Recapping the DXP Industry 2023 (And Looking Ahead to 2024)

In 2023, DXP vendors rolled out new products and services or released new features to keep up with evolving technology trends and enterprise requirements. We analyze the key moments that have impacted the DXP industry and point out what we think will be the noteworthy trends coming in 2024.

A Look Back at 2023 In the DXP Industry

The year 2023 hasn’t only been notable for Oshyn as a DXP/tech agency but also for the entire digital experience industry. Here are some of the key events that occurred:

Vendors Integrated AI

Multiple CMS and DXP vendors integrated artificial intelligence in 2023, from Adobe and Sitecore to Optimizely, Contentful, Contentstack, and others. Vendors adding generative AI have brought solutions like ChatGPT and DALL-E closer to where business users publish content, making it easier to scale personalization and other marketing campaigns.

Optimizely Gets Analyst Recognition

2023 was a big year for Optimizely as the DXP vendor was positioned as a Leader in multiple Forrester quarterly DXP reports reflecting the company’s significant achievements over the last few months. Optimizely also announced new products in Optimizely One and Content Graph, with plans to launch a SaaS product over the next 12 months. These announcements show that Optimizely is using its acquisitions to address the market interest in composability.

Optimizely’s mantra is similar to one we use at Oshyn - providing the flexibility for customers to do what makes sense for their business. Whether that means adopting a composable or a traditional approach to building a website or assembling a DXP, as long as it supports business needs accordingly.

Sitecore Launched XM Cloud Plus and Sitecore Accelerate

A pivotal moment for Sitecore in 2023 was the launch of XM Cloud Plus and Sitecore Accelerate. While previous Sitecore messaging centered around a complete shift to composability, it impacted how Sitecore was viewed by enterprises and in analyst reports. With the launch of XM Cloud Plus, Sitecore is repositioning itself as a reliable vendor with numerous products and services that will satisfy customers in 2024 and beyond.

AEM Continued Its Industry Dominance

Adobe Experience Manager remained the premium choice among enterprise companies looking for a DXP, as reflected in analyst reports and customer choices in 2023. While the rest of the stack offered composability to some extent for a while, AEM has doubled down on its headless initiatives in 2023 with an improved user experience that can provide customers with various options.

5 Key Trends and Predictions For 2024

We’ve looked back at what 2023 gave us, but what’s in store for 2024? We expect these key trends to impact the digital experience space in 2024 and beyond.

1. The dream of 1:1 personalization finally becomes reality 

⠀Personalization has been a hot topic in the digital experience space for quite some time and has long been seen as almost the holy grail of customer satisfaction. However, the challenge in accomplishing 1:1 personalization and delivering the perfect customer experience was never related to the available tools; it was a question of people-power.

For example, the content required to deliver a personalized experience to 10 personas instead of 5 isn’t double the work. It will likely be four times the amount of work or more. In 2024, integrating AI across various DXP solutions will enable businesses to solve this problem more efficiently.

Using AI, enterprises can generate content variations expeditiously and automate administrative tasks. For example, AI can provide a way to set up A/B tests, list the variations, run the test, and sort the results.

Companies that are able to accomplish personalization at scale today have large teams to generate content and pull various levers to organize everything. With the assistance of AI in 2024, teams will be able to accomplish personalization with smaller teams and do even more with larger teams.

2. Developers jobs will remain relatively safe

⠀One of the caveats of artificial intelligence is that jobs will be lost as AI becomes capable of doing more tasks, and humans need to retrain in new roles. While this may be true in the coming years, in 2024, developer jobs, in particular, should remain relatively safe.

Copilots and other technologies have enabled developers to become more productive and can help speed up some tasks. However, everyone, particularly multimillion-dollar enterprises, isn’t ready to entrust everything to machines yet. The current iteration of AI isn’t capable of generating anything that can work on its own consistently and developers will still need to pull everything together and triple check.

For example, similarly to how self-driving cars have been scaled back slightly due to the issues they can pose to public safety, businesses won’t be ready to completely trust AI for critical tasks in 2024. Building the five-page website for a small laundromat may be possible, but not for a global enterprise that receives millions of visitors per month. Additionally, when building websites, companies overly reliant on AI may risk opening themselves up to security threats or flawed code, which developers must fix.

3. Growth of digital experience composition

In 2024, the importance of digital experience composition (DXC) tools will continue to rise. When businesses go composable, they receive faster websites, which can be seen in better Google Lighthouse and PageSpeed scores.

The challenge is that enterprises accustomed to the robust marketing features found in DXPs now have a slightly reduced experience as everything needs to be pulled in from different SaaS solutions. This can be tough for some enterprises as it requires significant coordination of multiple tools, licenses, and admin panels. Digital experience composition enables marketers to operate headless and composable sites more efficiently.

4. Deeper partnerships with enterprises and implementation agencies

Implementation partners and agencies are pivotal to the success of any enterprise that wants to maximize the performance of its DXP. A few years ago, companies would outsource the entire web and digital experience to agencies that would manage everything. While this would mean too much control of content and data assets being ceded to a third party today, this variation could return in 2024 as the DX space evolves.

Enterprises that need agency support already may wonder why they need to hire an internal expert to orchestrate the entire digital experience, pull tools together, and build a new ecosystem. Instead of handling the technical aspects, marketers and other business users can enable agencies to handle everything, like Oshyn, while they simply manage approvals. They can then focus on tasks that move the needle, such as crafting compelling stories, solidifying positioning, and generating demand to increase sales.

5. Augmented reality may finally truly emerge

2024 may be the year that augmented reality (AR) truly emerges as a consumer channel. With the launch of Apple Vision Pro, AR devices may finally start to become mainstream and begin the long road to eventually replace your smartphone. These devices support a different experience that adds to the world around you and makes everything feel real.

2024 promises to be an exciting year for the digital experience space. If you want to ensure you can capitalize on these coming changes, contact us today for assistance.