It’s November, friends. And that familiar buzz in the air? It’s the unmistakable white-hot lightning of Sitecore Symposium.

I’m on the ground this week in Orlando, Florida, at one of the biggest annual events in the DXP industry – and so far, it has not disappointed. Hosted at the iconic Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Sitecore is once again elevating the entire experience to the next level. I’ll have a deeper dive into the event in the coming days.

As with all vendor conferences, we expect a stream of announcements, and Sitecore delivered a seismic one with the unveiling of SitecoreAI, its SaaS-native next-gen DXP that positions AI at the center of, well, everything.

SitecoreAI is, in a word, ambitious. And it needed to be. AI is reshaping the market, and consumers are shifting from static search to AI-driven discovery. We all know how traffic is being impacted, and we’re pondering what exists in a world where the website is no longer the center of the universe.

This is where SitecoreAI is focusing its value as a conduit for delivering personalized content and interactions across channels. It promises to help brands show up in these new places and drive experiences that connect in meaningful ways.

During an analyst briefing at Symposium, I had a chance to see how SitecoreAI is manifesting. I’ve also done a deeper dive at Sitecore’s pavilion booth, and from an experience perspective, it’s already looking – and feeling – impressive.

Under the hood, SitecoreAI is unifying the entire Sitecore product ecosystem (CMS, DAM, MRM, CMP, CDP & Personalize, and Search) in a “composed” manner, all accessible in a single AI-powered solution. At the same time, the SaaS-native platform is providing the freedom of a flexible, composable ecosystem that’s backed by the security, scalability, and governance that make Sitecore a trusted vendor.

But there’s more. At the center of SitecoreAI is its new Agentic Studio, a workspace where marketers can harness AI to plan, create, and personalize experiences. At launch, Agentic Studio will offer an array of pre-built agents across a myriad of functions, and also enable marketers and teams to design their own agents using simple no-code tools.

From an adoption standpoint, SitecoreAI evolves directly from XM Cloud and runs on Microsoft Azure. Current XM Cloud customers will have access to everything this coming Monday (11/10/25), and the upgrade will be seamless. That means no migration is required, and there’s full continuity of data and instant access to the Agentic Studio and its pre-built AI agents.

And the pièce de resistance: it’s all under a single license with simplified pricing. This includes all the AI capabilities within the system. During COO Dave Tilbury’s presentation, he discussed the dearth of feedback he’s received from customers worldwide about the complexity of Sitecore’s pricing – and it was clear that a lot of energy has been focused on reducing this friction. It’s a big shift in strategy, but one that could prove to be a game-changer.

A SaaS-native composable portfolio with AI at the core

SitecoreAI is an evolutionary step in Sitecore’s AI vision. The company has long been a pioneer of artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, with services like Sitecore Cortex emerging (way back) in 2017.

At last year’s Symposium, we got a first look at Sitecore Stream, the company’s set of cross-product capabilities designed to enhance marketing workflows and productivity via embedded AI copiloting. It included brand-aware features, collaborative tools, and content generation assistance.

As already mentioned, SitecoreAI is built on the SaaS-native terra firma of XM Cloud, the company’s best-selling product in history, and a solution that’s delivering customers as much as 371% ROI over three years. Powered by this engine, SitecoreAI unifies content, data, and personalization in a single, composable SaaS platform designed to help marketers accelerate campaigns at high velocity, manage spend optimally, and improve performance with AI-enabled workflows.

As Chief Product Officer Roger Connolly explained during our briefing, Sitecore has focused on expanding the breadth of its platform over the last few years, but AI has now unlocked the opportunity to finally connect everything in a meaningful way.

“Agentic orchestration gives us the imperative to get this right,” he said. “It’s actually the goal we have in our connected stack that will feed what an agentic future actually could look like and help us orchestrate it.”

As Roger indicated, the Sitecore team has spent the last nine months following a charge from CEO Eric Stine to bring this whole experience to life and unify the entire portfolio of Sitecore products for marketers. As part of the push, Sitecore also brought customers into the development process through its collaborative AI Innovation Lab, which was launched in concert with Microsoft in early 2025.

