The setup changed in September 2026. Drupal AI 1.5.0 moved AI Content Suggestions and Field Widget Actions into standalone projects and deprecated the bundled AI CKEditor, so older tutorials no longer match.

What Are the Options for AI Content Suggestions in Drupal?

Drupal's three AI suggestion modules differ in where editors meet them and whether they keep a record. AI CKEditor and AI Content Suggestions help while an editor writes; AI Content Review checks the finished page and stores each review.

The table below compares the three modules as their drupal.org project pages describe them in October 2026.

Module

Where editors see it

Stores a review record

Status in October 2026

AI CKEditor

A toolbar button and a menu beside selected text in CKEditor 5

Not described in its documentation

Standalone project: 1.4.4 stable; 1.5.0 in beta

AI Content Suggestions with Field Widget Actions

Buttons beside fields and tools in the edit form sidebar

No

1.5.2 stable; maintenance and small improvements

AI Content Review

A Review tab, a score pill on the page, and a site-wide listing

Yes, every run

1.0.0-alpha3; no stable release yet

The AI Content Suggestions project page points teams that want a review workflow to AI Content Review, and notes that AI Content Suggestions continues to be maintained for quick, in-form suggestions.

What Changed in Drupal AI 1.5 for Editor Suggestions?

Drupal AI 1.5.0, released 25 September 2026, moved AI Content Suggestions and Field Widget Actions into standalone projects. The DropTimes reports that the bundled copies are now hidden stubs that can't be enabled on their own.

The same release deprecated the bundled AI CKEditor, which is scheduled for removal from the main AI package in 1.6. Before that upgrade, confirm that your composer.json requires drupal/ai_ckeditor. AI 1.5.0 supports Drupal 10.5 and 11.2 or later, and its declared range does not yet include Drupal 12.

How Do You Set Up AI CKEditor for Suggestions Inside the Editor?

AI CKEditor adds AI actions to the CKEditor 5 toolbar and to a menu beside selected text. Its documentation lists completion, prompt-based rewrites, tone, translation, summaries, spelling fixes, and HTML cleanup.

A fresh install follows the AI CKEditor installation guide:

  1. Configure an AI provider at Administration > Configuration > AI > AI Infrastructure > AI Platform Providers. 
  2. Run composer require drupal/ai_ckeditor, then drush en ai_ckeditor.
  3. Grant the "Use AI CKEditor plugin" permission to each editor role, or the plugins load but return nothing.
  4. Under Administration > Configuration > Content authoring > Text formats and editors, drag the AI Assistant button into the CKEditor 5 toolbar (add AI Balloon Menu for the selection menu), then enable each action under AI tools and choose its provider and model.

Sites on the AI 1.4.x submodule move to the standalone project by upgrading the AI module to 1.5.2  and running database updates, which the installation guide says keeps existing settings.

On a bilingual Arabic and English site, set the Translate action's language source to "Language," so it offers the languages the site already has; by default it reads options from a taxonomy vocabulary instead. 

How Do You Add AI Content Suggestions to Individual Fields?

AI Content Suggestions adds AI help to specific fields on Drupal's edit form. Field Widget Actions, a toolkit that puts action buttons on field widgets, supplies the button, and the module adds sidebar tools for summaries, titles, tags, tone, readability, and moderation.

Setup follows the AI Content Suggestions project page:

  1. Run composer require 'drupal/ai_content_suggestions:^1.5', then enable it and Field Widget Actions. The 1.5.x line needs Drupal 10.4, AI 1.4, and Field Widget Actions 1.3 or later.
  2. Turn on the sidebar tools you want under Configuration > AI > Content Creation & Support > AI Content Suggestions. 
  3. In the content type's Manage form display, open a field's widget settings and add a content suggestion action with its own prompt.
  4. Test on a draft: editors click the button and pick one of the returned suggestions.

Prompts are set per field on the stable 1.5.x line, so a site-wide tone rule lives in each field's prompt. A shared system prompt for site-wide rules arrives in the 1.6.x alpha.

How Do You Set Up AI Content Review Before Publishing?

AI Content Review scores Drupal content from 0 to 100 against criteria your team writes, explains each score, and proposes fixes as a diff. The project page says every review run is stored.

Setup takes more work than AI CKEditor or AI Content Suggestions, because the written standard has to exist first:

  1. Confirm Drupal 10.5 or 11.2 or later, AI 1.3, Entity API 1.6, and AI Agents 1.2 or later, plus a provider. Then run composer require 'drupal/ai_content_review:^1.0@alpha' and drush en ai_content_review.
  2. Build a review agent with the AI Content Review Result tool and instructions that pull content through tokens such as [node:title]. One agent can serve every criterion.
  3. Create a review rule at Administration > Configuration > AI > Tools & Automation > AI Content Review, map criteria to bundles, and set pass and warning thresholds. 

