Working Out What SitecoreAI Really Means (So You Don’t Have To)

Missed Sitecore Symposium 2025 and now you’re wondering what on earth SitecoreAI means for you? Same — the FOMO was intense 😢. I’ve been chasing down everyone I can to give you a clear, practical view of what’s changing, and what it means for you as a digital leader.

A big month for Sitecore, but not a lot of clarity for customers - yet

November brought real change for customers, prospects and partners – and December brings even more (once your legal, procurement, and security teams finish reviewing that addendum!). After that, we should expect several rounds of updates because that’s what SaaS platforms do. Sitecore is clearly in innovation mode, and honestly, I love to see it.

But Sitecore has never been famous for over-communicating exactly how their products work. So if you’re leading digital in an enterprise organisation using — or considering — SitecoreAI, the real question is simple:

What do these changes actually mean for your roadmap, your team, and your ability to deliver next year?

Dear reader, I shall endeavour to enlighten you.

1. SitecoreAI: The new umbrella replacing the alphabet soup

The headline announcement at Symposium was SitecoreAI — the evolution of XM Cloud into a unified, AI-native, Azure-backed SaaS platform.

This is not a monolith.
This is composed, not “composable”.
A reinvention, not a return to XP.

Over the coming months, Sitecore will consolidate multiple products into features of this single SaaS platform. This is not a return to the XP monolith. Sitecore is calling it “composed” — unified, but pay-for-what-you-use.

As it matures, SitecoreAI will include:

• Content Management
• Digital Asset Management
• Content Operations
• Audiences & Intelligence
• Onsite Search
• Conversion Optimisation
• Commerce

This consolidation will take time, and Sitecore is rolling it out incrementally. But the direction is clear: simplify the experience, simplify the platform, simplify how teams work.

If you’re thinking “that sounds like six different products they once separated”, you’re right, and wrong. Sitecore is bringing things back together, but they’ve also added some very cool things, and they’re restructuring some of these capabilities as well.

It would be great if Sitecore were a bit more explicit with what the new pricing and packaging mean for what you can actually do, but as far as I can tell, existing XM Cloud customers are getting full access to the capabilities below, as well as limited access to Search and Personalize functionality; but if you’ve already bought those products separately, presumably you get the whole box and dice.

Sitecore has also said that the XM Cloud Media Library is being retired in favour of DAM/Content Hub functionality. So we can reasonably expect Essentials to include DAM long-term (which is really exciting because the Media Library should have disappeared a long, long time ago).

TL/DR: It’s good progress, although not everything is clearly defined yet. Reach out to your partner or Sitecore account executive for more details (and let me know if I’ve got anything wrong, please!)

2. Sitecore Studio: personalisation for the platform itself

This part didn’t get enough attention, but it deserves it.

Sitecore Studio brings four powerful capabilities into one workspace:

• Agentic Studio: pre-built AI agents plus the ability to create your own
• App Studio: build custom apps directly inside SitecoreAI
• Marketplace: apps and integrations from Sitecore, partners, and the community (some are free, some are paid)
• Sitecore Connect: Workato-powered connectors (separate purchase)

For the first time, Sitecore customers can personalise the platform around how they work, not the other way around.

Studio is also how Sitecore is finally solving the long-standing integration pain. Marketplace apps mean fewer custom builds and faster access to common integrations — from Salesforce to Adobe Analytics to Bynder.

I recommend this excellent article by Horizontal’s Emily Lord for more info on Sitecore Studio and the composed/composable distinction, and this by David San Filippo at Altudo for more information on the CDP, DAM & Search changes.

3. Agentic capabilities: intriguing signs of what’s coming

Once they have signed the AI addendum, customers gain access to Sitecore’s new agentic features. They're saying about 20 agents pre-built, and you can create your own in the Studio. These are workflow-driven AI agents that can follow instructions, apply do/don’t rules, use uploaded knowledge, and participate in multi-step flows alongside humans.

They’re not magic, but they’re genuinely intriguing and will be really useful to anyone who's ready to use them. 

In fact, they’re already being used:

• Sitecore’s own DX team generated nearly 100 ABM pages using multi-agent flows (loud applause from me, you guys rock!)
• Berkeley Homes is using contextually aware content agents
• AFL is generating smarter multi-channel messages
• Regal Rexnord and Hexagon are using migration agents to convert content and schema across dozens of sites

This isn’t future-looking hype. It works today — if your foundation is ready.

4. Unified Data Layer: important, but still evolving

Sitecore is introducing a Unified Data Layer (UDL) that brings analytics, personalisation signals, and optimisation insights closer to the CMS. It underpins the new Conversion Optimisation capability, which blends Search, Personalize, and historical CDP strengths into a single, more intelligent feature.

Sitecore hasn’t released full technical details yet, so for now this remains a “watch closely” area. But it’s directionally positive and aligns with where the DXP market is heading.

5. Why this matters for digital leaders (the 4Ps, briefly)

You had to know I was going to reference my beautiful 4Ps of DX, right?

• Platforms: SitecoreAI simplifies the architecture and removes a lot of historical fragmentation of functionality and data.
• People: Teams benefit from working within one adaptable environment instead of switching between tools.
• Processes: AI agents only work if you have clean taxonomies, consistent metadata, and real governance.
• Planning: AI scales what already exists. It won’t fix disordered content, messy assets, or missing analytics.

The most important statement here: AI scales what already exists. Which leads me neatly to...

6. The misconception to avoid: “AI is coming, so I’ll wait.”

This is the part I want to emphasise the most: waiting six months will put you six months behind.

Here’s why:

• Sitecore AI agentic capabilities rely on your rules, metadata, and content structures
• Studio apps rely on your processes being known and documented
• AI-driven personalisation relies on clean data signals
• Conversion Optimisation needs well-configured events and goals
• DAM-driven content needs correct taxonomy and governance
• Marketplace apps only help if your side of the integration is tidy

You cannot switch these capabilities on in a hurry.

If you want to be AI-ready — genuinely AI-ready — you need to start now. This is not about “futureproofing”. It’s about being in a position to use the things Sitecore is about to hand you for free.

7. A moment of opportunity

Sitecore is innovating quickly and moving in a strong direction. The platform will become simpler, more unified, and far more intelligent. But the organisations who benefit most won’t be the ones who wait. They’ll be the ones who:

• organise their content
• clean their assets
• rationalise their taxonomy
• document their workflows
• structure their data
• and decide which parts of their process should stay human-driven

You don’t need to rebuild everything.
You do need to get organised.

When the next wave of SitecoreAI features arrives, you want to be ready — not scrambling, still with a backlog of fixes and siloes…

So, if you want your team to be as prepared as your platform — let’s chat.

I help digital and marketing leaders get AI-ready by transferring skills, building repeatable processes, and setting teams up to deliver confidently. Book a meeting and we’ll figure out what you need, what comes first, and how to get moving.

(Note for my overseas friends - if there isn't a time that suits, get in touch and I'll work out something just for you!)

PS:

• If I've got anything wrong here, please let me know!
• If there's any aspect of this you'd like me to dive into in more detail, happy to, just let me know.

Comment below or contact me directly.