What can we expect from Digital Asset Management in 2026

27th November 2025

As the winter nights draw in, it’s that time for us to look ahead to next year and predict what we’re going to see from the Digital Asset Management industry in 2026.

Last year we predicted the continued development of artificial intelligence in DAM, increasing integrations with the rest of the MarTech stack, a decline in on-premise DAM solutions and more collaboration and interaction happening within the DAM system—but what do we expect from DAM in 2026?

4 Digital Asset Management industry trends for 2026

Unsurprisingly, we expect AI to continue to dominate the conversations within the DAM industry, as organisations look for new ways to take advantage of this emerging technology. As such, AI is our primary focus heading into 2026:

1. AI will continue to transform metadata management with options for content creation too
2. … but there will be increasing concerns around privacy, third party processing and not relying too heavily on AI
3. Increased importance of proper governance
4. A move from DAM being an operational tool to a strategic system

Let’s dive into them.

AI will transform metadata management

Metadata management has always been one of the most time-consuming aspects of Digital Asset Management. 

Accurately tagging, categorising and describing digital assets is essential for building an effective and efficient DAM system, but it’s a process that traditionally requires manual input and consistent attention to detail. In 2026, AI will have the ability to transform metadata management, even more than it already has.

Modern DAM systems are using generative AI models to aid metadata population with natural language prompts. These prompts are already sophisticated but we’d expect the complexity of the instructions the model can handle to increase further in 2026. 

There’s also scope for AI to support contextual enrichment by learning from existing metadata structures, past user behaviour and content relationships. Over time, this will make metadata more dynamic, adaptive and aligned with how users actually search for content.

For DAM Managers, this shift will move their focus from repetitive cataloguing to quality assurance and strategy, ensuring metadata remains accurate, meaningful and aligned with organisational goals. 

We’re still of the opinion that AI should only ever be used as an aid. Any results produced by AI should always be checked by a human and there will always be occasions where outputs need to be edited or changed but, generally speaking, the contribution of AI to tasks like this is invaluable.

… but there will be increasing concerns around privacy

While AI promises increased efficiency for metadata management, it also introduces new challenges, particularly around privacy.

DAM systems tend to come with a wealth of integrations that allow communication between one system and another. Activating AI functionality in your DAM may mean that your assets are then, all of a sudden, being processed by a third party—something you, and the people featured in your assets, won’t have signed up for. 

We’d expect concerns around AI privacy to grow in 2026 so that people aren’t unknowingly falling foul of data processing agreements. Plenty of AI functionality can be installed on the same server as your DAM system, operating just like any other software with no need to send data anywhere else or have it processed by a third party—and for AI functionality that does require processing by a third party, we’d expect to see more diligence around the agreements in place between the DAM vendor and the AI provider. 

In 2026, the most forward-thinking DAM platforms will be those that combine AI innovation with robust privacy controls, offering transparency, a clear audit trail and tools to manage sensitive data responsibly while still taking advantage of AI’s efficiencies.

Increasing importance of proper governance and getting the DAM ecoystem back under control

The role of a Digital Asset Management system has evolved dramatically in recent years, becoming central to an organisation’s processes, and integrations have been essential in achieving this.

However, although this expanding DAM ecosystem has unlocked new possibilities, it’s also led to fragmentation, with this increase in vendor offerings leading to a dilution of standards that undermines governance.

In 2026, DAM Managers need to take back control to ensure metadata schemas and taxonomies are consistent, that workflows have clearly defined processes, and that every asset in the system has someone responsible for it. It’s no longer feasible for the DAM Manager to be responsible for every asset in the system given the complexities around consent, usage, rights management and licensing.

DAM is moving from an operational tool to a strategic system

Digital Asset Management began as an asset storage system, but in the next 12 months (and beyond) we expect to see a shift to DAM being a strategic system, driving content decisions.

By connecting asset performance insights with planning and delivery data, DAM systems are empowering organisations to more effectively invest in content production.

With this in mind, DAM Managers should expect to play a central role in quarterly and annual content strategy planning.

What can our customers expect from ResourceSpace in 2026?

Unlike most of our competitors we’re transparent with our development roadmap, allowing existing and prospective customers an insight into what to expect from ResourceSpace in coming updates.

One big change we’re excited about in the next 12 months is an overhaul of our user interface. It’s set to be a big departure from our current UI, and we’ll be teasing the new look as development progresses—so watch this space.