The AI Review tab appears only after a rule exists. Our introduction to the AI Content Review module covers calibration and bulk runs.

What Does Each Module Cost to Run After Launch?

Every AI suggestion module in Drupal calls your AI provider on each action, so the provider bill is the visible running cost. The maintenance work differs by module:

  • AI CKEditor: settings per text format, a permission per role, and a check that composer.json requires drupal/ai_ckeditor before upgrading to AI 1.6.
  • AI Content Suggestions: one prompt per field button, each holding its own copy of your style rules.
  • AI Content Review: criteria, thresholds, and agents to maintain. A 300-post blog checked against four criteria comes to 1,200 criterion checks. After that first pass, bulk and scheduled runs skip revisions already reviewed against the same criteria.

AI Content Review has no stable release yet, so Drupal security advisories don't cover it. Pilot it on staging.

Where I Land: The Module Matters Less Than Where Your Standard Lives

Choosing an AI suggestion module is the smaller decision. The harder one is where your editorial standard lives, because AI CKEditor, AI Content Suggestions, and AI Content Review each keep their own copy of it.

AI Content Suggestions stores style rules in each field prompt. AI Content Review agents, and AI CKEditor from its 1.5.0 beta line, can instead read from the Context Control Center (the AI Context module), which holds brand voice and terminology as content items that editors manage on the site. For AI CKEditor, that means AI Context 1.0.0-beta5 or later and turning on "Push context automatically" for each AI tool. The stable 1.4.x release of AI CKEditor does not read it. Because context items are content rather than configuration, plan how they reach production; config sync will not carry them. 

Keep tone rules in a dozen field prompts and again in the Context Control Center, and the copies drift the first time someone updates one. Field suggestions can then contradict the review.

I've argued before that AI Content Review's value comes from consistency across items, not from the model's intelligence. Suggestions help one editor on one field; one written standard keeps every editor consistent. That matters most when many people publish under one name: departmental editors at a university, or country offices at a nonprofit.

Many public-sector teams publish under a plain-language requirement. In the US, for example, Digital.gov's plain language guide notes that the Plain Writing Act of 2010 set the requirement that federal public content be written for its audience. Of these three modules, only AI Content Review leaves a stored, per-page review record a team can point to. A score shows that a check ran against your written standard; it does not certify compliance.

I don't recommend starting from default rules, because a generic "good content" rule scores every team against a standard nobody chose. When editors keep rejecting a suggestion, fix the written standard, as I argue in our guide to human-in-the-loop AI review in Drupal moderation.

Which AI Suggestion Module Should Your Team Start With?

Start with the AI suggestion module that matches where your editors spend the most effort, and add review once your standard is written down. The table below maps four common team situations to a starting module:

If this describes your team

Start with

What it means for you

Editors write long body copy and want help drafting, rewording, or translating.

AI CKEditor

Light setup. The only trail is request logging through AI Logging, if enabled.

Editors fill the same short fields on every item: titles, summaries, tags.

AI Content Suggestions with Field Widget Actions

One prompt per field to maintain, on a stable release covered by Drupal security advisories.

Someone outside the editorial team must show that pages meet a written standard.

AI Content Review

Pilot on staging. The module is in alpha, and writing the criteria is the real work.

Your style guide isn't written down, or several versions disagree.

No review module yet

Consolidate the standard first, or a review rule scores against an incomplete one.

If only the last row fits, any of these modules adds cost before it adds consistency.

What If Your Site Runs Varbase?

On Varbase, the Varbase AI Editor Assistant recipe sets up AI CKEditor and grants Varbase roles its permissions. A Drupal recipe applies configuration when you run it; Drupal's recipe documentation says later updates fall to modules and core, so it doesn't lock the site in. That also means the recipe won't add the standalone module for you: before upgrading to AI 1.6, confirm your project's composer.json requires drupal/ai_ckeditor. 

What Is the Lowest-Risk Next Step?

The lowest-risk next step is a staging pilot on one content type. Pick the module that matches your main editing task: AI CKEditor for body copy, AI Content Suggestions for repeated short fields, or AI Content Review for pre-publish checks. Run it with a few editors for one publishing cycle and record every suggestion they reject. Those rejections show what your standard is missing.

For a second opinion before you configure anything, Vardot's AI consultancy team runs AI readiness assessments for Drupal sites.