Organisations planning a CMS decision for 2026 often face a different set of questions than they did a few years ago. Growth brings regional teams, extended operating hours, stricter security review, and more data sources feeding digital channels. A CMS decision at this level affects procurement, delivery teams, and long term operation.

Umbraco for Enterprise is designed for that environment. It brings together hosting, support coverage, security assurance, data handling, and AI capabilities in one offering, while allowing teams and partners to work with Umbraco in familiar ways.

Phases attended the Winter Keynote to understand how Umbraco is framing its enterprise direction for the year ahead. What follows reflects how Umbraco for Enterprise applies to organisations planning large digital environments, rather than a recap of announcements.

Operating large Umbraco environments

Enterprise environments often involve several sites, regions, and internal teams working in parallel. Operational consistency becomes important once platforms run for many years and serve public audiences around the clock.

Umbraco for Enterprise includes hosted operation through Umbraco Cloud. Deployment, updates, and ongoing operation are handled within the hosted service. This removes the need for internal teams to manage separate operational approaches for each region or project.

For organisations, this supports predictable release handling and reduces the effort required to keep environments aligned as work continues.

Support coverage aligned with global use

Support availability plays a major role once platforms serve users in more than one region.

From February, Umbraco support follows the customer workday globally. Extended support is available at all hours where required. This suits organisations where incident response cannot wait for a single office schedule.

For enterprise teams, this approach reduces operational risk during periods of high public demand.

Security review and assurance

Security review forms part of enterprise CMS selection. Many organisations rely on recognised frameworks when assessing vendors.

Umbraco confirmed ISO 27001 certification as part of its enterprise offering. For buyers, this aligns with controls already referenced in internal security assessments. It reduces repeated clarification during vendor review and helps teams move into delivery with fewer delays.

Data handling for complex environments

Enterprise digital work often relies on content, product data, and reference data stored in different tools. Integrating these sources directly into delivery channels can lead to repeated custom work as tools change.

Umbraco Compose addresses this by preparing data from several sources and serving it through GraphQL. Delivery channels interact with one interface that provides the data required for websites and applications.

For organisations, this approach reduces repeated integration effort and supports gradual change as data sources evolve.

AI use with editorial oversight

AI capabilities are included through Umbraco.ai packages. Teams select providers, choose models, and define how AI supports editorial work.

Prepared prompts support repeated tasks such as image text, and metadata. Approval remains part of normal editorial work. Logs and analytics support review and troubleshooting.

AI usage is billed by the provider selected by the customer. The AI packages shown are open source, which supports inspection and extension where required.

This structure suits organisations where review and accountability form part of everyday content work.

Commercial structure for enterprise buyers

Umbraco for Enterprise is offered as one agreement with stated inclusions. Hosting, data orchestration, AI capabilities, onboarding services, support coverage, and security assurance are grouped together.

For procurement teams, this supports comparison and renewal discussions without managing separate contracts for each part of the environment.

A reference from a large public organisation

A customer reference shared during the Winter Keynote involved Thames Water, which serves millions of users in the United Kingdom. Traffic increases significantly during public incidents, placing strong demands on availability and performance.

The organisation described a gradual approach to adoption. Initial pages went live first, learning happened through real use, and additional areas followed. This approach allowed teams to adjust while services remained available to the public.

The content team described the editor experience as easy to learn with limited training. Infrastructure savings were described as covering licensing costs, with further savings beyond that.

For enterprise buyers, this example reflects a pattern seen across large organisations rather than an isolated case.

Partner involvement in enterprise delivery

Umbraco continues to rely on partners for delivery. The enterprise offering provides a shared foundation, while partners handle implementation, integration, and ongoing work around the platform.

Phases works as an Umbraco Contributing Gold Partner with organisations running large Umbraco environments. Teams in Denmark and India support planning, build work, and long term operation, often alongside internal teams over extended periods.

In enterprise programmes, delivery involves coordination around releases, security practices, testing, documentation, and handover. Partner involvement supports that work without introducing unnecessary disruption.

This pattern is familiar across public and enterprise environments. At Phases, we have worked with large organisations facing similar conditions, including NYC Votes, where reliability, public access, and operational continuity were essential. In such environments, digital platforms are expected to perform under pressure while remaining manageable for internal teams.

Across Umbraco programmes delivered by Phases, a common theme emerges: gradual adoption, careful release planning, and steady collaboration between internal teams and delivery partners. These factors often determine whether enterprise platforms remain sustainable over time.

Planning ahead

Umbraco for Enterprise reflects how large organisations already operate digital environments. It brings together hosting, data handling, AI capabilities, support coverage, and security assurance in a form that fits enterprise planning and review processes.

If Umbraco is part of your enterprise planning for 2026, early conversations tend to focus on upgrade paths, data structure, support coverage, and how ongoing responsibility is shared.

Phases works with organisations at that stage to review existing Umbraco environments, map likely change areas, and outline what long-term operation would look like in practice. This helps teams move forward with fewer assumptions and fewer late surprises.