One of the keys unlocking these capabilities has been a completely new model context protocol (MCP) layer that sits on top of the entire stack – so every product is defined as an MCP action that can be used by an agent, and perform a specific task on behalf of a marketer. A unified knowledge graph also reinforces the foundation for its embedded AI capabilities.

The SitecoreAI dashboard. Source: Sitecore

SitecoreAI’s unified UX is all about streamlining the marketer’s experience. It’s clean, elegant, and easy to navigate. Starting at the Strategy tab, users can build and schedule their campaigns with access to all the tools they need in one place, from developing briefs to driving actions and flows.

An example of a SitecoreAI brief. Source: Sitecore

Users will also be able to surface details from Google Analytics, or add data from a marketplace of tools like Tableau or Gradial directly in their dashboard. The details can be curated and customized based on specific requirements, and the visualization is normalized to make everything feel cohesive.

By synthesizing these elements into a single system, SitecoreAI is helping to reduce the cognitive overload and the dreaded “swivel chair” phenomenon plaguing marketers as they toggle between tools.

Introducing Agentic Studio

As the name implies, Agentic Studio is a creative workshop for marketers, enabling them to build and collaborate with AI. At launch, it will offer 20 pre-built agents that automate complex workflows – everything from campaign planning to content migration – giving users the flexibility to design their own agents and flows using simple visual tools with no coding required.

A person standing on a stage

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

CPO Roger Connolly on stage at Symposium introducing Agentic Studio

Within the Agentic Studio, Agentic Flows can be used to orchestrate multi-step personalized campaigns. Users can start with briefs and experimentation and move through publishing and optimization, providing visibility across the entire stream. There’s also the presence of Spaces, which enable real-time collaboration between people and AI – turning disconnected tools into a coordinated system that supports continuous improvement through feedback and insights.

SitecoreAI Agentic Studio. Source: Sitecore

During his main stage presentation, Roger Connolly dove into the agentic details of SitecoreAI, demonstrating how a brief can be generated via Signals, and the system can build and optimize based on that context. He took the audience through a use case where brand agents can check assets while governance agents audit for specific liabilities – all while keeping humans in the loop.

He even used the same AI magic in real-time at scale, sharing a personalized Symposium agenda recommendation with hundreds of attendees, all based on publicly available details.

A real-time personalized Symposium agenda recommendation from SitecoreAI.

Several Sitecore customers are already utilizing SitecoreAI agents to execute specific tasks and functions. Berkeley Homes, one of the UK’s leading homebuilders, and AFL, a global provider of network infrastructure solutions, are using Contextually Aware Content Agents to generate content that better targets their key audiences across the right channels. Chris Gilbert, Head of IT at Berkeley Homes, talked on stage about the ability to capture signal-driven insights to turn neglected home sites into opportunities.

Two men on a stage

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

RegalRexnord’s Tim Dickson on stage with CPO Roger Connolly at Symposium.

Additionally, Regal Rexnord, a diversified industrial manufacturer, and Hexagon, a global leader in digital reality and precision measurement technologies, are leveraging Migration Tooling Agents to automate content and schema conversion as they consolidate dozens of legacy digital properties onto SitecoreAI – cutting timelines from months to weeks.

SitecoreAI Pathway

Migration. It’s the inescapable albatross that stymies modernization. As Dave Tilbury said, it continues to be a struggle for customers, but AI is opening up new possibilities – and Sitecore introduced a new solution that promises to ease and accelerate the scutwork of migration while giving partners and customers more space to focus on frontend transformation.

COO Dave Tilbury on stage at Synposium introducing SitecoreAI Pathway

Available now in the Sitecore360 package, SitecoreAI Pathway is a new service that leverages artificial intelligence to automate content migration. According to Tilbury, Pathway can cut migration time by two-thirds, allowing sites to move quickly from legacy Sitecore XP to XM Cloud. According to Dave, Pathway can also be harnessed to migrate from other platforms outside the Sitecore ecosystem, opening up the field for Sitecore adoption.

