This article is my reflection on giving my first talk at Drupal Camp Spain 2025 in Santiago de Compostela, where AI was the main theme. I presented on using Cursor AI to refactor legacy code, sharing both the benefits and drawbacks I’ve found in practice. Although I struggled with nerves, pacing issues, and fears of overlapping topics, the Drupal community’s support made the experience worthwhile. The Q&A showed how much interest there is in AI within Drupal, raising important questions about privacy and legal challenges. In the end, it was a valuable step for my growth, and I’m glad I pushed myself to do it.
This past September, from the 18th to the 20th, Drupal Camp Spain 2025 took place in Santiago de Compostela. It’s an event that brings together the latest trends in the tech we love and a great meeting spot for the Drupal community. The camp offers a unique opportunity to catch up and see where Drupal is headed, while helping us align our daily work with that direction.
Even though the Camp covered tons of topics like DevOps, project management, headless development, or Single Directory Components, the main theme was definitely the impact of AI on our lives as developers. For example, there were talks like:
- “Drupal and AI Doing Cool Stuff” by Manuel Bermudez: An overview of how AI has been integrated into Drupal and how the DrupalAI module and its submodules work.
- “Transforming Content Search in Drupal with AI Assistants” by David Galeano: How to create an AI assistant in Drupal that optimizes content search using smart conversational experiences.
- “AI as a Development Accelerator in Drupal Projects” by Robert Menetray: A super interesting talk on how to implement and leverage AI technologies to optimize development processes in Drupal agencies, cutting costs and speeding up project delivery without compromising quality.
- “What If Instead of Adding a Chat, You Let AI Read Your Website?” by Daniel Loureiro: A shift in mindset from having a chatbot to using Drupal as a source of truth for intelligent models with the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
- “Women in AI Network – Connecting Talent, Coding Change” by Montaña Franco & Isabel Ramos: They shared the MIA initiative aimed at building a fairer industry and empowering women developers in the AI revolution.
- And mine, “Using Cursor AI to Refactor Legacy Code”: I wanted to show how we can use AI, specifically Cursor, to automate those time-consuming tasks in our daily dev work, focusing on refactoring legacy code easily.
My goal wasn’t just to explain what Vibecoding is or how Cursor works, but also to highlight the strengths and weaknesses I’ve found when using this tech.
I’ve got to admit, seeing the program a couple of weeks before the event made me a bit nervous. “What if my talk overlaps with someone else’s or covers the same stuff?” Hard to know in advance, and it kept me up at night. But then I realized that even if topics overlap, everyone brings their own perspective, so the journey to the conclusions is different, and I could still contribute my bit. Plus, the organizers and the Drupal Association did a smart job scheduling sessions so that no two talks on the same topic happened at the same time, and there were always alternative sessions if you wanted a different topic.
Once I got past that fear, the next one hit. I made the slides in May and June, then got busy with agency projects and my well-deserved August vacation. I came back to the slides in September to add the latest updates. To my surprise, Cursor and AI had moved so fast in just a few months that I was worried my content was already outdated. So I had to double-check everything—if I had waited any longer, it would’ve been a real problem.
And of course, the classic panic attack hit: “Did I time this right?” Even after countless rehearsals at home, the nerves kicked in just a few hours before the talk. At first, it felt like there wasn’t enough content, so a few slides were added at the last minute. Then, seeing other talks moving quickly on the morning of my session, it became clear there were too many slides, and the pace would have to be rushed. The presentation ended up going faster than intended, leaving extra time and perhaps not explaining some points as clearly as hoped. Definitely a lesson to keep in mind for next time.
Even though I have some public speaking experience, I’m naturally shy and usually avoid these stressful moments. I’ve been to Drupal Camps for years, always on the sidelines, but this time it was me on stage, representing myself and my company. Thanks, brain, for adding extra pressure and intrusive thoughts urging me to run away or fake being sick. That almost happened—I had stomach aches—but I pushed through. Big thanks to Jesús Sánchez Balsera and my brother Daniel Pavón for encouraging me to take the bull by the horns. The goal was to teach the community something new, from a personal point of view, so others facing similar challenges could have a reference point. And the Drupal community is so welcoming and supportive—if anything goes wrong, you can always count on them. Seriously, I’ve never seen a community as amazing as Drupal’s.
After surviving the presentation (despite rushing, nerves, stomach aches, and technical hiccups), it was Q&A time. Yikes! I hadn’t even thought about that. I was so focused on my slides that I didn’t plan for questions. Panic returned again. Some questions were about using Cursor, others about AI in general—which makes sense, it’s a new and wild topic. I answered based on my personal experience, even though I’m not an AI expert, just a dev using AI to solve specific problems. These questions highlighted what I mentioned in my talk: there are still lots of legal, privacy, and responsibility issues around AI that could use expert discussion. Once again, the Drupal community impressed me by hitting the core points.
I was glad that the Q&A took up all the extra time I had—clearly people were interested, curious, and eager to learn more.
After it was over, intrusive thoughts came back: “Did they like it? Did I say something dumb? Will the Drupal police be waiting at the door?” Nope. People came up to congratulate me and say they found the talk interesting. “Okay, at least I didn’t bore them” I told myself.
The next hour after that stress spike, I felt numb and couldn’t focus much, but I gradually recovered.
That said, I’m really happy I gave this talk. Will I do it again soon? Not immediately—I need a break—but I wouldn’t rule it out. Future topics? Maybe Single Directory Components? Drupal CMS? We’ll see. In any case, it was an amazing experience, and having a supportive community like Drupal makes learning and tackling its insane learning curve so much easier. I’ll take my lessons, work on pacing, and try not to let intrusive thoughts hold me back next time.
