Optimizely CMS Roadmap – AI, automation and the future of digital experiences

I was at Optimizely's big conference, Opticon, on September 30th. The conference took place in The Barbican Centre in London, the building that has been voted London's ugliest building. The common thread throughout the conference was Optimizely's platform for AI orchestration, namely Opal. Hardly a single presentation was carried out without Opal playing a role. It's perhaps not surprising, Optimizely wasn't the first to introduce AI, but it seems that those who have been waiting for something good haven't waited in vain. Opal is good stuff!

The CMS is an important part of Optimizely, because this is where it all started. The Swedish company Elektropost launched its first CMS in 1996. Elektropost later changed its name to Episerver. Episerver acquired Optimizely in 2020, and in 2021 changed its name to Optimizely to make it easier to attack the US market. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Roadmap Reveal: CMS

It was Tom Bramley, the product manager for Optimizely CMS, who presented the roadmap to the most eager, already at 08:05, well before CEO Alex Atzberger kicked off the conference with a cracking good keynote. My idea was that the roadmap presentation would provide answers to what will come when, but there I only got my expectations halfway met. He told us about what is coming, but completely without saying anything about when.

What was not said

The most important thing about the presentation was not necessarily what was said, but what was not said. Read the full blog post to find out what it was...

Three focus areas

Most presentations at Opticon started by presenting some themes, principles, or focus areas. The CMS roadmap was no exception. The following three areas were in focus.

• Built for AI. AI is redefining how we create and discover content. Brands need to move faster while staying in control.
• Built for marketers. There is increasing pressure to create more, with less. Marketers need to step up their game.
• Built for developers. The demands for flexibility are increasing. Developers can choose their tech stack without the risk of lock-in.

Opal for CMS 12

As mentioned at the beginning, there was hardly a single presentation without the AI platform Opal being mentioned, and the CMS roadmap was no exception.

• Opal is available from CMS 12, and you can build your own instructions and workflows.
• Opal is updated automatically (it's a SaaS solution), and you can use the same Opal account across all Optimizely products

Workflow Agents

A workflow can be built with drag-and-drop, without writing code, and you can compile different agents. A workflow can be started when content is published, a webhook is called, or at fixed intervals.

Content Modeling Agent

In addition to anyone being able to create their own agents on the Opal platform, Optimizely provides some ready-made agents.

An agent was demonstrated that takes a screenshot as input, and from the screenshot can generate a content model. The agent takes into account what content types already exist and will not create unnecessary content types. The agent will also look at existing naming and adapt to it, while trying to comply with Optimizely's best practices.

GEO/AEO Agent

GEO/AEO (Generative Engine Optimization/Answer Engine Optimization) are two terms you'll need to get used to, and it's all about adapting content so that machines get the most out of your content.

Optimizely has launched an agent that helps optimize content for machines.

Library Agent

Optimizely has also launched an agent that can tag and organize your images, as well as generate appropriate alt texts.

CMS 13

After the mandatory introduction with Opal AI, we came up with what I was most curious about, namely CMS 13. The upgrade to CMS 12 was extensive, due to the transition from the .NET Framework to .NET, and it is now four years since CMS 12 was launched.

• Built for speed, stability, and scale.
• Includes Visual Builder, Optimizely Graph (semantic search), and modern APIs.
• CMS 13 isn't an upgrade – it's your launchpad for the next decade!

It was said that the upgrade from CMS 12 to CMS 13 will be much less extensive than from CMS 11 to CMS 12. At the same time, it was mentioned as prerequisites.

• Authentication must be done with Opti ID, Optimizely's single-sign-on service
• Search & Navigation is deprecated, and searches should be done with Optimizely Graph

External content

Optimizely is launching a new way of working with external content. A big advantage of this is that you can handle multiple integrations in the same way, and the content will in many cases be experienced as if it is directly in the CMS.

Technically, this can work in two different ways

• The CMS contains a reference to the external content, and the external content is retrieved from the source each time it is used.
• The CMS contains a copy of the external content, and this copy is automatically updated when the source changes.

Content Variations + Experimentation

Optimizely doesn't just provide CMS, they also provide tools for experimentation and AB testing. Now you can create content variants, and start experiments, directly from the CMS.

UX Extensibility

For the PaaS version of Optimizely CMS, we have a number of options to expand the user interface, but for the SaaS version, this option has been absent. This is coming.

Search Reporting

After Optimizely launched Graph as a successor to Search & Navigation, the available features in the user interface have been very limited. Now search statistics are finally on their way.

Webhooks for CMS

In 2025, webhooks are considered a matter of course, Optimizely has also realized that, and this is finally coming.

Other things mentioned at the very end

• Built-in DAM, with some smart features.
• Front-end hosting for headless SaaS solutions, so also the "head" is hosted at Optimizely.
• JS SDK, with templates and examples.
• CMS Platform Plus, a new hosting variant for those with extra high uptime requirements

Things that were conspicuous by their absence

One of the advantages of attending conferences physically, and not just following a stream, or watching a video, is that you can ask questions and not least everything you pick up between the presentations themselves.

When will CMS 13 arrive?

It was not mentioned in the presentation, but from various credible sources I have been given Q1 2026 as the time frame, and that in practice means March 31, 2026, but hopefully a beta version will come as early as December 2025.

Common codebase and launch of features that have been "in prod" for a year already!

Throughout the presentation, and the points in this blog post, it is natural to ask the question: does this apply to SaaS or PaaS? Or both?

What I have suspected, and hoped, but not been sure of – I also got confirmed. The SaaS and PaaS version of Optimizely CMS have a common codebase, so everything released for SaaS will also show up in PaaS.

Features that are released for SaaS will be collected and released in larger releases as new major versions for PaaS. For this reason, CMS 13 will include the launch of features that have been in production for more than a year.

The requirements for Opal on CMS 12 PaaS

To adopt the Opal AI orchestration platform, the following must be in place

• One must activate an Opal instance
• You have to install a nuget package
• You must have authentication with Opti ID

What was also not mentioned here is that for CMS 12, Opti ID requires that you host the solution in Optimizely's own cloud platform, DXP.

CMS 13 requirements

It was mentioned that the following was a requirement for using CMS 13

• Login with Opti ID
• Optimizely Graph

What was not mentioned with a word, here either, is that at the moment, logging in with Opti ID requires that you host the solution in Optimizely's own cloud platform, DXP.

That is, if you want editors to be able to log in, the solution must be hosted in DXP. And that's a lot of the point of a CMS.

I have tried to get a clarification on this, without success. I really hope, and believe, that work is being done to find a solution to this.

If no change is made, one will in practice have no real choice regarding how CMS 13 PaaS will be hosted.

I hope Optimizely can provide clarity on this soon. For partners, developers and customers, this is not just a technical issue, it is about freedom of choice. Freedom of choice has always been one of the strengths of Optimizely, let's hope it stays that way. What do you think?