Let's get to the core of it: Sitecore is going all-in on AI.
The global, industry-leading DXP recently announced ongoing plans to infuse artificial intelligence features across its suite of content and commerce offerings.
While the announcement was made at its Sitecore DX 2023 event in Sydney last week, the company has been blazing a trail across the AI/ML frontier for some time, having already embedded AI capabilities into its content cloud and personalization software.
The event – which featured Sitecore CEO Steve Tzikakis – aimed to demonstrate to brands and partners that they can quickly deploy new AI-powered digital content and commerce offerings, underpinned by machine learning software.
Generative AI might still be considered nascent, but Sitecore has been innovating with artificial intelligence for a number of years. In fact, in 2020, the company introduced its Sitecore AI Auto Personalization as a standard feature of its DXP.
“The future of marketing technology and brand experience will be AI-fuelled due to the sheer power of machine learning tools,” said Tzikakis.
As AI continues to steamroll the market with undeniable hype, Sitecore has been doubling down on high-utility applications that benefit enterprise customers at scale, most recently with the launch of its AI-based Content Cloud. This complements its Automated Personalization platform, which enables brands to gain insights from previous website visitors.
Earlier this year, Sitecore conducted a survey of four hundred marketers in the US, revealing that generative AI is seen as a pivotal, game-changing advancement for brand marketers – specifically for those seeking rapid-fire personalization for delivering intuitive and engaging digital experiences to customers.
In April, Sitecore announced that Open AI's ChatGPT functionality was now available across its array of fully composable software solutions. This integration, powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, provides marketers the ability to integrate generative AI functionality into their Sitecore-powered marketing technology stack to supercharge efficiency, personalization, and content production at scale across Sitecore’s entire range of composable solutions.
According to Tzikakis, generative AI developments are moving incredibly fast. “In fact, while 77% of US marketers feel their technology can handle AI demands, 45% are concerned by the significant costs they perceive will be required to maintain growth.”
When it comes to differentiators in the AI spectrum, Sitecore’s unique, fully composable offering provides maximum flexibility to marketers. Users can essentially “build their own solution” by bringing their own AI to integrate via open APIs and configurable UIs.
“Our generative AI offering has been created to integrate with our composable strategy,” Tzikakis said. “Businesses will need to move away from legacy software stacks, and infuse AI systems into composable software approaches that enable true flexibility and the ability to provide their customers with personalized and rich experiences.”
Examples of this in action include the integration of ChatGPT into Sitecore XM Cloud CMS to create near-instant translations, and leveraging ChatGPT to rephrase marketing copy created in Content Hub to better target specific segments and destination channels. Additionally, Sitecore customers can use Dall-E to generate image variants for omnichannel campaigns being managed across Sitecore's Content Cloud.
While generative AI is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, Sitecore is using its composable posture to alleviate the concerns noted about the costs of harnessing AI.
“Sitecore’s composable platform helps combat this fear by giving Sitecore customers the ability to leverage our unique, composable offering,” Tzikakis stated, "which allows brands to control when and how much spend they can invest depending on customer needs.”