Why it matters

The SitecoreAI announcement might have registered on the Richter Scale. Its competitors certainly heard it. I spoke to numerous partners and practitioners throughout the day, and the news was clearly unexpected. But people were generally enthusiastic about the prospect of a unified intelligent system that learns as it works – and the potential it has for automating, accelerating, and streamlining their workloads.

There are a few things that really stand out for me. First, there’s the promise of a customizable SaaS native solution that has AI embedded at a foundational level. As Roger Connolly said, it’s not AI on top, it’s AI on the inside – and this architectural distinction gives Sitecore a distinct competitive edge when harnessing AI across its ecosystem.

Along with a unified ecosystem, SitecoreAI is also reducing the friction to add features as needed. They’re making it possible for brands to test-drive capabilities with a base entitlement, meaning they can experience CMS, DAM, and other tools to see how they work in a meaningful way – and scale when ready. This could make Sitecore a more attractive play for driving PoCs and experimenting. Again, reducing the friction.

One of the things I love about SitecoreAI is the ability to surface the data you need. Marketers don’t need more tools – they need clarity. By providing a clean interface that elevates the right resources, users can reduce cognitive overload and focus on what matters.

SitecoreAI Pathway also feels like a step in the right direction. It’s leveraging AI to attack the low-hanging hassles that migration presents, freeing up time to focus on high-value tasks. Beyond the content, there are legacy customizations that will require refactoring, but this could reduce the overall burden.

Sitecore’s shift to simplified pricing could shake up the DXP ecosystem. As software vendors experiment with different models like consumption-based pricing (I’ve seen this happening in the CDP space, for example), we’re bound to see more disruption. But the key here is that Sitecore is responding to customer feedback regarding its own pricing complexity. The fine print will spell out the specific details, but as Dave Tilbury said, no addons, no upsells, no tokens, no games. So this could be one of SitecoreAI’s most attractive attributes.

Finally, a note on trust. Because SitecoreAI is built on Sitecore’s governed AI framework, there’s the assurance of transparency, security, and compliance surrounding enterprise and regulatory standards. We can expect more – not less – governance across various global markets, and Sitecore has a proven advantage, having achieved benchmarks like HIPAA compliance.

SitecoreAI is certainly a bold step forward in the race for DXP dominance. As platforms chase parity along the agentic frontier, Sitecore’s focus on confidence, speed, and power is materializing in its vision for a unified system that provides the freedom and control that enterprises need to compete in an AI-driven market.

These tools are what brands need to find solid footing in this new era. As Eric Stine said, we’re living in a world beyond the website, where discovery is no longer driven by search, but powered by attention across social feeds and AI answer engines. Brands need to show up in these places at the right time with the right messages.

“SitecoreAI gives marketers the platform to do exactly that,” he said, “creating personalized experiences through a platform that learns as they work and helps them stay ahead of what’s next.”

It feels like next might be now.

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Sitecore Symposium 2025

November 3-5, 2025 – Orlando, FL

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November 20, 2025 – 6 PM (CET) / 5 PM (GMT) / 12 PM (EST)

Composable architecture promised to simplify digital experience creation by giving organizations the flexibility to combine the technologies that met their needs. But for many enterprises, it’s done the opposite, which has led to complex integrations, spiraling costs, and what some are now referring to as composable regret. In this live conversation, Umbraco CEO Mats Persson joins Matt Garrepy, Chief Content Officer at CMS Critic, for a candid exploration of what went wrong in the first wave of composable and what needs to change. Register for the webinar.

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November 25–27, 2025 – Düsseldorf, Germany

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January 13-14, 2026 – St. Petersburg, FL

Meet industry leaders at our fourth annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global CMS event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, so secure your tickets today.

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Shock and AI Awe: Sitecore unleashes SitecoreAI, its next-gen AI-powered DXP