Reimagining the Monolith: Sitecore’s Custom SaaS Era (and What It Means to Marketers in 2025 and Beyond)

As I travel back from Sitecore Symposium and MVP Summit, the phrase “This event is my Super Bowl of conferences” is ringing in my head and in my body. This is where the community of marketers, technologists, and strategists gather to see what’s next. It fills my head with an onslaught of knowledge while driving me through long hours of standing, walking, laughing, and networking with some of the brightest minds in the community.

I’m exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.

This year felt different from the last several and not because of a single big product reveal. The foundation of the platform itself is changing through unification, simplification, and acceleration in ways that matter to every current Sitecore customer and those looking to future-proof their martech stacks.

Sure, the product team launched new functionality: enhanced Portal, component-level personalization, a Marketplace, and Agents, but this year is really about a new licensing and enablement model built for client success. Sitecore has reimagined the monolith for the age of Custom SaaS.

Your Monday Moment: Accept or Not to Accept the New EULA?

Depending on when this is read, clients may already have or soon will see a pop-up in their XM Cloud instance asking them to accept the new Sitecore End User Licensing Agreement (EULA). When that happens, the transition from XM Cloud to SitecoreAI begins.

For clarity, it will be the Portal Admin, not the Portal Owner, who accepts the agreement. The reality is owners are often never in the system. Admins, that click carries weight: including the fact that it confirms authorization as an official signatory for your organization.

While pricing remains unchanged, acceptance aligns clients with Sitecore’s new terms and entitlement structure. You can decline initially and accept later, but once accepted, expect outreach from your Sitecore representative to ensure the transition proceeds smoothly.

The Updated Portal: A Unified, Intelligent Gateway. Not Just a Dashboard

Once inside SitecoreAI, the difference is immediate. This is now a single entry point for content, assets, optimization, analytics, and Agents, complete with a growing library of pre-built Agents.

Some features will not be live immediately but are expected as part of an end-of-year release.

For Marketers, this unlocks a broader world:

• Component-level personalization (a significant leap or re-leap?)
• Unified analytics (thank you Sitecore)
• Stream, the built-in AI co-pilot (and oh hey…we can help with readiness)
• Agents and Essentials-level access to DAM and Optimization (what was Personalize and Search)

Clients can start using these connected tools to expand personalization strategies, accelerate workflows, and make data-driven decisions through analytics that span the toolset.

Behind the new interface lies a smarter internal architecture. Sitecore has reorganized its solution teams, unifying analytics, permissions, and governance priorities. What looks like a design improvement is really the manifestation of an intelligent structure aligned to deliver Client value faster.

The Rise of Custom SaaS: Reimagining the Monolith

Remember when Sitecore had three products? Then it grew to twelve or thirteen. That expansion modernized the platform and created flexible, composable architecture. It worked, but Clients didn’t always want a disconnected menu of tools.

As Sitecore COO Dave Tilbury described, this is the “differentiator’s dilemma” where customizations and integrations that once provided competitive advantage become obstacles to modernization. Custom SaaS solves that dilemma. It retains SaaS speed and connectivity while restoring enterprise coherence.

With SitecoreAI, licensing is now simplified to one metric per capability:

Clients moving to SitecoreAI will find that each of the most popular Sitecore solutions are measured on one metric. This single metric differs based on CMS, DAM or Optimization.

Stream is included across all scenarios. Pre-built Agents are free, and Clients receive five build seats, with additional seats available at cost.

This doesn’t seem to be an exercise in raising prices. It aligns usage with measurable value. The structure remains flexible, but the experience is unified.

Behind the scenes, Sitecore’s reorganized teams are already accelerating innovation, with shared priorities across analytics, permissions, and governance. The result: faster releases, smarter integration, and a consistent experience across the platform.

Custom SaaS means composed with confidence…the best of both worlds.

Agents: The Quiet Revolution for Marketers

Every conversation I have with marketing leaders includes the same sentiment: “Our team and budgets are at an all-time low.” Agents are the unlock for doing more with less.

AgenticAI has become the word of the year, and for good reason. Agents are task-specific AI assistants that execute marketing workflows, learn from performance data, and free teams to focus on creativity and strategy. Think of campaign setup, variant creation, or continuous optimization, all automated and adaptive.

Governance starts simple. In this early phase, Agent permissions operate like a railroad switch—on or off. Organizations can enable or disable Agentic capabilities as a whole, ensuring safety while adoption matures. Over time, this will evolve to granular, role-based governance, giving Marketers, developers, and admins the right balance of freedom and control.

Agents don’t replace Marketers, they operationalize intent. And that’s where personalization begins to scale at speed.

What SitecoreAI and Agentic Mean for Personalization

For clients, this is the moment personalization truly accelerates. Licensing clarity removes barriers to adoption, while Agents reduce the operational lift of testing and targeting. Teams can spend less time configuring and more time crafting experiences that convert.

It’s also the next chapter in Value Acceleration. Sitecore and Velir are helping clients achieve ROI faster by aligning strategy, data, and activation. Personalization will stop being a pilot project and start becoming the standard operating mode of this new marketing era.

AI in 5: From Vision to Operational AI

Velir’s CTO, Corey Caplette, presented a standout session on AI Maturity at Symposium, outlining a framework that dovetails perfectly with Sitecore’s evolution.

Called AI in 5, it maps the path from vision to operational AI:

1. Frame It – Define goals and success metrics.
2. Find It – Identify your highest-impact AI opportunities.
3. Build It – Design and deploy assistive or agentic AI aligned to those goals.
4. Prove It – Measure outcomes and refine the models.
5. Scale It – Operationalize and govern AI for sustainable growth.

This is a clean maturity path. It mirrors the logic of Custom SaaS: clarity, adaptability, and measurable value. Whether activating personalization, improving search relevance, or training Agents, this model keeps the why ahead of the how.

Inside Sitecore’s New Marketplace: Innovation at Speed

This new addition to the Portal may feel familiar to anyone who’s used an app store—but it’s built for the enterprise world.

The Sitecore Marketplace will be discoverable, ranked, and curated, but only certified Sitecore developers and partners can create apps. This ensures enterprise-grade security, performance, and compatibility.

Sitecore provides the access structure, while apps are managed and purchased directly from their creators. Clients can expect personalization accelerators, analytics visualizers, AI Agents, and workflow connectors available in days instead of months.

For partners like Velir, it’s an opportunity to productize expertise and deliver faster outcomes. For clients, it’s choice and innovation without compromise. The Marketplace becomes the engine of acceleration.

Energy and Vision: A New Playbook for 2025

As Symposium and MVP Summit wrapped up, I couldn’t help thinking that Sitecore has finally found its new playbook.

• Custom SaaS provides the foundation.
• Agents bring the speed.
• The Marketplace brings the community.

Together, these tools mark the start of a new era built on clarity, connection, and creativity.

Sitecore has thrown the challenge flag, daring Marketers not to fully embrace personalization and accelerated content marketing.

Game on.