Digital Experience
Sitecore Symposium 2019: What's Coming in 2020
Highlights from Sitecore Symposium 2019 — including Sitecore AI auto-personalization, XP 9.3, Content Hub 9.3, and the announcement of a five-year SaaS transition.
Sitecore Symposium 2019 was an exciting event with lots of great announcements, inspirational talks, and forward-looking discussions. Here are the highlights and what they mean heading into 2020.
New Releases
Sitecore continues to adhere to a 6-month release cycle. The following new releases were announced at Symposium 2019 and are expected within the Winter 2019 and Summer 2020 releases.
Content Hub 9.3
An enhanced Content Hub and Content Marketing Platform including Salesforce Marketing Cloud integration should be available in the Winter 2019 release, with tighter integration with XP. Content Hub 9.3 will also feature Content Engagement Value, DAM Video AI, and Open API specification in the Summer 2020 release. Forrester recently named Sitecore a Strong Performer in Digital Asset Management for Customer Experience.
Sitecore AI — Auto-Personalization
The Microsoft Commercial Partner team announced a partnership and co-built pilot solution with Sitecore, running on Azure AI, to be the first customer utilizing Sitecore AI with auto-personalization and segmentation analysis capabilities. Microsoft reported a ~16% lift in average engagement value and a ~30% increase in operational efficiency.
- First Phase: Auto-personalization (by end of 2019) and segmentation analysis
- Second Phase: Content AI (early 2020)
- Third Phase: Journey AI
Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) 9.3
XP 9.3 ships with general availability in December 2019 and includes Sitecore Horizon (a content-forward drag-and-drop authoring interface), Coveo AI-powered search as the default out-of-the-box provider (Lucene is officially being retired), and Sitecore Helix 2.0. Notable additions also include the Sitecore/Salesforce Marketing Cloud Connector, Docker container support in Summer 2020, SXA and JSS improvements, and the ability to install SOLR with the Sitecore Install Assistant.
Sitecore's SaaS Transition
"We are reinventing the standard with a modern SaaS platform where brands can realize time-to-value much faster and easily drive the digital transformations needed to stay relevant through an easy to use, configurable, and extensible platform." — Mark Frost, CEO, Sitecore
Sitecore will be transitioning to a fully SaaS model over a five-year period starting Summer 2020. MVPs and partners will be the first to get access to the latest developments. The SaaS offering will make it easier and faster to build digital experiences while maintaining flexibility for partners and customers to create differentiated experiences.
Experience Awards
Congratulations to all 2019 Sitecore Experience Award winners. The grand prize — the 2019 Sitecore Ultimate Experience Award — went to Subway and their agency Avanade.
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