Automating metadata generation for content with AI for UNISON, one of the UK's largest trade unions

The Challenge

UNISON, one of the UK's largest trade unions, sought to modernize its content management and digital asset workflows within its Acquia CMS ecosystem. The challenge lay in the manual creation of metadata for thousands of web pages and digital assets within their DAM (Digital Asset Management) system, a process consuming extensive editorial time and leading to inconsistent SEO performance.

The organization faced several critical issues: editors manually tagged and described thousands of assets creating a time drain with high inconsistency, lack of structured metadata affected organic visibility, union content required accurate representation across multiple channels risking brand inconsistency and compliance issues, and Acquia CMS lacked native AI capabilities for metadata generation leading to fragmented workflows.

Capabilities

These capabilities brought together the AI strategy, metadata foundations, workflow delivery and governance needed for a controlled CMS transformation.

• AI Strategy
• Data & AI Architecture
• AI Engineering
• AI Governance

The Solution

Sxnth.AI® was commissioned to design and define the AI architecture, metadata governance model, and workflow strategy for a future integration inside UNISON's Acquia CMS and Digital Asset Manager (DAM).

The solution blueprint proposed an AI-driven model designed to:

• Auto-generate metadata (title, description, and keywords) for new and existing web pages
• Contextually tag assets within the DAM using NLP-based entity recognition (e.g., document type, campaign, topic, or audience)
• Integrate seamlessly via Acquia's API, embedding metadata suggestions within the editorial interface
• Apply governance-level AI filters to ensure all generated data aligned with UNISON's tone, accessibility standards, and compliance requirements

Impact

The strategic framework designed by Sxnth.AI® provided the roadmap for a transformative AI integration within UNISON's content ecosystem.

Projected outcomes included a 98% metadata completion rate, a 96% reduction in time per page, and an estimated 38% increase in content discoverability based on modeled benchmarks and process automation scenarios.

By shifting from manual metadata entry to an AI-assisted model, UNISON positioned itself to dramatically improve both efficiency and content intelligence within its Acquia environment.

Business Impact

• Efficiency Gains: A strategic AI framework that reduced manual tagging effort from weeks to hours for large campaigns, freeing editorial teams to focus on higher-value content creation.
• Governance Compliance: A metadata model aligned with union communication policies, accessibility standards, and ethical data use, ensuring brand and compliance integrity.
• Improved SEO & Findability: The framework supported consistent, keyword-optimized metadata that enhanced web visibility and discoverability across all digital channels.
• Human–AI Collaboration: Designed to keep editors in control, with AI recommendations integrated directly into existing workflows, maintaining quality and accountability.

The Result

The engagement demonstrated that AI in CMS is most powerful when designed around human workflows, not in isolation.

Sxnth.AI®'s metadata architecture and governance model enabled UNISON to prepare its Acquia ecosystem for the next phase of automation, one that balances efficiency, accuracy, and ethics.

The result is a future-ready AI strategy that empowers editors, improves SEO, and ensures union values are reflected in every piece of digital content.