In the first (and arguably best) Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the main character Jack Sparrow – played by the talented, if not controversial Johnny Depp – has a trusted compass in his possession. ‘Twas a MacGuffin of sorts, a light part of the plot that came in handy at just the right times.

A compass might seem apropos for a seafaring bloke. But this was no ordinary navigational instrument. While seemingly conventional in appearance, it was imbued with magical properties – pointing not just North or South, but to what the possessor most desired.

These supernatural qualities led Sparrow and his crew to some strange places, where they battled skeletons, demons, and comical missteps in pursuit of treasure.

And rum. There’s always rum.

In the world of digital commerce, there are no magical compasses to guide users to whatever their hearts desire. No, we must settle for ye olde “search,” and many websites and apps still struggle with making the search experience more elegant and less like hunting for buried treasure. This is especially important on the commerce side of the island.

It doesn’t take a pirate to know how search is the key to navigating the high seas of customer experience. But what about mapping that journey to where “X” marks the spot? How do design and UX teams find the magnetic North that creates the right kinds of experiences that lead customers to the goods they seek?

Without consulting the mystic Tia Dalma’s book of spells, there's a bevy of applications that can augment digital commerce solutions with a bit of “search sorcery” – and Gartner has (ah-hem) something “magical” for that.

The inaugural Magic Quadrant for Search and Product Discovery, released last week, is a new grid that tracks these tools, helping buyers better understand the landscape. It replaces Gartner’s Market Guide for Digital Commerce Search and represents the broader imperative for search and product discovery as part of digital commerce initiatives.

Authored by Mike Lowndes, Aditya Vasudevan, Sandy Shen, and Noam Dorros, this report focuses on the impact of search and product discovery in a world where composability is disrupting how enterprises build customer experiences – and AI is altering the fabric of CX.

I’ve read the report, and I think it’s a relevant and timely snapshot of market demand, user behaviors, and the industry’s general trajectory relative to commerce. It also codifies that consumers have developed a strong preference for search: up to 30% will opt for it first, and 43% will head straight for the search bar when using a retail website or app.

And of course, site searchers are two to three times more likely to convert. Given that, having great search is the textbook definition of a no-brainer.

Unfortunately, most websites and apps still manage to miss the mark, serving up the most basic features (as Sparrow might say, “really bad eggs”). Even today, search is still elusive for many brands. But as Gartner notes, in just a couple of years, conversational AI will transform how traditional search and browsing operates – making it easier, faster, and more accurate. Along with that, AI will also enhance the product discovery motion to help improve the journey.

I did a quick recap of the report, which is of interest to our CMS/DXP sector for two reasons. First, there are several digital experience platforms in the analysis, reflecting how legacy players are proactively addressing the need for more enhanced search and product discovery. Most of these capabilities were attained through acquisition and are still finding their footing. Still, it demonstrates how DXPs continue to consolidate more capabilities to complete the vision.

Second, builders are increasingly turning to apps like Algolia to address the search layer of their composable stacks. For digital commerce experiences, those tools are being integrated with headless CMSes and content platforms. A few platforms in this report also offer native headless CMS capabilities, expanding the value of their offerings relative to search and discovery.

Ready to do some privateering? Feel free to grab some rum. I’ll try to keep the sails tight as we tack into this report. Yo ho.

Search is the ballast of the boat

Gartner does a solid job of outlining what modern search means through the lens of digital commerce, and it’s precisely what you might imagine: improving navigation, filtering, product comparisons, and other functions that augment the experience.

Product search is key, but the report also focuses on other essential dimensions that go beyond the foundational capabilities to enhance product selection. These include things like merchandising, product recommendations, personalization, catalog navigation, and analytics – all the stuff you need to sail in the right direction.

Data is, of course, the real currency (or is it gold doubloons?) that powers search and product discovery solutions – enabling the essential features needed to surface meaningful results and ease the product selection experience.

