What’s Next for Umbraco? Lessons from Spark 2026

With Umbraco Spark 2026 taking place right on our doorstep here in Bristol, Mentor Digital sent a multi-disciplinary team of developers, creatives and delivery managers to join the conversation. This year’s event offered a clear snapshot of a platform moving beyond pure technical capability toward a more strategic maturity. 

A day jam-packed full of sessions – covering everything from AI and content architecture to the growing complexity of infrastructure – revealed a central theme: success in the current ecosystem is less about chasing the latest trend and more about how these shifts are applied to real-world projects.

Here are our reflections on the day and what they mean for organisations navigating the evolving Umbraco landscape.

A faster-moving platform means smarter decisions

One of the most talked-about sessions was Umbraco Decisions: Stay, Upgrade, Rewrite from Rachel Breeze. It tackled a growing challenge for organisations: how to respond to increasingly frequent platform updates.

As our Creative Director, Rob, put it:

“It was a really detailed and practical overview of upgrade decisions from cost, technical, security, and practical perspectives.”

This reflects a broader shift. Umbraco’s faster release cycle is a positive, but it also means businesses need a clearer strategy around lifecycle management.

In practice, we see this regularly across client projects. The right answer is not always to upgrade immediately. It’s about balancing risk, opportunity and long-term maintainability – whether that involves a planned Umbraco upgrade path or a more significant platform transition.

The backoffice is becoming more powerful and more usable

Several sessions focused on the future of the Umbraco backoffice, with a clear emphasis on usability and structure.

“It was useful to see where the backoffice is going, with the new addition of reusable components, and how the user is shown these relations so they don’t get deleted accidentally.” - Scott, Senior Developer

This signals a shift towards more structured, scalable content management.

For clients, that means:

• Better governance
• Fewer content errors
• More efficient editorial workflows

It also reinforces the importance of strong CMS development and content modelling from the outset, something we prioritise in every Umbraco website design and build.

One detail that stood out to Fiona, one of our Project Managers, was that several upcoming backoffice features – particularly around reusable content elements – closely mirror functionality Mentor has already been building into client sites for the past two years. It's a quiet but meaningful indicator that the platform is catching up with what forward-thinking Umbraco partners have already identified as essential.

AI is everywhere, but still needs expertise

As we’ve all come to expect, AI was a dominant theme throughout the event, but the conversation was more grounded than the hype we often see.

Karl, another of our Senior Developers, noted that developers at the event were using Claude and other AI tools to help build proofs of concept – but something important was missing:

That tension came up repeatedly. AI is accelerating development, but it introduces risks if used without proper understanding.

Another session from Mike Masey explored whether AI could build an accessible tool from a written specification alone. The conclusion? Not quite.

"Mike Masey’s experiment raised some interesting points around how to use AI successfully and responsibly, but I certainly wouldn’t say the brief was fulfilled.” - Rob, Creative Director

There’s no doubt that AI is a powerful tool, but our view is that its value is rooted in how it’s applied. Strong technical oversight is still essential to ensure quality, accessibility, and long-term sustainability.

GEO: A new frontier for search

One of the standout topics – particularly for non-developers – was Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), covered by Georgina Bidder and Matt Sutherland.

Issy, from our delivery team, shared:

Project Manager Fiona found it similarly eye-opening. She came away thinking seriously about how Mentor builds sites – noting that the way AI models crawl, retrieve, rank and generate answers means the decisions we make at the build stage will increasingly determine how accurately a client's information is represented in AI-powered search results.

The session explored how AI-driven search is changing the way content is discovered, shifting focus towards:

• Aligning data sources across your entire product and content ecosystem
• Clear and consistent information across systems
• Content designed for machine interpretation, not just human reading

For organisations investing in their marketing efforts, this is an important shift. GEO sits alongside technical SEO as part of a more holistic approach to visibility, with our digital marketing team already considering how AI-influenced search behaviour affects content structure and strategy in their day-to-day work.

Cloud choices are becoming strategic, not just technical

Cloud infrastructure was another key theme – particularly the growing conversation around digital sovereignty.

Karl highlighted discussions around EuroCloud alternatives and the risks of relying solely on major US providers. It's a conversation that's gaining momentum across the industry: AWS, Microsoft and Google may dominate the market, but their obligations under US law create real tensions with EU data regulations – and organisations are starting to take notice.

Meanwhile, sessions like Richard Jackson’s Across the Cloudiverse explored the differing philosophies of AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, often with a dose of humour around inconsistent naming conventions.

The takeaway is clear: hosting decisions now carry implications beyond performance and cost. Compliance, control and long-term flexibility all need to be considered.

Flexibility at the core of modern Umbraco development

From a development perspective, flexibility continues to be one of Umbraco’s biggest strengths.

Scott pointed to improvements in search:

“I attended a useful talk on how search is handled in the latest version. It highlighted how easy it is to use Umbraco Examine, while also showing how straightforward it is to use your own search provider instead if you want to.”

This kind of flexibility is critical. It allows us to design solutions around client needs, rather than forcing requirements into a rigid framework.

Scott also noted that the talks this year felt more comprehensive and more Umbraco-focused than previous years – a sign that the community is maturing in how it shares knowledge.

The value of community (and staying close to it)

Beyond the individual sessions, one takeaway that came through strongly from the whole team was the importance of the Umbraco community itself.

Rob described Joe Glombek's session as an enthusiastic and compelling rallying call for the platform's community – a sentiment that resonated across the team, with Issy adding:

That community is a big part of what makes Umbraco effective as a platform – and why working with an engaged Umbraco partner matters.

So, what does this mean for you?

Across all the sessions and conversations, a few key themes stand out:

• Umbraco is evolving – and requires active management
• AI is creating opportunities, but also new responsibilities
• Content and data structure are more important than ever
• Platform and infrastructure decisions are increasingly strategic

What we’re taking forward

Attending Umbraco Spark 2026 reinforced that while the platform is becoming more powerful, it is also becoming more nuanced. Success no longer depends on chasing a single feature or trend, but on making informed, well-timed decisions across the entire project lifecycle.

For our team, this means continuing to bridge the gap between technical capability and pragmatic strategy – whether that’s building resilient content structures for the age of GEO, or deploying AI with the human oversight necessary to maintain quality.

Ultimately, Umbraco’s greatest strength remains its flexibility. Making the most of it comes down to how thoughtfully it is applied. By staying close to the community and embracing these small, considered improvements, we ensure that our clients’ platforms remain not just functional, but future-proof.

Looking for more detail on how these Umbraco updates might affect your specific project? We’re always happy to share more of our findings from the day – just get in touch.