Apollo 11: One Giant Leap

“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Those were, of course, astronaut Neil Armstrong’s words on 20th July 1969, as he became the first human to set foot on the Moon, one of the most monumental achievements in human history. For millennia, the idea that mankind could create the technology to venture into space was, quite literally, a moonshot. 

And the success didn’t come overnight. As the number suggests, the USA’s human spaceflight programme carried out 10 previous Apollo missions during the 1960s, many of which ended in explosions, power outages, and other failures. But through a combination of the day’s most sophisticated technology and a wildly ambitious vision, stepping foot on a lunar surface was suddenly possible.

Challenger Deep: 11km of Deep Sea 

In January 1960, two men climbed aboard their submersible Trieste to conduct a deep-sea exploration of the Mariana Trench. And in doing so, they became the first people to descend all 11km to Challenger Deep, the deepest-known point on earth. The descent led to many previously unthinkable findings, including living creatures at depths of 11km.

The impact of the achievement still resonates today, not least by inspiring new generations of marine scientists and setting a precedent for dozens of deep-sea expeditions. And like Apollo 11, it was achievable only through precision-engineered technology and a clear vision.

Canto XI: Reinventing Digital Asset Management 

There are probably fewer documentaries on iPlayer about historic step-changes in the world of marketing – but industry breakthroughs are no less important.

In the MarTech landscape Canto has essentially defined the digital asset management (DAM) category for decades. And in November 2025, we launched arguably the biggest step forward in our 35-year history.

We invented DAM, now we’ve reinvented it. It’s called Canto XI.

“Our vision is to move to autonomous digital asset management where, from the moment content enters the system, AI assistants are working behind the scenes, tagging, categorising, powering search, optimising workflows, ultimately curating what gets published and where,” explains Beth Gostanian, VP of Product at Canto.

As the number suggests, this is the 11th generation of our platform. It’s been reimagined for today’s content teams, providing not just a DAM solution but an intelligent content hub, with new capabilities that are woven with AI and 100% customer-led.

• AI Library Assistant brings automated structure to your assets without any manual sorting
• Brand Studio empowers non-creative teams to create compliant, on-brand content
• Approval Hub enables faster feedback and fewer rounds of amends
• AI Visual Search lets you discover assets faster simply by describing them in natural language
• Media Publisher easily makes your assets web-ready and delivers them directly to your channels

The Future of DAM

What could be the lasting impact of this step-change? Until now, DAM platforms have been great for centralising content, but many are still very manual and require human input to upload, tag and publish assets. And where AI is being used, it’s to conduct basic repetitive tasks.

Instead, Canto’s Beth Gostanian foresees a future where: “AI is helping DAMs move from being ‘systems of record’ to ‘systems of intelligence’. The future is going to be about true autonomous asset management where AI starts to anticipate needs.”

So while Canto can’t get you to the moon, what we have done is unleashed a powerful technology and set a new vision for how things can be done in the world of DAM.

Watch Canto’s Next Generation of DAM Webinar or explore Canto XI, reimagined with AI to accelerate every stage of the content lifecycle.