Manchester Optimizely meetup - January 2026: where community meets innovation

Thursday evening's UK North Optimizely meetup at Everyman Cinema Manchester was one of those sessions that reminds you why community gatherings matter. Paul Gruffydd and I have run these for a while, but this one stood out. The depth of technical discussion, the willingness to share both successes and struggles, and the quality of conversation captured exactly what we hoped these sessions would become.

These meetups wouldn't happen without Optimizely's continued grassroots investment and Satata Satez's support in pulling it all together.

Real solutions to real problems

Graham Carr from Netcel kicked things off with a virtual focus group concept powered by Opal. Graham walked through how AI agents can represent different customer personas to analyse content and provide feedback. The solution uses the CLEAR framework to build audience agents and integrates into the Optimizely CMS ecosystem to deliver reports on content effectiveness. It's an interesting exploration of how Opal's capabilities might be applied to content review processes that traditionally require assembling actual focus groups.

Khurram Khan took us through the strategy pattern and how it can elegantly decouple behaviour in Optimizely implementations. His approach to setting up puzzles that validate with selected algorithms really resonated with the developers in the room. The emphasis on clean separation of concerns, reducing risk during frequent updates, and introducing new behaviours with minimal QA impact struck a chord. These are the kinds of architectural decisions that separate implementations that scale gracefully from those that become technical debt nightmares.

Anil Patel from Knight Frank delivered what might have been the most universally relatable talk of the evening. How many hands went up when he asked who'd seen a content change break something in production? Nearly everyone. Anil's session on Microsoft Playwright testing integration with Optimizely CMS was packed with practical takeaways. From rapid execution and parallel browsers to automated regression testing and comprehensive browser coverage, he made a compelling case for why Playwright deserves a place in every Optimizely development workflow. The business impact slide really drove it home - faster release cycles, catching issues before production, and competitive advantage through faster feature delivery.

Mark Everard's unpanel discussion - "Hype, hesitation or happening?" - created the kind of honest conversation we don't get enough of in tech. The brilliant comic showing the three developer personas (the hype sceptic, the hesitant explorer, the happening AI-first dev) immediately sparked recognition and laughter. Mark set ground rules that encouraged genuine participation: get involved, all opinions are valid and welcome, and crucially, there's no script. The discussion ranged across where people actually sit on the AI spectrum, what's working in practice versus what's still experimental, and the realistic timeline for AI becoming truly embedded in our daily development workflows. Five years from now, will developers be obsolete? Absolutely not, but the nature of the work will shift from pure coding towards understanding problems and orchestrating solutions. It's the kind of nuanced, honest conversation that cuts through the noise.

Simon Chapman wrapped up the evening with an update on what's happening across the Optimizely ecosystem. Simon walked through the benefits of CMS 13, including access to Opal tools, the visual builder for faster content creation, embedded DAM, and enhanced content manager capabilities with external content integration. He outlined the migration path from CMS 12 to 13, emphasising the move to Graph (which replaces Find/SAN), the importance of the visual builder for future workflows, and considerations around Opti ID for authentication. Simon also shared insights into global enablement expansion plans and the face-to-face enablement programme rolling out across key cities. The Q&A session was particularly valuable, with Simon fielding detailed technical questions about migration timelines, architecture decisions, and what customers should be thinking about as they plan their CMS 13 upgrades.

What these conversations tell us

A few themes emerged throughout the evening. First, AI in Optimizely development is moving from theoretical to practical, with teams exploring different approaches across the community. Second, the fundamentals still matter enormously. Khurram's talk on design patterns and Anil's emphasis on robust testing frameworks reminded us that solid engineering principles remain the foundation of everything we build, AI or otherwise. Third, honest conversations about uncertainty matter. Mark's unpanel gave people permission to admit what they don't know, to be sceptical, and to share what's actually working rather than what sounds good in a deck.

Building momentum

These meetups work because people show up ready to share genuine experiences - the messy implementations, the lessons learnt the hard way, the solutions that surprised them by actually working. The energy in the room reflected the quality of the content and the calibre of the community.

We're already thinking about the next one. If you've got something worth sharing - a technical challenge you've conquered, an innovative implementation, or honest insights from the trenches - we want to hear from you. These sessions thrive on diverse voices and real-world experience.

Thanks to everyone who made it to Manchester. The conversations continued well beyond the formal presentations, which is exactly how these evenings should end.

Until next time.