The Gilbane Advisor

Curated for content, computing, and digital experience professionals

Gilbane Advisor 4-30-25 — Normal AI, vibe blogging, zero-copy

April 30, 2025 /

This week we feature articles from Sayash Kapoor & Arvind Narayanan, and Philip Guo.

Additional reading comes from Steve Jones, Alberto Romero, Shawn Wang & Alessio Fanelli, and Anthony Chavez.

News comes from Adobe, Access Innovations, Syncro Soft, and Elastic.

Our next issue arrives May 14.

All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index

Opinion / Analysis

AI as normal technology

“We articulate a vision of artificial intelligence (AI) as normal technology. To view AI as normal is not to understate its impact—even transformative, general-purpose technologies such as electricity and the internet are “normal” in our conception. But it is in contrast to both utopian and dystopian visions of the future of AI which have a common tendency to treat it akin to a separate species, a highly autonomous, potentially superintelligent entity.”

This paper by Sayash Kapoor & Arvind Narayanan has been getting a lot of attention, not because it is radical, but because it is a grounded, reasoned, centered, and promising worldview of AI. An important read. (73 min)

https://www.aisnakeoil.com/p/ai-as-normal-technology

Vibe coding, vibe checking, and vibe blogging

Using generative AI for personal-scale projects

I’ve experimented with a few GenAI writing tools but haven’t found a productive use for them — too much untrusting micromanagement by me — so haven’t even considered code generation or vibe coding. That is until I read this piece by Philip Guo describing his experiment with vibe coding, and tips for building trust with vibe checking. (10 min)

https://www.oreilly.com/radar/vibe-coding-vibe-checking-and-vibe-blogging

More Reading

All Gilbane Advisor issues

Content technology news

Adobe announces updated Firefly

Firefly combines new Firefly image and video models and the choice of models from partners including Google Cloud and OpenAI. Firefly Boards are in beta.
https://news.adobe.com/news//2025/04/adobe-delivers-creative-pros-unparalleled-speed-precision-flexibility

Access Innovations releases catalogue of 53 Knowledge Domains

The Knowledge Domain products can enhance content prior to ingestion into large language models (LLMs) and will provide improved GPT outputs.
https://www.accessinn.com/2025/04/24/releasing-catalog-of-53-knowledge-domains/

Syncro Soft releases Oxygen Content Fusion 8.1

Version 8.1 streamlines DITA content management and collaboration, with flexible project creation, enhanced file comparison and merging, and new AI-enabled features.
https://www.oxygenxml.com/content_fusion/whats_new.html

Elastic’s Cloud Serverless now on Google Cloud Marketplace

Elastic Cloud Serverless provides a fast way to start and scale security, observability, and search solutions without managing infrastructure.
https://www.elastic.co/blog/elastic-cloud-serverless-google-cloud-general-availability

All content technology news

The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, data, web, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.

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Syncro Soft releases Oxygen Content Fusion 8.1

April 24, 2025 /

Syncro Soft, developer of the Oxygen XML suite of products, released Oxygen Content Fusion 8.1, a web-based collaboration platform for content creation and review. Version 8.1 is focused on streamlining DITA content management and collaboration by introducing more flexible project creation, enhanced file comparison and merging capabilities, and new AI-enabled features through integration with the Oxygen AI Positron Assistant 5.0.

  • Users can start projects immediately even before linking to a Git repository and create them from predefined templates. Publications from existing DITA-OT project files can be imported and used for editing and validation context.
  • The file comparison and merging tool includes a Differences View to track replies and review comments. Ignoring white-spaces enables focusing on meaningful content differences, rather than cosmetic formatting changes.
  • With AI Positron Assistant 5.0 integration users can attach Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files for context in AI interactions. The DITA document conversion and topic analysis enables restructuring and updating content.
  • Custom AI actions can be developed or existing ones filtered to suit specialized use cases. An external text or Markdown file may be leveraged for prompts.
  • Updated components include the latest Oxygen XML Web Author 27.1.0 for visual XML editing and Oxygen Publishing Engine 27.1.

https://www.oxygenxml.com/content_fusion/whats_new.html

Access Innovations releases catalogue of 53 Knowledge Domains

April 24, 2025 /

Access Innovations, Inc, provider of Data Harmony software solutions, has announced its catalogue of more than 50 Knowledge Domains are now available as stand-alone products for use in thesauri or taxonomies.

