great.

But if you really need to build something with your, like your CSM or something, you know, that takes time, that takes ongoing money, and those are not conversations that are necessarily being had from the vendor perspective. So to me, we have to shift the conversation from features and functionality to like the conditions for success.

So here's the functionality, but here's how you make it successful. And I think the vendors need to be clear about what their tools require in order to perform well.

I don't think that's necessarily happening in all cases, but I also think that we as consultants need to help clients understand that great AI and powerful search isn't magic and that they're again, the outcome of good governance, structured data and consistent stewardship.

Chris Lacinak: 00:30:13

So some, some education and awareness. Sounds like how, how we, how we do better on that front. Yeah. And to be fair, I mean, I don't.

And I'm not saying you're, you're being unfair to, to what we're calling vendors, we'll call platforms or whatever.

I think a lot of the things they say are true, but it's under those conditions of success in which they're true and the missing piece of information there, what are the conditions for success? Right. So there's no, there's nothing sinister.

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:30:38

They're not lying or something.

Chris Lacinak: 00:30:38

But. But it is a disconnect and it's something that does cause frustration in worst case scenarios. Failed implementations. Right.

But there's a big spread there where things can play. Yeah. So love that insight. Thank you. Any other thoughts on that?

John Horodyski: 00:30:57

I'll pick up on the one word that you chose, Danny, because that I saw a lot this year and that's integrations. And pardon the pun of the question from you, Chris, of the disconnect, but it's the disconnection.

I love Scott Brinker and I love his Martech map, but if there is a more stress inducing picture you could ever see, you look at that and you're like, so look at the point of view from a client going, oh my golly, what could I do? Are they all talking to each other? I don't think they are, but that work to get there.

To your point, Sadie, about foundational materials, that's a disconnect. Are the tools talking to each other? So again, as a nod to 26 y', all, let's get connected. Because that's a.

There's a lot of work to do to get to those good connections. Integrations are one of them, but there's foundational steps to get there.

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:31:43

So the metadata has to be good to connect foundational from one system. Foundational.

Chris Lacinak: 00:31:52

Integrations is one of those scary conversations that it's like if people knew what they were getting into beforehand, they might be hesitant.

However, in the end, it's often the ROI is there, but boy, they're just a lot more complex than people realize and I think platforms their position they're trying to sell their DAM probably doesn't do them a service to talk about really over stress how complex integrations are but yeah, that's a point of tension frequently. I mean I'm curious what you all think.

Like you know we've saw the emergence over the past several years of like IPASS systems integration as a service. We still see a lot of custom integrations. I wonder and I think there's pros and cons to integration as a service.

I don't think it's a no brainer but what do you any insights as to what you're seeing there on the customer front like why that may or may not be taken up? Because there's a lot of reasons. It seems attractive but we see a lot of people still doing customers integrations. Kara, I see you smiling.

Kara Van Malssen: 00:33:00

I've talked to people about this also I was going to save this one but we've just completed a survey DAM trend survey like at the end of the year which we got over 100 responses. So thank you so much to everyone who responded and I've had the privilege of starting to do some initial analysis of our results.

the question looking ahead to: 2026

But slightly surprising to me is the second most common answer was about integrations followed closely by automation. And some people are very clear to say I don't mean AI automation, I mean like any kind of automation and workflow.

So I think if I see that integration and workflow automation thing kind of under one thing taken together that answer comes up more than AI comes up.

So this is very much on people's minds and I think part of the reason is because one they recognize the need the value is going to come when we can connect these tools and create these end to end workflows and won't that be great.

But gee, it's hard to do and our tools are not necessarily providing us with our platforms and that's not just the DAM, but it's the DAM and the PIM and the CRM and the CMS and all of them are not necessarily providing us with what we need to make these connections.

So I think the IPASS pathway is very interesting because it's sort of a middleware that and some of these tools are kind of more, you know, user like, they, they're more GUI based where it's drag and drop. Some are a little bit more. Yeah, you have to write some code, some things are fall in between.

But when I've seen them demoed to, you know, the dev teams within the companies, they're all like, yeah, we'll do it ourselves.

So sometimes I feel like there's a, there's an, a need for control and ownership because at the end of the day, the integration sort of lives in a gap between the tools and the customer has to own that gap. They are responsible for maintaining those connections because they are unique to their organization.

So I think there's a hesitancy to go all in on a third party tool. Then we just have another tool in the mix. We don't kind of have as much ownership. You know, it's harder to maybe troubleshoot when things break.

But gosh, these things are so fragile. These custom, you know, complex integrations. One update of one system and the whole thing goes down, you know, at a critical moment.