I appreciate how these analysts focus on how search results can be expressed, often in visually engaging layouts or with video and other media. This is a critical area of continued transformation that will influence buying decisions, and apps with these features will have a leg up.

The report outlines some of the core and standard capabilities that these solutions should possess, and most are logical. We’re all familiar with autocomplete and keyword capabilities, but best-of-breed solutions in this MQ had to deliver on multiple fronts with integrations, multi-variate A/B testing, visual search features – and, of course, new forms of conversational AI.

But wait… what’s that “Product Discovery” thing again?

For most swabbies and scallywags, digital commerce is anchored on the frontend. But designing and developing those experiences requires product teams to identify and define the right product or feature to build.

This is where product discovery comes in. In the same way that search guides customers, product discovery is a compass for brands to navigate the journey to from product inception to market readiness. It can apply to new offerings or iterative versions, but the goal is to deliver better products with greater value.

Product discovery follows a logical trajectory, starting with user research and an analysis of the market landscape. Then there’s ideation, prototyping, and testing, which ultimately lead to a validated product that’s (hopefully) ready for prime time. Then, it's all about continuous optimization and improvement.

The new MQ report provides insight into the market-leading tools that best support product discovery. It illuminates which platforms possess the right mix of features – things like personalization, recommendations, administrative consoles for developing enhanced merchandising, and even visual builders for creating guided selling experiences.

On that note, visual tools continue to demonstrate their importance – enabling teams to create, experiment, and adjust more rapidly during the discovery phase, often with drag-and-drop simplicity. Pairing these capabilities with visual search also creates more immersive experiences for customers, improving conversions and driving more sales.

Unpacking the Leaders

The Gartner Magic Quadrant for Search and Product Discovery analyzes 18 vendors across its patented quadrants of Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players. You can get additional details from the published report on how these areas are defined, but the MQ is an institution and fairly intuitive.

It’s no shocker that Algolia is in the pole position. The search giant has been a go-to solution in composable stacks for quite some time, and its name is practically synonymous with search. They’ve invested deeply in AI, making their solutions both rich and highly extensible to a wide range of applications – from basic site search to advanced enterprise applications. They’re also flexible at multiple market levels, making them an attractive play.

Nearly in parity is Bloomreach, which we’ve followed extensively on CMS Critic. Its Loomi AI is explicitly geared towards product discovery motion and offers a broad suite of personalization and merchandising features to complete the vision. While composable to its core (and like Algolia, a member of the MACH Alliance), it also sports its own headless CMS with easy-to-use tools for launching omnichannel commerce experiences.

Coveo rounds out the top of the pack, providing a focused enterprise offering around its AI-powered semantic search, recommendations, personalization, and generative answering. They’ve been at this for nearly two decades – longer than many of their direct competitors – and have carved a reputation as a reliable platform with deep customization capabilities. They are a solid contender at the top.

Lucidworks and Netcore’s UNBXD trail a bit behind, but still shore up the Leader quadrant by offering some mid-market solutions with notable advantages. Lucidworks weaves in some interesting Knowledge Management solutions to round out its commerce and “Searchandising” capabilities, while UNBXD offers DAM, PIM, and lifecycle management concentrations. This provides some unique choices while achieving the core requirements for search and product discovery.

Sitecore is sailing with the Challengers

And it's also one of the few Gartner-charted DXPs included in the mix. This is due in no small part to its acquisition of Reflektion in 2021 (which we covered), powering its broader digital commerce strategy. Reflektion’s AI was remarkable for its time, enabling brands to predict patterns, context, and needs – and ultimately convert more shoppers into buyers.

Synthesizing the Reflektion core, the company now offers two solutions in the search and product discovery cohorts: Sitecore Search and Sitecore Discover. As the names suggest, the combo offers a complete footprint for content search and discovery features like personalization and merchandising.

