Unveiling the Growth and Future Trends

ECM, content services, content management, document management – whatever you call it, it’s the lifeblood of your organization. Your content represents the creativity, decisions, transactions and culture of your organization. It’s your intellectual property. It’s what makes you, you.

Content is essential for learning, decisions, and transactions. It’s at the center of most workflows and structured processes. And in the era of generative AI, having the “right” content for your LLMs is mission-critical to get a return on your AI investments.

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital transformation, content management stands as a pillar of organizational efficiency and innovation. At Synozur, we are committed to providing innovative insights, drawing from our proprietary research and the latest industry data.

In this article, I’ll survey the current and future state of the market, and project its growth over the coming years. For consistency, we’ll call this the “Content Management” market.

Understanding the Content Management Market

The content management market has its roots in traditional Enterprise Content Management (ECM), which focused on storage, metadata workflow, records management, and search for on-premises repositories. Historically described as "systems of record," ECM was often seen as an expensive way to store high-volume content that was rarely accessed again.

Over the past decade, ECM has evolved into Content Services (CS), leveraging cloud capabilities and AI to offer more flexible and integrated solutions that encompass dynamic content, collaboration, and emerging data types like images and video. Today, the market encompasses a broad array of applications, including archiving software, document generation, content-driven solutions, and eDiscovery, among others.

More recently, Tim Nelms, Marko Sillanpaa, Max Goss, and Chris Jackson at Gartner have published their latest Magic Quadrant for Document Management . They’ve expanded the definition to include generative AI and other emergent workloads. And they’ve added yet another name – document management – to the market sector. Microsoft, Box, Laserfiche, SER Group and OpenText were all recognized as Leaders, with Google, M-Files, Dropbox, and Hyland as Challengers.

Market Size and Growth Projections

The content management market is substantial, with significant growth projected over the next few years.

By the narrowest definition, we could define content management as just two sectors – content sharing and ECM, and reach a current market size of US$16.3 billion.

Let’s consider those sectors. They may include additional processing services, management, and content driven applications. A full set of those sectors may include:

Archiving Software
Capture Applications
Content Sharing and Collaboration
Content Workflow
Content-Driven Applications (e.g., Contract Lifecycle Management, Digital Asset Management, Sales Force Automation)
Document Generation Software
Document Understanding AI
eDiscovery Applications
Enterprise Backup and Recovery
Enterprise Content Management
eSignature Software
Intelligent Document Processing (IDP)
Repository Services
Workplace Search

Key Market Segments

Many critical market sectors are growing significantly, especially with generative AI-related effects and the need for more comprehensive content-driven applications. Several key segments drive the content management market, each with unique growth trajectories:

Enterprise Backup and Recovery: Estimated to grow from $14.3 billion in 2024 to $23.5 billion by 2028, with a CAGR of 13.8%.
Document Understanding AI: One of the fastest-growing segments, expected to double from $3.2 billion in 2023 to $6.1 billion by 2027, with a CAGR of 17.8%.
Contract Lifecycle Management: Expected to grow from $2.3 billion in 2024 to $3.7 billion by 2028.
Sales Force Automation: Projected to increase from $10.9 billion in 2024 to $16.1 billion by 2028.
Digital Asset Management: Anticipated to expand from $5.6 billion in 2024 to $9.8 billion by 2028.

So, the current size of the market in 2025 ranges from US$24 billion to about US$110 billion, based on what sectors you choose. For these definitions, we start with a “Narrow” view of the market (ECM, content sharing and on-premises), with a “Broad” range that includes other sectors and an “Expansive” view that includes everything except generative AI[1]:

This gives us the following market sizes (in $US MM):

At the high end, according to Synozur research, the market was approximately $98 billion in 2024, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.5%, reaching $150.7 billion by 2028.

Industry Trends and Competitive Landscape

Generative AI has disrupted established product patterns as companies incorporate AI solutions into their applications. Companies such as OpenText, Hyland, and IBM are maintaining traditional ECM/CS platforms on premises while also transitioning their solutions to the cloud. They continue to integrate acquisitions like Alfresco (Hyland) and Documentum (OpenText), while updating their systems to keep up with AI advancements from systems like Microsoft Copilot, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude.

End users are transitioning from traditional separate “systems of record” to integrated digital workplace systems like Teams and Google Workplace, which provide necessary content management capabilities. Emerging cloud-native SaaS players, such as Box for general usage or Veeva (distinct from Microsoft Viva) for vertical niches, have joined the market and are gaining market share. Additionally, specialty vertical applications like Seismic, which focuses on sales and marketing content assembly, are developing business process-oriented content applications.

Generative AI is a focal point for many buyers, and vendors with integrated AI solutions are likely to be favored in the new buying environment.

Market Share

Microsoft has continued to gain market share in the content services space, driven by its integration into M365 and the adoption of generative AI capabilities. According to Gartner's Market Share Analysis, Microsoft was the leading vendor in 2022, followed by OpenText, Dropbox, Hyland, and Box. Google is also a significant and growing player.

Conclusion

I’ve been deeply engaged in this market for two decades, so it’s great to report on its continued vibrancy and growth. At Synozur, we remain at the forefront of these trends, providing our clients with the insights and solutions needed to navigate this dynamic landscape. Stay tuned to our blog for more updates and in-depth analyses of the management market.

[1] The generative AI market is growing rapidly and in growing in areas well outside content management. For example, GPU chips, data center construction and power generation might all be considered as part of that market. A casual review of industry research suggests the generative AI market is growing to reach over $1.3 trillion by 2032. This growth rate dwarfs and obscures the otherwise massive expansion in the content management market.

The Booming Content Management Market: Insights and Projections for 2025-2028