And it's just, it's just so frustrating. So, yeah, I think that it's, there is a. Yeah, it's a, it's a thing.

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:36:10

I think a lot of time clients don't really, I mean, they really don't understand how complex it is. I think there's a lot of like, set it and forget it kind of thinking, and it's the very opposite of that, as Kara said.

And that's, that's tricky trying to make that point to folks who maybe don't want to hear it.

Chris Lacinak: 00:36:37

Yeah, it is a thing. As Gara said, it's a thing. All right, so let's jump to our next question.

t do you think was missing in: 2025

ision that you hope to see in: 2026

Kara Van Malssen: 00:37:12

You kind of did. I was like saving my integration comment for this question. So, yes, we already talked about that, but I had been thinking about it.

So I did this analysis this morning and I saw that integration was this top concern from our survey respondents. So that was a surprise. But I had been thinking about this for quite some time.

So for me, what I had seen in the marketplace as far as missing was better solutions for custom integration. And yeah, I think there are a few DAM platforms out there doing some great stuff in this area and I'm very excited about those.

I'd like to see more from more of the vendors because I think this is, is where some. Yeah, some real investment needs to happen. We need solutions to come from them. So that's one the other.

other missing thing I felt in: 2025

I'd like to see an equal pushback on the reality side of things like what's working, what's not working. I want to hear real stories from real people. Heard some of them, I think we've heard. We get to hear some every once in a while.

But that isn't taking up as much of the, of the bandwidth as the, as the other side of that story. So. So that's part of what I thought was missing this year.

John Horodyski: 00:39:01

That was mine for the year, Kara, was we talk about the AI, but where are those case studies? And I'm looking at all of us and that's the community, that's all of us. I'm looking at the vendors.

If you say people are using it, like you get them to talk about it, please. Because if you're trying to get more people on it, we need to hear those stories. So I need more of that. Where were they?

So: 2026

Let's share these case studies with each other because we're learning together in this community. So I need more case studies. And number two was change management. Why aren't we talking more about that?

You know, we see so many clients and you know, we go to conferences, we hear these things and they're all, you know, in these disconnected, you know, timelines. Where's the change management discussion? My goodness, it's hard, it's difficult to put some of these things together.

So I was missing some change management talk.

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:39:58

Yeah, I was thinking along those same lines. I feel like in the same way we're adopting these really complex technologies, but we haven't really absorbed the change required to do them.

And it feels like that's the missing conversation.

It's around building capability like developing digital fluency, strengthening cross functional collaboration and like creating a culture where people are equipped to do this and not intimidated by change. So I'd have to agree that change management is a huge piece of this.

Chris Lacinak: 00:40:34

Just proves the point. DAM is a program or an operation. It's not a technology alone. Right. There's lots of stuff that revolves around it. Please support DAM right by going ahead and hitting that follow subscribe like button. Thanks.

I'm gonna throw one of our our second to last question to you John, and it's a controversial one.

There's always been a trickle of this thing, but I feel like I've seen a little bit of a, a flow in the ebb and flow of things as of late and that's this, this bold statement that DAM is dead. So my question to you is, is DAM dead? Tell us what you think.

John Horodyski: 00:41:18

We don't need any more provocation in this very provoking year that we've already been living through.

Chris Lacinak: 00:41:21

So.

John Horodyski: 00:41:24

I will just flat out say no, it is not dead. Changing, yes, but not dead. DAM is still at the core. We see it in our clients. We see what they're trying to do. The different ways of using DAM.

Kara, you're that comments about DPC and how they're using those different ways outside of the marketing sphere. It's not dead. It's changing. Yes, but it's not dead. Final statement. Anyone else?

Shawn Averkamp: 00:41:53

I'll add.

So way back in library school a long time ago, I had a classmate who was very anti metadata and he was just like someday we had a very sci fi attitude about how someday we're not going to need metadata, you're just going to be able to like put it into a computer and it'll pull all the information out that you need and we won't need to create metadata. And we just like really butted heads in library school. But I think about it and like every once in a while like are we there yet? Do we need metadata?

And I think the answer is still yes. Because as long as we have humans that need to access assets, we will need metadata.

But also I think we're going to have to start thinking about agentic AI as, as another user and we'll have to think about how we create metadata that AI can use as well. So no, I don't think DAM is dead or will be dead. I think we'll still have a need for metadata and a place to keep that metadata.

And we'll just have to start thinking More about non human users in addition to our human users.

Chris Lacinak: 00:42:50

A lot of people are, when they say it, are kind of talking, thinking about how much the technologies are changing. But we think about DAM as a practice. It's obviously necessary and still thriving.

