GigaOm Radar for Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs)v3.0

1. Executive Summary

Digital experience platforms (DXPs) allow organizations to build personalized, engaging experiences that can be delivered across multiple channels and devices. With many organizations migrating to an online-only model, DXPs are becoming much more important for delivering these experiences. Many organizations are currently undertaking digital transformation initiatives, and the implementation of a modern, headless DXP can provide a good return on investment (ROI).

The advantage of a headless system, in which the content is separate from the applications that use it, is that the system is future-proof because applications that support new and emerging technologies such as the metaverse can work with the content in the DXP repository. In the case of the metaverse, vendors that include standalone or enhanced digital asset management (DAM) capabilities have an advantage, as they are more likely to support the types of digital assets and technologies required, such as 3D and spin sets, and likely already support technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). In terms of devices, DXPs should support computers, smartphones, tablets, internet of things (IoT) devices, kiosks, video screens, and more.

DXPs should also support a content repository, analytics, workflow, search, collaboration, and integration capabilities. Some of these capabilities may be basic, and organizations should be able to integrate more advanced tooling if required. As virtually all DXPs are cloud-native or cloud-first, many work with large cloud providers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft and use their cloud services in areas such as analytics to provide profiling information for creating personalized content and recommendations.

A new feature for this year is customer data platforms (CDP), which bring personalization capabilities that have been present in DXP for many years together with marketing automation features such as segmentation and marketing campaign creation into a single solution. Many vendors have added CDP to their portfolios by creating the solutions in-house or by acquiring one of the many standalone specialist vendors. This is an important capability in enabling enterprises to gain a 360-degree view of their customers, allowing them to provide relevant and highly personalized content that will drive sales.

Last year, vendors were experimenting with generative AI for generating text and images. The technology was initially used to enable less creative users to create text and images using written descriptions without any particular input. Vendors are now beginning to productize the technology, and we are seeing new use cases for it, as vendors are embedding it throughout their DXP portfolios. Use cases include automating processes such as generating responses to customer actions or, in conversational chatbots, offering advice, providing links to further information, or even performing tasks on behalf of users. However, the technology is open to abuse, and vendors must take measures to ensure that it is used safely and to prevent inappropriate use.

This is our third year evaluating the DXP space in the context of our Key Criteria and Radar reports. This report builds on our previous analysis and considers how the market has evolved over the last year.

This GigaOm Radar report examines 19 of the top DXPs and compares offerings against the capabilities (table stakes, key features, and emerging features) and nonfunctional requirements (business criteria) outlined in the companion Key Criteria report. Together, these reports provide an overview of the market, identify leading DXP offerings, and help decision-makers evaluate these solutions so they can make a more informed investment decision.