A Knowledge Domain is an outline of expertise for a specific topical or content area formatted as a taxonomy (hierarchy) or thesaurus (with full records for every term). Knowledge Domains enhance knowledge management systems by enabling tagging, improving search accuracy, supporting web navigation, facilitating and semantic fingerprinting.

Knowledge Domains are designed to immediately improve the workflow efficiency of existing knowledge management systems by reducing search times and yielding more relevant search results. For new systems, Knowledge Domains can provide a fast plug-and-play solution or be an ideal starting point from which to create a narrower, custom taxonomy.

Domains include a Medicinal Plant Names Service (MPNS) domain developed in partnership with the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew that has an average of 16.6 synonyms per plant name and a NASA database that contains the authorized subject terms by which the documents in the NASA Aeronautics and Space Database are indexed and retrieved.

Medical domains include current diagnostic codes from the American Medical Association for medical coding and payment, the International Classification of Diseases maintained by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, and others.

 https://www.accessinn.com/knowledge-domains/

Adobe announces updated Firefly

April 24, 2025 /

Adobe updated Firefly, their all-in-one app for AI-assisted content ideation, creation and production. Firefly empowers creators to generate images, video, audio and vectors from a single place with creative control, iterate on their creations across Adobe’s creative apps and seamlessly deliver them into production. The choice of partner models includes Google Cloud and OpenAI and AI-powered tools deeply integrated into Creative Cloud apps.

Firefly includes all of Adobe’s commercially safe creative AI models, including the new Firefly Image Model 4 for lifelike images, the new Firefly Image Model 4 Ultra for detail and complexity and the Firefly Video Model which generates footage from text prompts and images with creative control.

Firefly also provides creative professionals with the choice to explore in different aesthetic styles using models from partners, with Google Cloud and OpenAI models available today and models from partners including fal .ai, Ideogram, Luma, Pika and Runway available in the coming months. The all-new Firefly Boards, now in public beta in Firefly, gives creators an AI-first surface for moodboarding, exploring creative concepts, iterating on hundreds of variations at once and collaborating on ideation. 

Creators can use Firefly on the web today, with the mobile app coming soon.

https://www.adobe.com/ai/overview/firefly/gen-ai-approach.html

Elastic’s Cloud Serverless now on Google Cloud Marketplace

April 24, 2025 /

From the Elastic blog…

Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of Elastic Cloud Serverless on Google Cloud — now available in the Iowa (us-central1) region. Elastic Cloud Serverless provides the fast way to start and scale observability, security, and search solutions without managing infrastructure. Built on the Search AI Lake architecture, which leverages Google Cloud Storage, it combines storage, separate storage and compute, low-latency querying, and advanced AI capabilities.

  • No compromise on speed or scale: Elasticsearch Serverless dynamically scales to accommodate your workload, handling unpredictable traffic spikes automatically — all while delivering low-latency search on boundless object storage.
  • Hassle-free operations: Say goodbye to managing clusters, provisioning nodes, or fine-tuning performance. Free your team from operational tasks — no need to manage infrastructure, do capacity planning, upgrade, or scale data. 
  • Purpose-built product experience: Elastic Cloud Serverless offers a streamlined workflow to help you create projects tailored to your unique use cases in observability, security, and search. With guided onboarding, you can use in-product resources and tools that guide you every step of the way, accelerating time to value.
  • Flexible usage-based pricing model: Elastic Cloud Serverless offers a usage-based pricing model that scales with your needs.

https://www.elastic.co/blog/elastic-cloud-serverless-google-cloud-general-availability

Gilbane Advisor 4-23-25 — Enterprise software & IA, GenAI therapy

April 23, 2025 /

This week we feature articles from Michael Andrews, and Marc Zao-Sanders.

Additional reading comes from Daniel Tunkelang, Bryan Perozzi, Lauren Feiner & Alex Heath, and Muneeb Sikhani.

News comes from Sitecore & Microsoft, InfluxData, Altair & Databricks, and Deepgram.

Our next issue arrives April 30.