Kara Van Malssen: 00:43:01

I had a different kind of take on this question, but just going back to the DAM adjacent tools that we've seen in platforms, more of these I feel like have been coming up as well as newcomers startups in this space that they don't necessarily call themselves DAM. They say they have DAM capabilities and they say DAM capabilities. And that's not what they're selling.

They're selling something else that you know, some other. It's just a function or feature of what their, of what their product has.

So I feel like I've asked some of those folks like what category do you put your product in? What do you call this so that buyers understand what you're selling? And I got some really interesting mixed answers.

So this category shift maybe, maybe a thing and this idea of the damage adjacent where DAM as a feature, not as the full solution is coming up, so we'll see where that goes. But it's just a thing that I've had some interesting conversations about.

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:44:10

I have some thoughts on this too. My perspective I think is slightly different. Again, because I'm coming from this selection perspective. I also don't think DAM is dead.

And to me, again, I don't know.

Tell me if you know if I'm wrong, but I feel like the conversation is often skewed towards organizations with deep pockets, fully integrated tech ecosystems. These are the people who can have this conversation.

Like when people claim it's obsolete, I think they're usually imagining these environments where systems talk to all these other systems seamlessly and where content flows effortlessly and, and they have the infrastructure and the ability to build this world. But to me that's a luxury problem.

So for small and mid sized organizations, I even think for some large organizations that maybe don't have those deep pockets or without that level of support for integration, DAM is nowhere dead.

It's the most reliable way to centralize assets and enforce the standards and the metadata and the rights and all of those things in a way that SharePoint or Dropbox can't do. And a lot of these organizations are moving from that, those kinds of platforms into DAM.

And for them DAM is this thing that we think of it traditionally and it's working for them.

Chris Lacinak: 00:45:31

Yeah. Okay, well, I'll breathe a sigh of relief here that I don't have to change the name of the podcast DAM is Not Dead.

So let's wrap up here with with the question that we ask everybody every time on the DAM Right podcast, which is what's the last song you added to your favorites playlist? And Shawn, why don't you kick us off?

Shawn Averkamp: 00:45:53

Yeah, I think I'm a little late to the geese party, but Ope du Cocaine by Geese have been my latest yearbook.

Chris Lacinak: 00:46:02

I've not heard it. Gotta listen.

Amy Rudersdorf: 00:46:05

Hasta la Reis. It came out in: 2015

She's like a Grammy Award winning or nominated singer and she's amazing, so check her out.

Chris Lacinak: 00:46:27

Great. John.

John Horodyski: 00:46:30

i Sifra, a folk song from the: 1970

And it's one of my favorite holiday movies. So. La Viefre, look him up.

Chris Lacinak: 00:46:49

I'm 0 for 3 on these. I don't know any of these. I look forward to listening to them.

Kara Van Malssen: 00:46:52

Kara so I was on podcast, you know, not that long ago, and I realized I haven't added a song to my favorites playlist since then because I don't really use it that much because my son destroyed my Spotify account when he took it over and I got him a new account. But like, I haven't cleaned mine up. So I'll give you a different answer. I do a lot of listening to NTS Radio.

NTS is an online radio streaming platform out of the UK at all times. They have two live channels going, but you can also go back and listen to everything that they've aired.

And I have listened to three times to this one show, which is they have different DJs and celebrities, even musicians. Come on. And DJ. So the actor Ayo Adebri, who is the. She plays Sidney in the Bear.

She did this episode a few months back and I just keep listening to it over and over. I just love her playlist there. It's great. So sorry it's not the right answer, but I didn't have a new song.

Chris Lacinak: 00:47:52

Well, that's totally acceptable. All right. And mine is A Song for your by Donny Hathaway, which is a very popular song, but I had, if I heard it, I didn't remember.

much for helping us close out: 2025

Lots of exciting things in: 2026

But meanwhile, we wish everybody a wonderful New Year. Happy Holidays, and thanks to you all.

Okay, listen, I've got a hot stock tip for you. Wait, what? Why in the world would I have a hot stock tip for you? That's a different podcast.

But now that I have your attention, I want to tell you about the only other place other than the DAM Right podcast where you can get real deal ear to the street news you can use sort of information.

It's AVP's banger of a newsletter called DAM Good Advice and it's packed with practical stuff about digital asset management, things like what to fix first, what not to overthink, and which problems are maybe more of a lifestyle choice at this point. It's written by the AVP team who spend a lot of time inside real DAM programs across every vertical.

So we're heavy on DAM street cred and light on hype. If you work with DAM and enjoy being quietly validated or warned just in time, you can sign up up at wearevp.com/damgoodadvice.

That's wearevp.com/damgoodadvice. D A M of course it's one email, it's free, and if you hate it, you can unsubscribe dramatically and tell no one.