The 2025 State of Collaborative Editing: Key Takeaways

As teams grow increasingly distributed, organizational success hinges on collaboration. In CKEditor’s third annual State of Collaborative Editing report, you’ll learn what’s changed about how teams currently collaborate.

AI has forced an evolution in collaboration tools. Employees see AI as a junior teammate. Plus, there’s even more change in the collaborative editing space.

This year’s report presents findings from more than 500 technology professionals on how they collaborate, the role of collaborative editing tools in rich text editors (RTEs), and the changes they expect over the next few years.

#What emerged from the 2025 State of Collaborative Editing Report

When you download the report, you’ll get the complete findings on the current and future states of collaborative editing. But below are a few highlights.

#1. Collaboration itself has gained renewed interest

Last year, basic collaboration tools like mentions and comments became table stakes. Real-time co-editing even became expected in rich text editors.

This year, we’re seeing renewed interest, with 65% of respondents rating collaboration tools as extremely or very important. What’s driving the change? AI has breathed new life into collaboration tools, accelerating drafting, editing, and review cycles. This AI-driven push makes collaboration features in rich text editors matter even more, whether you’re building an internal application for productivity or selling commercial software to customers.

In short, collaboration features aren’t nice-to-haves: they’re core features users rely on.

#2. AI has become a new collaborator

AI has moved past the novelty phase. Now, users treat AI as assistants to help with researching, drafting, or reviewing content. When predicting the next few years, 42% of respondents chose “collaboration with AI” as the most important collaborative editing feature.

Where AI lives is also shifting. Users increasingly expect embedded AI in their applications so those tools fit seamlessly in their workflows. Embedding AI in rich text editors helps users avoid the nuisance (and productivity drain) of switching between tools and interfaces to create or edit their content.

#3. Respondents have emphasized security in content collaboration

Among teams that build their own RTEs, 36% cited security as their top reason (up from 22% in the prior year). This makes sense. Rich text editors are part of the software supply chain. If breached, this opens a company to lost revenue, reputational damage, and potentially even compliance fines. According to Verizon, third-party breaches doubled this past year, making it important to choose the right vendors for your applications.

Software components can be blind spots in a company’s tech stack, so when buying a rich text editor, teams are increasingly vetting them for cybersecurity. These editors pass private and proprietary information between multiple users across draft review cycles, making strong security a functional requirement.

#4. Deployment method is now a board-level concern

Whether due to compliance regulations, cost, or governance, organizations increasingly need flexible deployment methods. Some prefer on-premises for more control, others choose cloud for speed and lower overhead, and 26% of respondents are now choosing hybrid (up from 18% in the previous year).

Ultimately, organizations need the flexibility to decide where and how to deploy their rich text editor components. It’s a core strategic decision that shapes collaboration in practice, from performance to data boundaries to how teams can co-edit across products and regions.

#5. Future-proofing your collaboration is critical

Switching RTEs downstream is expensive. You’ll have to stand up new infrastructure, test a new editor, deploy it, and integrate it with your tech stack. That wastes valuable developer time, diverts them from other projects, and incurs additional costs to the organization.

For those planning to switch soon, 21% cited missing features as the primary driver. Sometimes, it’s a bad initial fit, but more often, either the editor failed to keep up with the latest changes in collaboration or the organization outgrew their first editor. The report covers some of the major changes practitioners expect in the next few years.

#Get ahead of the curve with the 2025 State of Collaborative Editing Report

Collaboration has entered a new era. As AI use cases have solidified, artificial intelligence has become a central figure in the future of collaborative editing.

But that’s not the only major change on the horizon. Do you want to be prepared for the future of collaborative editing? Download the State of Collaborative Editing Report to make sure you’re on the cutting edge.