Sitecore Summer Vibes: The Hot New AI Features

Sitecore teased a big feature release in June a couple of months ago at SUGCON Europe. Wow, did they deliver! We got new features across the entire suite, most driven by AI. Sitecore’s summer vibes (key themes for this release) are Intelligent Content, Self-Serve Marketer, and Optimization & Insights. Here are my highlights and more details:

Custom applications & dashboards (XM Cloud)

Creating custom applications to extend XM Cloud has been a long-awaited feature for partners and MVPs. The Sitecore Marketplace is the first phase, and it will house custom apps to extend XM Cloud (e.g. SEO analyzer, bringing Google Analytics into the XMC analytics dashboard, etc.) This opens a world of flexibility for those on the SaaS platform.

Each user can now configure their own dashboards in XM Cloud also, based on what is important to them. Dashboards are completely customizable — you can integrate Google Analytics, add custom widgets, show upcoming campaigns or content performance, etc. This functionality makes it easy for each user to see what is important to them in the CMS at a glance when they first log in.

Translation assistant (CMS)

One of the biggest pain points for large enterprises with multiple sites/regions/locales is translating content. Not many vendors have had an out-of-the-box connector with XM Cloud historically, so this process has continued to be very manual and involve multiple steps.

Sitecore has announced a translation assistant for both XM Cloud and XP, that allows you to use AI to speed up translation with no outsourcing. This is currently only available for components, with full-page translation abilities coming soon. In XM Cloud the translation is built into the Pages editor, while in XP you can choose what to translate in a multilist field. It will be interesting to see how this feature performs and how it may compete with or complement third-party translation providers.

Guided image search (DAM)

This AI-driven feature in Content Hub DAM is “coming soon,” which should be by mid-July, but it will be a cool one. This feature builds on the AI visual search feature that is already available in Content Hub and allows you to view similar assets based on what the target asset looks like.

Guided search uses natural language processing and allows DAM users to describe the asset they are looking for very loosely. The AI model will understand vague or open-ended inputs and return matching assets – enabling you to find what you’re looking for in a fraction of the time.

Code assistant (CDP & Personalize)

Sitecore’s CDP and Personalize products are very powerful, especially when paired together and when used alongside XM Cloud. However, with great power comes great responsibility — and to unlock the greatest power in these tools, you do have to do a bit of coding.

Enter the new Code Assistant — which outputs JavaScript and SQL based on natural language prompts. This powerful feature puts more control over the customer data and personalization workflow where it should be — with the marketers. Marketers should not have to create a development ticket for personalization and running queries for advanced segmentation.

Other key features in this release

• Design library: Now available in XM Cloud! I detailed this feature in my SUGCON recap so I didn’t feature it here, but this is a big one. You can explore, preview, and manage all components in one place — also contains ready-made templates.
• Site templates: Coming soon to XM Cloud. Create, customize, and publish new websites without a dev ticket. These templates can be used for new campaigns, consistent branding, and greater speed to market. Sitecore provides 3 site templates in XM Cloud to start.
• Long-form content assistant: Available in several SaaS products, this AI feature lets you build and iterate on long-form content for articles or whitepapers.
• Campaigns, campaigns, campaigns: AI-powered campaign task and deliverable suggestions (product-agnostic), Smart briefing to turn brand guidelines and past campaign data into a well-informed brief in seconds (Content Hub Operations). Newly added enterprise permissions allow you to orchestrate deliverables across Sitecore products and add third party agencies to campaigns.
• Brand kit additions: Brand kit sub-sections like sustainability, Brand kit APIs to directly interact with your brand kit. Examples: you can upload documents from external systems and Stream will organize it into sections, and you can apply your brand kit to rewrite a paragraph. These features are product-agnostic and came directly from customer and partner feedback.
• Embedded fields: Group related content to simplify updates and reduce duplication. Make one change that is reflected everywhere the field is used.
• Content SDK: A radical update that modernizes the developer experience and greatly reduces the file size associated with Sitecore. Code has been reduced by 54% and files by 65%. Yay!
• Content extraction: Feature for XP CMS. You can use templates to auto-generate Sitecore content items from document or text uploads. This greatly reduces manual effort and increases ability to scale.
• Connect your own AI: Available now in Content Hub DAM — use your own AI to power image tagging and apply custom logic and taxonomy. This is a powerful feature for organizations with multiple brands and complex systems. It’s easy to set up right in the Content Hub interface — no custom integration required.
• Bulk ground image tagging: This is a premium feature that is coming soon to Content Hub DAM. It allows you to bulk tag images in one swoop using your brand-trained AI. This functionality is faster and more consistent and makes it easier for you to find the assets you’re looking for.
• Generative Q&A for Sitecore Search: This is a premium feature that leverages your indexed content to deliver conversational answers to users when they interact with your search. AI detects users’ intent and delivers source material with answers to reduce load on the support team.
• Group ordering in OrderCloud: Multiple users can contribute to a group order (add and track their own items) with a single user submitting and “responsible” for the order.

I love seeing more AI features added to CDP, Personalize, Search, and OrderCloud, along with more enhancements to XP (all Stream capabilities are available for XM/XP version 10.2+). I was also very happy to hear that several of these features came directly from customer, partner, and MVP feedback. Sitecore is listening and taking action based on user needs. It will be exciting to see these features in use as well as what announcements will come at Symposium in November!

Horizontal is an original Platinum Sitecore implementation partner, with 31 Sitecore MVPs and over 20 years of experience. This is what we love doing every day — reach out to us if you have any gaps across technology, strategy, creative, or data.