Key Takeaways from Dubai Sitecore DX 2024

vIn this blog post, Americaneagle.com Sitecore Solutions Architect and five-time Sitecore MVP Gaurav Agarwal shares his recent experience attending Sitecore DX Dubai 2024. It was an exciting event where attendees had the opportunity to listen to various speakers as well as connect with their fellow Sitecore community.

Here’s what Gaurav had to say about the most recent Sitecore conference.

Sitecore DX 2023

Lessons Learned at the 2024 Sitecore DX Conference in Dubai

Hi everyone,

I was fortunate to attend the Sitecore DX Dubai 2024 event and I learned some great information, so I wanted to share those things with you as well.

The keynote address was given by Sitecore Chief Executive Officer Steve Tzikakis. He mentioned that Sitecore is continuing to expand in the Gulf region with its two new offices in the Middle East, one in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and one in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Tzikakis’s keynote hit on three key components (also mentioned at the 2023 Sitecore DX conference in Minneapolis):

  1. Disrupt
  2. Accelerate
  3. Innovate

He gave some nice examples for the above categories like Apple for disrupt, Netflix for accelerate, and Uber for Innovate. He mentioned Sitecore made the decision for transformation four years back and created Sitecore XM Cloud. In contrast,  they previously only had Sitecore XP and XM, so they changed the platform from traditional to composable.

As we already know, there will be no more upgrades needed in XM Cloud. It’s easy to maintain, consolidates different technology into one place, works with any combination of technology, and connects with artificial intelligence (AI).

Photo of Sitecore CEO Steve Tzikakis presenting at Sitecore DX Dubai 2024

Tzikakis continued to lay out Sitecore’s three pillar focuses:

  1. Composable
  2. Versionless
  3. AI-infused

A composable, version-perfect example is XM Cloud, which is both composable and version-less.

Though XM Cloud is the fastest adaptive product, not every customer wants to move to XM Cloud those are already on Sitecore XP/XM, so Sitecore will continue to invest in Sitecore XP/XM as well.

Continued Emphasis on AI

After Tzikakis, Sitecore’s new Chief Marketing Officer Kathie Johnson took the stage. She explained three interesting facts:

  1. 67% of buyer’s journey are completed before talking to sales – Forrester Research
  2. 95/5 Rule – Rule that only 5% of your customers are actively in the market at any moment in time – Content Marketing Institute
  3. 7 Rule – Rule on how many times someone has to see the same message to act.

Sitecore’s Chief Marketing Officer Kathie Johnson presenting at the most recent Sitecore conference in Dubai

Johnson also outlined several more significant statistics regarding the future of AI and marketing:

  • By 2025, 30% of outbound marketing messages from large organizations will be synthetically generated, up from less than 2% in 2022.
  • By 2025, AI avatars leveraging text-to-video using generative AI technology will support 70% of digital and marketing communications.
  • By 2027, a major blockbuster film will be released with 90% of the film generated by AI (from text-to-video), from 0% in 2022.

She also mentioned two facts about how marketers are using generative AI (GenAI):

  1. Today GenAI, is used for content ideation and content creation.
  2. In one year, it will be used for Content Ideation and Content Scaling, as well as content scaling, personalization, and search.

Photo of Kathie Johnson explaining how marketers are using GenAI at Sitecore DX Dubai

Unveiling Sitecore XP 10.4

As the day continued, Sitecore Chief Product Officer Dave O’Flanagan walked the crowd through Sitecore XP 10.4, which will be released in April. He mentioned that over 200 customers requested updates. 

Also, he shared Sitecore is planning for Sitecore XP 10.5 as well.

Sitecore Chief Product Officer Dave O’Flanagan talking about Sitecore 10.4 at a recent Sitecore conference

One thing O’Flanagan mentioned that really stood out to me:

“It’s your DXP, not ours! Complete choice of solution is the future and we are the ONLY vendor to offer this to our customers.”

Sitecore DX Dubai concluded with the company proudly unveiling its groundbreaking initiative to accelerate the integration of GenAI across the entire content lifecycle. This builds toward the launch of Sitecore AI Studio, developed on the robust foundations of Sitecore’s composable DXP framework.

O’Flanagan then highlighted the AI content lifecycle. 

Sitecore's Chief Product Officer Dave O’Flanagan explaining the AI content lifecycle at Sitecore DX Dubai

I hope this gives you some insight into what went on at the most recent Sitecore conference. See you all next time!

Happy Sitecoring!

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About the Author

Gaurav Agarwal, Sitecore MVP

Gaurav
Agarwal

Gaurav Agarwal is Sitecore Solutions Architect and  four-time Sitecore MVP. Gaurav has several years of experience implementing Sitecore solutions and integrations, he also has experience with Sitecore Commerce as well. In his initial job time, he used to work as a full-stack developer.