Opticon Stockholm has finished and my journey back to Yorkshire from #Onederland (via Oslo) has given me space to reflect.
Here are the Top (or should I say 'First') Three Things I think you need to know.
Personalization
The showcase announcement was of a new product. Personalization. A standalone composable SaaS tool allowing you to bring high-performance personalized experiences to your existing digital platforms, whether using other Optimizely products or not.
A new product, but not all new capability. Optimizely has offered personalization functionality across its products for over 10 years. This represents a consolidated packaging of that functionality, also improved along the way, now utilising the proven infrastructure and approach of their class leading experimentation tooling and data platform.
It becomes a further clear entry point into the Optimizely One suite, in an area that is still a priority for the CMO. It allows Optimizely to be compared more directly with competitor products knowing they have the additional strength and breadth of the Optimizely One platform to offer marketing teams. I’m interested to see what the analysts, the market and our clients make of the product, but it initially feels a clever, sensible and well executed move. More hands-on thoughts soon.
The execution of the connected platform
Two year ago after San Diego I wrote about Optimizely’s vision for their connected marketing platform (Optimizely One) and it’s clear to see how far they’ve come.
Simple, expected elements such as single sign-on, consistent navigation and look and feel are well in place, along with Optimizely Graph acting as a central interface to data for each element of the platform.
When considering DXP capability ease of use for end users is a primary consideration for IT buyers.
Adopting and composing your own DXP using multiple integrated vendor systems adds friction to everyday user tasks. Multiple logins, different interfaces, opposing terminology and non-aligned data. For large teams this friction is a real and often hidden efficiency cost that must be considered against the total cost of ownership (TCO). The “suite” will always win*
Optimizely One’s coherence is perhaps best illustrated by my first question at each product demo. “Exactly what product is this?” Even as an expert user and MVP I had to ask.
AI
A new feature that further ties the Optimizely One suite together is the emergence of Optimizely’s AI Copilot named Opal.
Sitting alongside key interfaces, ready and available to assist. It’s early days. To the trained eye it’s current form is just a thin contextualised wrapper over ChatGPT.
However, the vision again is clear.
Bring your own AI (BYOAI) - you can plug in different and specific AI models, such as partner vendor models or custom models trained on your data. A good example here is a model trained on a marketing team’s ‘tone of voice’ guidelines, able to generate copy in their house style.
Greater context - Optimizely trained models using your data securely from across the platform. A simple demo was shown allowing Opal to search through content in a SaaS CMS but imagine having access to a colleague(s) with encyclopaedic
knowledge of your current and past content, campaigns, customer data and optimisation efforts, who is able to connect the dots and provide insight about the next best thing to do.
AI is and will be the technology battleground for the next decade and Optimizely are forging a clear path (also I’ve heard rumours of more to come).
Finally, Opticon always provides a great opportunity to catch up with other partners, customers and friends to share stories, generate ideas and to celebrate success. It is of course always gratifying to see work you’ve contributed to be presented and held up as best example in a closing keynote.
Truly #Onederful
Love it.