Sitecore’s position “reflects” (pun intended) the efforts of DXPs to integrate search and product discovery features into their basket of goods, offering a more comprehensive platform of solutions. At the same time, DXPs are shifting to a more composable stance, enabling enterprises and brands to leverage these products independently. Such is the case with Sitecore’s search and product discovery tools, which can be acquired separately from its core DXP solution set.

Unlike the Leaders, Sitecore’s solutions in this space are secondary to its core DXP offerings, making it less focused – and as such, less robust. Still, it is positioned with some gusto, and certainly has room for improvement.

Alongside Sitecore, Hawksearch and GroupBy provide some solid mid-market alternatives. Hawksearch’s Zeus AI promises improved relevancy with image search, concept search, generative AI, and more. Its NLP and advanced site search also provide intelligent search and recommendations – ensuring that customers aren’t lost in a sea of products.

GroupBy is juiced by Google’s Vertex AI Search for Retail, giving it the added power and scale along with inherent limitations that come with dependency. It offers some fantastic search and filter, personalization, and merchandising capabilities, and is now offered on the Shopify App Store.

What makes Google (just) a Visionary?

OK… “just” a visionary might be selling it short. Simply put: Google is search. Or was. Or will be again. Hard to say exactly which one of those is right. We’ll have to consult Jack’s magic compass.

On this we can agree: they have owned search. And now, with its Vertex AI, they're independently challenging the market while acting as a catalyst for other platforms (like GroupBy) to power their search and product discovery. All this is amidst the “AI War” being played out across the Big Three cloud providers, where their multi-billion-dollar gamble in artificial intelligence is being disrupted by novel LLMs on Hugging Face. It’s true – go check them out.

I think it makes sense to park Google in the Visionary quadrant. Even with its early (and embarrassingly public) AI missteps, they’ve been at the forefront of the GenAI revolution. They arguably have more data and knowledge than any other platform in play and, thus, should have some of the best models to boot. They also have decades of wisdom packed into their semantic search capabilities.

That said, Google is markedly weaker around the discovery toolset. They don’t offer the kind of merchandising resources that can power ideation and experimentation, which is why they might best fit as an engine for other platforms. However, this is Google we’re talking about. They might wake up tomorrow and buy one of these contenders, dispelling any questions about their market dominance.

Constructor is the only other vendor in the Visionary grid, and according to Gartner’s positioning, further along than Google. Its AI-powered Native Commerce Core transformers deliver hyper-personalized experiences, and the company is bold in its affirmation of success against legacy competitors: on its website, it claims that its differences are more than theoretical, suggesting its solutions have never lost a single A/B test against 70 competitors.

Don’t count out the Niche Players, savvy?

Eight vendors are in the Niche Players quadrant – Algonomy, Crownpeak, Factfinder, Klevu, Nosto, Searchspring, Yext, and Zoovu – and the report provides solid pros and cons for each. By virtue of being in this corner of the grid, these technologies are the least mature in their completeness of vision and ability to execute within the MQ’s stated mission.

It’s worth noting that a quick search of the pure-play products here will reveal how competitive the field has become. A few of these platforms are running aggressive paid search campaigns against one another. Clearly, they view themselves in parity and are leveraging SEO and search marketing to capture interest – which can signal a bit of commoditization.

That said, there are some cool technologies in the mix. Klevu’s Discovery Suite offers some dynamic AI-powered optimization capabilities, providing transformative improvements for conversion rates through targeted user intent and real-time data synchronization. It’s also a composable MACH-certified solution.

Like Sitecore, Crownpeak is another DXP included in the search and product directory – and like its peer, they arrived in the mix as a result of an acquisition. The company purchased Attraqt in 2022, a SaaS solution that powered product discovery experiences for brands and retailers around the globe.

Attraqt’s omnichannel AI-powered product search, merchandising, and recommendation software energized Crownpeak’s composable digital experience product offerings, which runs under the banner of “Fredhopper." While Crownpeak’s strengths rest in its core DXP, the addition of search and product discovery has further expanded its value range.