All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index

Opinion / Analysis

Information architecture for software platforms

Michael Andrews reviews the complexities of enterprise software and the critical role of information architecture (IA). His non-technical article is valuable for anyone not experienced in enterprise applications, whether software engineer, product manager, business analyst, or senior manager, and a must-read for anyone considering a major role for AI agents in mission-critical industry applications. (14 min)

https://storyneedle.com/information-architecture-for-software-platforms/

How people are really using Gen AI in 2025

Marc Zao-Sanders follows-up on his year-old article on how people are using Gen AI. Note that he isn’t talking about Gen AI business use cases, which makes his findings a bit less surprising. (10 min)

https://hbr.org/2025/04/how-people-are-really-using-gen-ai-in-2025

More Reading

All Gilbane Advisor issues

Content technology news

Sitecore launches AI Innovation Lab

Created in collaboration with Microsoft to provide a guided environment for marketing professionals to explore AI-driven solutions for optimizing content operations.
https://www.sitecore.com/products/ai-innovation-lab

Altair partners with Databricks

Providing seamless connection between Altair RapidMiner and the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform, amplifying data science & machine learning capabilities.
https://altair.com/altair-rapidminer ■ https://www.databricks.com

InfluxData releases InfluxDB 3 Core and InfluxDB 3 Enterprise

InfluxDB 3 Core is an open source, high-speed, recent-data engine for real-time applications. InfluxDB 3 Enterprise adds high availability and enhanced security.
https://www.influxdata.com/blog/influxdata-announces-influxdb-3-OSS-GA

Introducing Aura-2: Enterprise-grade text-to-speech

Aura-2 reflects the priorities of enterprise voice AI, delivering high-quality, context-aware speech designed for the scale, precision, and resilience for business-critical environments.
https://deepgram.com/learn/introducing-aura-2-enterprise-text-to-speech

All content technology news

The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, data, web, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.

Subscribe | View online | Editorial policy | Privacy policy | Contact

Sitecore launches AI Innovation Lab

April 16, 2025 /

Sitecore, a provider of digital experience and content management software, launched Sitecore AI Innovation Lab, a program created in collaboration with Microsoft that provides a guided environment for marketing professionals to rapidly explore AI-driven solutions for optimizing content operations. It helps marketers define their AI journey and fast track the development of solutions best suited for their specific use cases.

A Sitecore AI Innovation Lab guided environment explores AI-driven solutions with Microsoft Azure and Azure OpenAI Services. Participants work alongside Sitecore and Microsoft experts to prototype solutions for their unique challenges using an agile, low risk approach. The result is either a validated AI solution or learnings to help marketers achieve their business objectives. AI innovations developed with customers will be integrated into Sitecore’s DXP to further enhance, improve and future-proof the platform.

Sitecore recently released more than 250 enhancements for its composable DXP to help marketers create, build, and optimize digital experiences and content that align with their brand identity and drive engagement and conversions. Sitecore Stream helps marketers meet evolving customer expectations by speeding the creation and delivery of personalized digital experiences across all touchpoints.

The Sitecore AI Innovation Lab is available to current Sitecore customers.

https://www.sitecore.com/products/ai-innovation-lab

Altair partners with Databricks

April 16, 2025 /

Altair, a global provider in computational intelligence, has partnered with Databricks, a data and AI company, to provide joint customers with capabilities for data unification, graph-powered intelligence, and enterprise-grade artificial intelligence (AI).

Customers can use Altair RapidMiner to access, prepare, and analyze data in Databricks without data duplication. The platform’s full-stack AI capabilities—from low-code AutoML to MLOps, agent frameworks, and high-speed visualization, allow organizations to prototype, deploy, and scale AI applications using data stored in Databricks.

A key differentiator is Altair RapidMiner’s massively parallel processing (MPP) knowledge graph technology, purpose-built to support knowledge graph creation, data fabrics, and ontology modeling at enterprise scale. By integrating with Databricks, customers can use the Altair RapidMiner knowledge graph engine to connect, contextualize, and activate all types of data—structured, unstructured, and streaming. These graph-powered fabrics form the foundation for a new generation of intelligent systems, enabling generative AI models and autonomous agents to navigate the full complexity of an organization’s digital operations.

Altair RapidMiner also offers native support for SAS language execution, allowing customers to preserve and extend the value of their existing analytics investments while modernizing their workflows.

https://altair.com/altair-rapidminer ■ https://www.databricks.com

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