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Sitecore infuses DXP with generative AI marketing features
Sitecore users, who typically build websites for large enterprises, now have automation for website building, marketing content and A/B testing.
Sitecore users now can access AI tools across the company's experience management platform with the release of Sitecore Stream, which combines branding strategy, marketing and generative AI for their websites.
The company released the new features and capabilities in conjunction with Symposium, its user conference, today in Nashville. Stream includes brand-aware AI, which ensures compliance with brand guidelines for AI-generated content; AI-enhanced workflows, which automates repetitive tasks such as A/B testing and web page generation; and generative copilots, which write blog posts and other content that also hews to brand guidelines.
Competing DXP providers such as Adobe and Acquia are racing to add advanced generative AI to their platforms as well.
Sitecore released its XM digital experience platform two years ago, but it didn't take off right away, said Megan Jensen, Sitecore portfolio specialist for Perficient, a consultancy and services provider. Customers weren't spending as much, and generative AI wasn't widely available. Now, things are different, and Sitecore Stream will get users excited, she predicted.
"Marketers spend too much time on things that don't add value -- tasky, repetitive stuff that eats up an otherwise productive day. Typically, that's the stuff that makes us hate our jobs," Jensen said. "Sitecore is building AI to do those tasks, which frees up marketing folks to do the creative, deep-thinking, strategic work that really adds value."
Sitecore CEO Dave O'Flanagan said that marketers will save not only time but also budget with these generative AI tools.
"Across the marketing workflows, whether you're thinking about creating images, optimizing images, changing images -- these are all tasks that historically have to go to a designer or have to go to an agency," O'Flanagan said. "Marketing work is evolving when an informed business user can do many of these tasks that historically need a team of people."
Healthcare users get HIPAA boost
In addition, Sitecore's XM Cloud, Content Hub, Customer Data Platform, and Personalize components of its digital experience platform are now HIPAA-ready for healthcare users. HIPAA privacy and security compliance can only be achieved by the HIPAA covered entity (i.e., the Sitecore healthcare user). But features such as business associate agreement (BAA) templates and other security tools make compliance more straightforward.
Healthcare is the third-biggest vertical industry Sitecore serves, O'Flanagan said, behind financial services and travel. Healthcare companies were among the original customers Sitecore won after its initial launch in Denmark in 2001. The company had enabled HIPAA compliance before, but it had been in the context of on-premises IT providers. Sitecore's cloud will offer the tools as well.
As a consultant, Perficient signs BAAs with its customers to assure HIPAA-compliant privacy and security for handling patient data. But having healthcare-specific tools built into the Sitecore cloud will likely be a bigger driver of cloud adoption.
"We have a lot of healthcare clients at Perficient within our Sitecore practice," Jensen said. "To ensure privacy and security, we're able to sign BAAs. But this can be a slow process given how seriously our clients take HIPAA compliance. They say, 'We want to move, but we don't dare, or legal won't let us until there's full HIPAA compliance.' I'm really hoping the announcements around HIPAA compliance will open the [generative AI] floodgates for healthcare."
Don Fluckinger is a senior news writer for TechTarget Editorial. He covers customer experience, digital experience management and end-user computing. Got a tip? Email him.
