Automations in Contentful: Keep your workflows moving forward

We’re excited to announce that Automations is now generally available in Contentful, giving marketing organizations a reliable way to define how work moves forward across campaigns, pages, and digital experiences. Instead of depending on reminders, follow-ups, or side conversations, teams can set clear rules that keep content progressing automatically.

This launch addresses a problem most digital teams recognize immediately. The friction in modern marketing work rarely comes from a lack of tools or capability. It comes from the handoffs in between — the pauses, rework, and disconnected steps that slow launches, duplicate effort, and create inconsistency as teams scale.

You have likely seen this firsthand. A campaign page is updated and shared for review. Someone replies with a quick thumbs-up. Another teammate flags that the change also needs to appear in a regional version. Later, someone remembers to update metadata. An AI tool helps with that — but only after the page has already been reviewed once, creating rework and delaying publication.

For teams behind digital experiences, this pattern is familiar. The tools exist. The issue is coordination.

Turning follow-ups into rules

Automations in Contentful, available for customers on Premium plans, give marketing organizations a way to define what should happen next when something changes. Instead of relying on memory or manual follow-ups, teams set rules that describe how work should progress.

A page update can move directly into review. A workflow step can trigger supporting tasks. The right people or systems are notified automatically. Once coordination is defined, work follows a shared structure rather than individual judgment calls.

This approach does not remove human oversight. It removes the manual coordination that surrounds it.

Built into the platform, not bolted on

Automations operates across the Contentful platform, determining when steps should run and how different capabilities work together.

They bring together tools teams already rely on to move work forward:

• Workflows can now organize ownership, reviews, and approvals. Read more about Workflows.

• Actions, including AI Actions, can be linked to perform steps such as updating entries, preparing translations, or generating supporting metadata.

• App Actions can extend automations beyond Contentful, connecting workflows to tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams and to custom internal apps.

Automations is accessible to non-technical users while remaining extensible for technical teams. Marketers can create flows visually, defining triggers and actions without writing code. Developers can extend specific automations using APIs and App Actions when workflows require deeper logic or integration.

Automations can also respond to changes, evaluate conditions, and repeat steps across multiple entries. AI actions only run when the right context is in place, as part of a defined process rather than a one-off task.

The result is a single flow where content, workflows, AI, and integrations move together instead of in parallel.

Where Automations in Contentful can make a difference

The value of automation becomes clearest in the moments where work typically slows down. Let’s explore a few common scenarios: 

Routing updates through the right review

A product update touches pricing or legal language — areas where even small delays or missed reviews can create compliance risk or hold up a release. 

With Automations, the update moves directly into the correct review step. Legal is notified when their input is needed, and the entry cannot progress until that review is complete.

Instead of chasing confirmations or hoping someone notices a message, the process ensures the right checks happen at the right moment, keeping both speed and oversight intact.

Interactive demo: Automation

Create and translate content faster with AI-assisted automation.

Scaling localization without spreadsheets

A campaign is approved in one market and needs to roll out globally. Without a defined process, teams often coordinate translations through spreadsheets, messages, and manual reminders, slowing launches and creating uneven experiences across regions.

Automations triggers AI translation as soon as the source version is approved. Drafts move into review automatically, and regional teams are notified when it is their turn to weigh in. What once required constant status tracking now moves through a single, repeatable flow, even as the number of locales grows.

Keeping SEO in sync as content changes

As pages evolve across campaigns, metadata often drifts. Teams may not notice until performance dips or inconsistencies surface across the site.

Automations can refresh metadata whenever content changes and route those updates into review. Instead of scheduling periodic cleanups or hunting for mismatched fields, teams keep SEO aligned as part of the normal publishing process.

These scenarios are not edge cases. They reflect everyday work that becomes easier when coordination is built into the system rather than managed manually.

Built to scale without losing trust

Automation only works if teams can trust how it performs. Automations in Contentful operates within the existing roles, permissions, and workflow steps teams have already defined. Reviews and approvals remain in place, and automated actions follow the same governance model as the rest of the platform.

This also means that Automations does not bypass approvals, expand permissions, or obscure accountability. Teams can see what was triggered, what changed, and where AI contributed, making it clear when to step in and reducing the risk of missed reviews or unexpected changes.

Automation increases speed by removing manual coordination, not accountability.

Why this matters going forward

As teams add more channels, markets, and AI-driven capabilities to their workflows, coordination becomes both harder and more important. Defining how work should move gives systems the structure they need to take on more responsibility in a controlled way, while giving teams the checkpoints to move faster with trust.

This is what enables more agentic behavior over time — AI that can assist proactively because it understands the context, rules, and intent behind the work.

Most organizations start small. They automate one workflow that already matters, learn from it, and expand as confidence grows. Automations in Contentful is designed to support that progression, helping teams move faster without losing visibility or control.

If you want to move faster with Automations, contact our team and we’ll be happy to help you get started.

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