How Sitecore and Gradial Use Agentic AI to Accelerate Marketing Execution
Oct 27, 2025 • 4 Minute Read • Tod Szewczyk, VP, Marketing Services
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The Big Bet: Why SitecoreAI Deserves a Deep Look
Nov 19, 2025 • 6 Minute Read • Elizabeth Spranzani, Chief Technology Officer
Sitecore made its biggest announcement at Sitecore Symposium 2025: the old XM Cloud brand is gone, replaced by SitecoreAI. Going all-in on "AI" was a bold statement, and it signals a shift more fundamental than a refresh. One that marks a decisive move toward an AI-driven digital experience platform.
"AI" in the Name: A Clear Signal
By rebranding XM Cloud as SitecoreAI, the company is saying that AI is more like a centerpiece than an add-on. From our perspective, this was a smart move. We've been waiting to see how Sitecore would raise its game in response to a landscape that's aggressively moving toward agentic, intelligent platforms. They kept the strategy quiet (which only raised expectations). And now, with Agentic Studio on the table, we appear to be in parity territory with the major agent platforms out there—though we'll know for sure once we test it in depth.
Customizable SaaS: A Real Differentiator
One of the more interesting claims from Sitecore is that you get the benefits of SaaS (faster updates, less infrastructure) in addition to the ability to heavily customize. That's a tough balance. Traditional SaaS tends to limit customization to avoid technical debt.
But Sitecore is saying: build your own apps, publish agents, tap into the marketplace.
For long-time Sitecore customers (many of whom have forged heavily customized stacks), this is a meaningful reassurance. The proof will be in how well this customization is managed, especially in terms of future upgrades, maintainability, and debt.
AI Included — No Extra Charge (Forever)
In my conversations with Sitecore leadership, one line stood out: the AI capabilities are included in the platform. There's no separate charge.
That's a meaningful commercial differentiation. In a world where many vendors are transitioning AI tools into token-based or credit-based pricing, this is a fresh take. Of course, the long-term economics still need to play out. Sitecore views this as a bet. One where broader adoption and usage will justify the cost.
It's a powerful move. Will it really be forever?
A Unified Azure Foundation + Simpler Metric Model
Another angle worth noting is that everything now runs on Azure (or will soon), and the pricing model moves toward a simpler metric (for example, visits or usage) rather than a tangle of modules and add-ons. For organizations that have been dealing with legacy licensing complexity, this could translate into fewer surprises and a cleaner commercial alignment.
SitecoreAI Licensing Model: Access More with a Single Purchase
One of the more interesting adoption drivers is Sitecore's new licensing model. When you buy SitecoreAI, which includes the core CMS (XM Cloud), you also get baseline entitlements to the broader suite of platform products, such as CDP, Stream, Search, Personalize, and Content Hub, under a usage-based entry model. In other words, you can explore more of the platform's capabilities without committing to full contracts up front.
Lowering the barrier to experimentation is a smart move, especially in enterprise platforms where procurement complexity and risk aversion often slow down innovation.
We'll be curious to see how this works in practice, including which modules you gain access to and how usage is measured, but the intent is clear.
Graph Architecture: Under the Hood Innovation
One of the deeper architectural claims is the graph model that encompasses all data to build context across content, audiences, signals, and behavior. I don't recall this being emphasized by many competitors. From our vantage point, if this works as promised, it could become a differentiator in delivering richer personalization and smarter Agentic workflows.
Studio Ecosystem: Four Key Channels of Extensibility
The tooling ecosystem surrounding SitecoreAI is well thought out and extensive. To summarize, SitecoreAI includes:
- Agentic Studio: a workspace for marketers to build, define, and manage agents, flows, and signals.
- App Studio: developer-oriented tools to build apps (public or private), integrate into the UI, and point to your own hosting.
- Marketplace: where apps and agents are listed, sold, or shared — bringing ecosystem momentum.
- Connect/iPaaS: third-party integrations, automation, orchestration (partner-white-labelled in some cases).
This four-part architecture signals that Sitecore isn't just delivering a "plug-in AI" approach. They're building a platform with ecosystem depth.
What SitecoreAI agents are out of the box to start?