Yext is a solid contender and another platform that offers a headless CMS in its ecosystem. Yext has a terrific reputation around its listings and location capabilities, but also provides an expanded breadth of AI-powered features around content and generative AI. Its enterprise search provides a good deal of frontend and backend customization capabilities, a drag-and-drop Search Merchandiser, and some other nifty features – including a REST API for building custom experiences.

The Niche Players cohort is apt to change with more investment in AI, but this is a good preliminary snapshot of the field as it continues to evolve and become more meaningful to brands building their commerce CX.

Why it matters, matey

In the first act of Pirates of the Caribbean, there’s a scene where Elizabeth Swan asks the nefarious Captain Barbossa to “parley” – a permutation of the French word parler, which means to speak. It’s a footnote in “The Pirate's Code,” allowing anyone to negotiate with a ship’s captain without fear of being attacked.

Barbossa doesn’t reply in kind, suggesting “the code is more like guidelines than actual rules.” Yo ho.

Analyst reports are similar in this way. They’re not full-throated validations or condemnations, but guidelines to help buyers make better decisions about technology. That said, there are certainly alternative platforms on the market that deserve a shake, both upstream and downstream.

This includes Elastic’s Swiftype, which offers a sweet SaaS appliance with dynamite analytics, semantic controls, a simple integration, and ultra-clear pricing. It’s not as robust as other enterprise offerings, but I’ve used it extensively, and its toolset is good enough to make any site’s search experience better. Elastic also offers enterprise-grade search further upstream.

The presence of as many MACH-architected solutions in the mix further demonstrates the growth of composable and headless solutions (in fact, it’s one of the compelling preferences in the report). Most of the stand-alone, out-of-the-box products are highly integrative, making them easier to add and orchestrate within composable omnichannel stacks.

At the same time, the fact that Sitecore, Crownpeak, Bloomreach, and Yext are at the table lends further credence to DXPs and integrated platforms drifting towards composability – and the essential need for search and discovery to be part of the digital commerce toolbox.

I gotta say a thing or two about pricing. We all expect downstream mid-market products to have clear pricing (it’s like the Second Amendment in the SaaS “Bill of Rights”). We can also anticipate that enterprise platforms will be less transparent about costs due to the custom dimensions of large deployments.

Hawksearch and its peers tend to have the most accessible and intuitive pricing schema, which makes it so much easier to assess TCO. At the top, Algolia provides API costs per request, but in the case of Bloomreach, I kept clicking on the word “Pricing” in multiple places, only to be led to form after form. There’s even a link that says “View Pricing” that drops me off at a link to “Request Pricing.” Shiver me timbers.

With respect to AI, every player in this field is leveraging it to juice search and discovery, but only Google is proving to be both a participant and an enabler. Gartner outlines which cloud offerings are available for each independent platform, but Google stands apart as a Visionary with some of the richest semantic search and SEO (not to mention all the data) and as a cloud backbone.

Google's continued investment in its Vertex AI – and GroupBy's utilization of its Search for Retail solution on the same MQ – further demonstrate its continued omnipresence in the market. The big question is: How will other LLMs and new platforms continue to disrupt the search marketplace, elevating competition and driving down costs?

The Gartner analysts behind this report have done yeoman's work digging into the space and shining a light on the indispensability of search and discovery. The report delves into the rationale, and it’s absolutely worth a read if you're considering a purchase. There are obviously more vendors in the landscape, but this is a great set of guidelines for starting the journey – especially as digital commerce continues to explode.

As you raise the main and set sail towards new lands of commerce opportunity, it’s important to remember that there are solutions to improve the search experience at almost every level. No site or app should consider search and discovery as afterthoughts, and the scope of available options makes that abundantly clear. Starting with a handy report like this helps streamline the research and elevate the best-of-breed solutions you should be considering.

Drink up, me hearties.

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Yo Ho! Gartner’s New Magic Quadrant for Search and Product Discovery is a Compass for CX