All Hands on Deck: Tag1 Is Headed to DrupalCon Rotterdam
September 24, 2026
The DrupalCon program is always more than any one person can take in, so ahead of Rotterdam I want to lay out where Tag1 will be and how to connect with us. We have seven talks across Tuesday the 29th and Wednesday the 30th.
If you are coming, treat this as a map to where we will be and what we will be talking about. If you are not, the lineup is a fair read on where our heads are this year. A good deal of it is AI a team can put to work in a Drupal project today. More of it is the unglamorous work inside Drupal core, the parts nobody demos but everything else leans on. And one talk is the client story that keeps the rest honest. The full DrupalCon schedule covers everything beyond our own sessions; the times below are all local CEST.
First Stop, Afloat: The Enterprise Drupal AI Summit
The week opens on Monday the 28th, before any of the DrupalCon sessions, with a full day at the Enterprise Drupal AI Summit aboard the SS Rotterdam, the former ocean liner. It's a strategy day rather than a code day, built for senior decision-makers in government, higher education, and large enterprises, with a program on data sovereignty and running AI on enterprise platforms. Tag1 is there as both a summit sponsor and a Certified Gold Partner and Maker in the Drupal AI Initiative. The certification marks demonstrated Drupal AI expertise and a commitment to the Drupal code and community, and it fits a longer pattern. Data sovereignty is also where my own session picks up the next day, so if that is the thread you care about, the summit is the place to start.
Next Stop, Ashore: The DrupalCon Sessions
Tuesday, September 29
From Shadow AI to Sovereign AI Infrastructure
- Location: Open Stage
- When: 14:25 CEST
- Speakers: Thomas Schröpfer, amazee.ai and Hank VanZile, Tag1
Often, AI use inside a company was never approved by IT. It arrives through a browser extension, a personal account, a tool someone tried because it saved them an afternoon, and it stays out of the security review until something goes wrong. That is shadow AI. Thomas and I walk through an alternative: a private AI gateway that gives an organization visibility into how AI is being used without pushing teams off the tools they like or slowing them down. My part is how Scolta uses amazee.ai's private AI infrastructure to add secure AI capabilities across Drupal, Laravel, and WordPress, so the AI a site needs does not come with the governance gaps shadow AI opens. If this is a challenge your organization is facing, come find me after and we can compare notes.
Wednesday, September 30
Rebuilding the LMS Mid-Flight: A Drupal Success Story with AFT and AFL-CIO
- Location: Mees Room I
- When: 10:45-11:30 CEST
- Speaker: Marcin Grabias
Rebuilding a live LMS is risky. Rebuilding it while it powers mission-critical training for organizations like the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO is even harder. This session takes you through that journey—from growing pains and technical debt to a fully reimagined Drupal-native solution—sharing the lessons learned along the way.
Inside the Pyramid - A path to faster, clearer Drupal testing
- Location: Penn Room I&II
- When: 11:40-12:25 CEST
- Speaker: Francesco Placella
The test pyramid has been a cornerstone of software quality for decades, yet Drupal core has no formal guidelines instructing contributors how to write automated tests. This session will cover both the current state – discussing techniques to write faster tests – and how to change Drupal to make these improvements structural.
A joyful tour through the CLI now in Drupal Core
- Location: Penn Room I&II
- When: 13:40-14:00 CEST
- Speaker: Moshe Weitzman
It finally happened! A CLI in Drupal core. With the help and blessing of the Drush maintainers, Drupal core has gained its own extensible CLI. Learn how to use it, and develop and test commands for it.
Client Spotlight
Scolta: Drop-in AI Search Without a Search Server
- Location: Mees Room II
- When: 14:45-15:30 CEST
- Speakers: Kelly Booz, AFT Share My Lesson and Jeremy Andrews, Tag1
What if you could replace Solr with something that runs in the browser, costs almost nothing, and delivers better results out of the box? Scolta is an open source search toolkit that does exactly that: client-side search powered by Pagefind, with an AI layer for query expansion and summaries.
How we made the biggest performance gains in a decade in Drupal core
- Location: Van Oldenbarnevelt Room
- When: 14:45-15:30 CEST
- Speaker: Nathaniel Catchpole
Drupal 11.4 reduced database queries and cache I/O by around 50% compared to Drupal 11.0, as well as various front end performance improvements. This session will explain how we got there and give you tips for applying these techniques to your own site.
AI-Powered Site Building in Drupal: From Blank Site to Styled Pages in a Conversation
- Location: Leeuwen Room I&II
- When: 16:00-16:45 CEST
- Speakers: Francesco Pesenti, Francesco Quagliati
Building a complete Drupal site demands expertise across content types, taxonomy, menus, block configuration, and styling. What if a non-technical user could describe what they need in plain language and get back fully structured, styled pages, then refine everything through conversation?
Come Find Us
A lot of the work in these talks usually sits out of sight, in performance, testing, and the plumbing of AI workflows, so a week like this is one of the few times it surfaces all at once. If any of it is close to what you're working on, catch me or any of the team between sessions and let's talk. We would love to hear about the hard problems you're working to solve.