SitecoreAI includes the following agents: Researcher, Content Generator, Blog Writer, Bulk Content Generator, Account Data Enricher, AEO/SEO Researcher, Persona Content Auditor, Structured Content Extractor, Translator, Brief Generator, Bite-Size (Snackable) Content Generator, Quote Extractor, Email Writer, Competitor Analyzer, Audience Summary, Summarizer, ABM Campaigns, Context Aware Content.
Additionally, users can expect a persistent AI chat box throughout all products.
Gradial: Extending the Reach of SitecoreAI
A partnership worth paying attention to is the one with Gradial, which serves as the orchestration layer connecting SitecoreAI's agents to third-party systems like Jira, ServiceNow, Figma, and Adobe.
Essentially, it's what allows SitecoreAI to reach beyond its native ecosystem and automate workflows across the broader enterprise stack.
For teams already living in those external tools, Gradial could be the bridge that turns SitecoreAI from a marketing-centric platform into a cross-departmental orchestration engine.
Sitecore suggests using Gradial whenever agentic workflows need to interact with external systems, and although the pricing and out-of-the-box capabilities aren't fully detailed yet, the potential is exciting.
It's another indicator that SitecoreAI isn't just about content automation—it's about intelligent coordination across the whole digital ecosystem.
Design Studio: Smarter Component Modification with AI
Another standout addition is the Design Studio, which brings AI directly into component design and modification. Teams can now adjust pre-existing components using natural language prompts—even at the code level—and supposedly will be able to push those changes back into a Git repository.
While it can't yet create components from scratch, it understands your design system and existing codebase well enough to make thoughtful modifications. This opens a new workflow for developers and designers alike, offering faster iteration, reduced friction between design and engineering, and more reuse across projects.
If Sitecore can continue to expand these capabilities while maintaining quality control, it could become one of the most practical and powerful AI-assisted design tools in the DXP space.
Legacy vs Cloud: What's Moving Forward
For organizations still running legacy (non-cloud) versions, Sitecore supports an upgrade path; however, the grander vision is the cloud story. From what we've heard, the legacy model for on-prem/XP will continue to receive AI innovation in the form of Sitecore Stream for XM/XP (e.g., writing tools, translation, asset extraction), but the pace and breadth will be greater on the SaaS cloud-first stack. If you're stuck on the older versions, it may be time to evaluate how much you want to invest in the short term vs getting ahead of the curve.
The Migration Path Matters
It's not just about new features. The real story is about how your organization makes the move.
SitecoreAI includes Sitecore Pathway, a migration tool. From existing versions (XM/XP) to the new platform and even from other CMS platforms, the goal is to make the process smoother and more automated.
Although it was essential for Sitecore to provide a migration solution for customers and prospects, Verndale's own migration tool, ForgeAI, takes migration a step further. ForgeAI combines automation with strategic content analysis to deliver greater flexibility and impact across complex use cases.
On top of that, the underlying data layer (CDP) has been re-branded to a Unified Data Layer, and there's an architecture shift from AWS to Azure (for cloud-only instances). The cleanup, migration, and data readiness are critical here during a site migration. You can't layer powerful agentic experiences on top of chaotic data foundations.
Developer Tools & External Agent Interaction
Behind the scenes, a new MCP Server is being introduced, enabling developers to interact with the CMS and other products from their IDEs, bringing external agents into the loop. This hints at a future where non-marketing workflows such as automation, DevOps, and system integrations also connect to the platform intelligence. If you're a technologist, this is worth diving into.
Optimism for the Future of Agentic AI
There are still questions.
How will the commercial model play out?
How deep will customization carry without creating maintenance overhead?
How clean and ready is the data foundation for organizations with legacy complexity?
But in my view, the overall direction is strong. Sitecore has laid out a compelling roadmap, featuring a robust platform architecture, commercial simplicity, and an ambitious ecosystem. The pieces are in place for a meaningful leap forward.
If you're an organization running or evaluating Sitecore—or just watching the DXP landscape—it's worth taking a fresh look at SitecoreAI. The boldest move may not be the AI tools themselves, but the structural repositioning of the platform around them.