OnDAM Paris 2025: What We Learned About the Future of Digital Asset Management
This week, OnDAM took place in Paris. The event gathered DAM professionals, innovators, brands and technology providers for two inspiring days of conferences and networking.
If you were not able to attend, this article will walk you through the main insights shared at the event and highlight how the DAM landscape is evolving at high speed. As content demands grow, Digital Asset Management has become far more than a simple library to store files. It is now a strategic engine for governance, creativity and content production.
The DAM Today: Far More Than a File Library
Most of us know the traditional definition of a DAM. A Digital Asset Management system is a central library where you store, organize and access your files: images, videos, documents and all the assets required to create compelling content.
Whether you are preparing a social media campaign, printing packaging labels or producing a book, your DAM has always been the source of truth for your content.
But OnDAM Paris 2025 made something very clear. The modern DAM goes far beyond storage. It has become:
- Your governance tool
- Your platform for brand trust and consistency
- Your AI powered engine for content production
- Your operational space where storing and producing work hand in hand
The DAM has evolved from a passive library into an active, strategic system that supports your entire content lifecycle.
Governance, Trust and the Role of AI
Governance was one of the strongest themes of the event. A few months ago, we published an article on how to preserve visual trust in an AI driven marketing world and the discussions at OnDAM strongly confirmed its relevance.
A brand needs governance more than ever. This was already true before the arrival of generative AI. Questions such as "Who created this file?", "Is it copyrighted?", "Are we allowed to use it?", "Who approved it?" are not new.
With the explosion of generative AI, these questions have become critical. To maintain customer loyalty, brands must remain trustworthy and protect their authenticity. Losing control over your assets means risking both your reputation and your market relevance.
A DAM can become the foundation of this trust if it is used properly. How? By relying on strong metadata structures such as the C2PA standard, and by implementing sound rights management both internally and externally.
Strong governance practices improve:
- Asset availability
- Security and compliance
- Data quality
- Lifecycle management
- Cost efficiency
- Scalability and flexibility
Trust is also deeply linked to provenance. In a world facing growing mistrust and weak control tools, proving where your content comes from is more important than ever.
Beyond the DAM: Omnichannel Experiences and Community Platforms
OnDAM also showcased a rising trend: the expansion of services and content experiences that live outside the DAM but remain closely connected to it.
For example, many brands now want centralized landing pages or microsites that serve as internal brand hubs, where the company’s visual guidelines are always up to date and automatically refreshed whenever assets are updated in the DAM. This approach strengthens brand consistency and centralizes information for employees, distributors and partners, all while maintaining strict access controls.
The DAM becomes the engine behind every touchpoint.
Metadata: The Backbone of the DAM and the Fuel of AI
If one message was repeated across multiple sessions, it was this one: metadata is everything.
Metadata is the structure of your DAM, the foundation of efficiency, searchability, governance and automation. It is also the core of AI models. Well structured metadata improves recommendations, accelerates workflows and strengthens your entire content strategy.
Metadata is the true intelligence behind your digital assets. It gives structure, meaning and context to everything you store and produce. If you want to dive deeper into why metadata matters so much, take a look at our article.
The 5 Keywords Defining the Future of DAM
Here are the main directions shaping the DAM ecosystem today:
- Unification
- Collaboration
- Measurement and continuous improvement
- Governance
- Rights management
These are no longer optional. They are essential pillars for any organization managing large volumes of digital content.
What DALIM Brings to the Table
With more than 40 years of expertise, DALIM understands both the foundations of DAM and the realities of large-scale content production. Brands today face demanding challenges: keeping brand identity consistent, ensuring governance and traceability, protecting authenticity in an AI driven world, and producing increasing volumes of content for multiple markets and languages.
DALIM provides a unified solution that strengthens governance while accelerating production. Our platform combines advanced metadata management, precise rights control, secure access to assets and a powerful online viewer with collaborative annotation capabilities. Automated workflows and complete lifecycle visibility ensure that every asset stays compliant, traceable and ready for use across all channels.
Most importantly, the DAM is not an isolated solution. It is part of a connected ecosystem. DALIM integrates seamlessly with your existing tools and platforms, creating a fluid, efficient exchange of data and content across your entire organization.
DALIM is built not only to store your content, but to power its entire journey.