Is Optimizely Opal the next big leap in marketing transformation, or another complex promise waiting to be unlocked?
Opticon25 was full of optimism, credible insights and energy. The core theme was clear: how marketing and digital teams can turn AI from being used as an experimentation tool into a scalable strategy for competitive advantage.
There is no question that Optimizely continues as a global market leader in digital experience technology. But with new AI driven capability comes new complexity, and it is important to take a thoughtful look at what Opal really means for marketing and IT leaders in practice.
Here are some key highlights and a few important reflections from Opticon25 London last week.
Key learnings from Opticon 2025
Optimizely Opal has evolved from assistant to orchestrator
Optimizely’s biggest announcement was Opal as a full agent orchestration layer as part of its platform. It is no longer just a chatbot or content assistant. Opal now brings together AI agents, workflows, and integrations to deliver real outcomes.
Teams can build their own agents or customise pre-built ones, connect them to data, and orchestrate marketing workflows from designing brief to build and from test to report. This brings speed from ideas to execution, and that is where ROI happens.
Analytics continues to become smarter and easier to use
Marketers no longer need to wrestle with numerous spreadsheets. With Opal, you can ask an agent to generate a GA4 report or summarise performance across campaigns.
Optimizely’s extended analytics through Cloudflare integration, gives visibility into how AI models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity crawl your site. For digital leaders, this opens new opportunities in GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) and AEO (AI Engine Optimisation). Helping you understand how content is being found by both people and machines.
Platform thinking is winning
Alex Atzberger’s keynote reminded us that CFOs are increasingly focused on simplifying technology stacks. The shift is towards fewer, more complete platforms that deliver higher ROI and lower integration costs.
Optimizely’s vision is about bringing simplicity to complexity by connecting content, commerce, and data in one ecosystem. This focus on integration and stability gives organisations a stronger foundation for scalable digital growth.
Prebuilt agents bring faster value
Opal includes a library of prebuilt agents that can be tailored for each organisation. These can be combined in visual workflows to automate tasks such as campaign setup, reporting, and testing. This allows teams to reduce manual overhead, experiment quickly, prove value, and scale automation without starting from scratch every time.
Optimizely described this as a way of empowering digital teams with an “infinite workforce”.
Content needs to be ready for AI
The next wave of content strategy is not just about what you say. It is about how both people and machines read and understand it.
Optimizely’s upcoming CMS 13 is being built for an AI-first world. Features such as Visual Builder, content modelling, and automatic metadata generation will make content both visually engaging and structured for AI systems to interpret.
Data Intelligence is the engine behind everything
With the Netspring acquisition last year, Optimizely has embedded data warehousing and analytics directly into its platform. This reduces the gap between insight and action, improves governance, and helps decision makers move faster with more confidence. And as most digital leaders know, any analytics is only as good as the data it’s fed.
Adoption is growing quickly
Opal usage has grown tenfold in the past year, driving tens of thousands of agent actions each day across 50 countries. The UK is one of the fastest-growing regions, showing that this technology is moving from experimentation to everyday use.
What to consider before investing in Opal
Opal represents a bold step forward for Optimizely. However, like any major platform, its success depends on how well it is implemented, supported, and adopted. These are the questions every decision maker should be asking.
Start small and prove value early
Begin with two or three use cases that can be automated quickly, such as campaign reporting or SEO updates. Show early wins and scale from there.
Strengthen your data foundations
As with all analytics and Business Information tools, Opal relies on clean, connected data. Make sure your CMS, DAM and Data intelligence platforms are properly integrated and governed.
Bridge the gap between IT and marketing
Enterprise software is often purchased by IT but used by marketing. IT cares about resilience and interoperability, while marketing values usability and measurable impact. Both need to be aligned on their objectives from the beginning.
Be realistic about time to value
AI orchestration enables more intelligent Digital Transformation, but it takes time and expertise to configure, train, and embed technically and culturally. Organisations need to plan for greater change management effort as well as the technology, that aligns with business outcomes.
Focus on usability for the people who will actually use it
Editors, content managers, and digital teams need simple, intuitive workflows. Adoption will fail if it feels too technical or disconnected from daily work.
Prepare for GEO and AEO
Use Cloudflare analytics to understand how AI models crawl your content. This will help you optimise your structure and metadata for discoverability.
Keep experimentation at the centre
Automation should always connect to measurable testing so that teams can stay in control and build evidence-based improvement.
Define your integration strategy
Be clear about whether Opal will complement your existing AI tools or become your main orchestration layer. As always there are several integration points to consider. Clarity will help avoid duplication and unnecessary cost.
Set clear governance and safety rules
Decide who can create or deploy agents and how these are reviewed. Treat agent workflows with the same rigour as any other part of your technology stack.
Build new skill sets
Consider roles such as agent product owners, prompt engineers, and analytics translators. New tools require new capabilities.
Understand the commercial model
Opal runs on a consumption-based pricing model. Align usage with measurable outcomes to ensure predictable costs and visible ROI.
Measure adoption, not just deployment
Success is not about the number of licences but about active usage. Track where teams gain value, where they get stuck, and how productivity changes over time.
How DotCentric is helping clients realise the value of AI
At DotCentric, we are helping digital leaders turn the promise of AI into practical results. Our focus is on the intersection of technology, data, and customer experience , where AI can genuinely make work smarter, faster, and more measurable.
We partner with organisations to:
- Define the right use cases for AI, identifying where automation and intelligence can deliver measurable value across marketing operations and customer experience.
- Design and build intelligent workflows that bring together Optimizely’s Opal, analytics, and experimentation capabilities to improve efficiency and reduce manual effort.
- Run focused AI Value Sprints, short four-week programmes that turn ideas into working prototypes and provide a clear path to scale.
- Use data intelligence to analyse and optimise content and performance, helping teams understand how their digital experiences perform across both human and AI discovery channels.
- Apply experimentation as a continuous improvement framework, using structured A/B testing and audience insights to validate decisions, measure impact, and build long-term confidence in AI-driven initiatives.
Ready to explore Optimizely Opal?
We believe that AI success depends as much on clarity and adoption as it does on innovation. Our role is to help clients apply AI where it adds the most value, improving speed to market, enhancing decision-making, and creating digital experiences that continuously learn and evolve.
If your organisation is exploring how to apply AI across your digital platforms or wants to understand where to start with Opal, we can help you design, test, and prove it, one intelligent workflow at a time.
