The speaker, Johnny Bradley, discusses the adoption of markdown in the Tiki project and the need for a standardized syntax across different platforms. He talks about the history of different syntaxes such as BB code and wiki Creole, but notes that markdown seems to be the most widely adopted across platforms including GitHub, GitLab, and even proprietary software. Tiki has adopted markdown in version 25 and plans to eventually make it the default syntax, while still supporting their own syntax through plugins. The speaker also discusses the use of ToastUE as a WYSIWYG editor for Tiki's markdown implementation. Converters from Tiki syntax to markdown and vice versa are available. There is a brief Q&A session at the end.