AI is changing how customers discover, compare, and decide; giving marketing technology a new job. Not just publishing content. Not just managing campaigns. But making sure a brand shows up clearly, consistently, and in a way people can act on — across websites, search, social, and now AI-generated answers. That is the challenge customers care about. Getting the message right, and making sure it is visible in this new AI-first digital landscape. And making it actionable when the moment of intent arrives.

That is where two-star DaVinci Award® winner SitecoreAI shines. It brings together content, data, and orchestration so marketing teams can plan smarter, create faster, personalize more effectively, and deliver experiences that hold together across every touchpoint.

Because while AI has absolutely changed the game, it has also raised the stakes. If your messaging is fragmented, or your data is inconsistent, AI does not fix the problem — it amplifies it. And that is when your carefully planned game of marketing chess turns into Calvinball.

SitecoreAI does not employ AI as a tool or component: it’s built directly into the platform. To understand more, we spoke with Mo Cherif, VP of AI and Innovation, Sitecore.

“A few years ago, the website was the digital front door. Marketers could design the journey, instrument the funnel, and that was that. Fast forward to today, and that’s changed.”

“Buyers now ask questions, compare answers, and form opinions in AI answers, search results, social feeds, and recommendations — without ever visiting a website. And they are doing it faster than most marketing teams can react.”

“The problem is that most enterprises are still operating with fragmented content, disconnected tools, and manual workflows. Marketers need the simplicity of SaaS and the freedom to tailor the product around brand-specific processes.”

“Exactly. For a long time, companies were asked to choose between control and simplicity. You could customize deeply and carry the weight of complexity, or you could modernize into SaaS and give up differentiation. That is a false choice. Brands need the simplicity of SaaS and the ability to shape the system around how they actually work, and that is the gap we set out to close.”

“At its core, SitecoreAI is a unified, omnichannel marketing platform that helps teams plan, create, personalize, and activate from one system. It gives marketers one place to structure content, govern it, and apply it so a clear answer to the market holds up across websites, apps, search, social, and the world beyond the website.

“What matters is that AI is built into the platform, not bolted on after the fact. When AI lives inside the system, it can reduce manual effort, shorten the distance from insight to action, and help teams move at the pace decisions are now made, while still keeping standards, approvals, and accountability intact.

“Sitecore Studio is the governed environment that lets customers, partners, and developers extend that platform safely. They can build agents, workflows, connectors, and extensions that fit their business, which means they do not have to choose between modernization and differentiation.”

“What makes it unique is the combination of agentic AI that can plan and execute across workflows, governed extensibility that enterprises can trust, and a custom SaaS model that lets organizations shape the platform to their needs without breaking reliability. This unified approach turns AI from a bolt-on assistant into the operational engine of marketing.”

“I break it into three jobs that every brand has to get right if it wants clarity at scale.

“Orchestration – Know what question your brand is the answer to, then organize content planning, creation, and approvals around that. When teams work from one source of truth instead of a patchwork of briefs, assets, and workflows, they move faster and the brand sounds like itself every time.

“Discovery – Make that answer easy to find and easy to trust. Content has to be structured and governed so AI systems, search engines, and other platforms can understand it, assemble it correctly, and present it in the right context for both people and machines.

“Connect and convert – When intent shows up, the experience has to feel relevant, useful, and connected to action. That is where data, personalization, and activation come together so clarity does not just exist in theory. It actually helps move a decision.”

“Customers have always followed their curiosity. But increasingly, they do it inside systems that summarize, rank, and recommend on their behalf.

“That shift is driving the next big development in our sector because marketers are no longer just publishing content for people to browse. They are making meaning usable in the moments where decisions form, which is why brands need to be coherent, trusted, and distinctive online, across owned experiences and the expanding digital world beyond the website.”

“I would frame it a little differently. It is not that curiosity disappears. It is that the interface between curiosity and decision-making changes. AI answers, search, feeds, and assistants increasingly become the first touch, and sometimes the only touch, so brands have less control over sequence and more responsibility for clarity.”

“Exactly. The old playbook was built around getting someone to a destination. The new playbook is about showing up clearly wherever consideration happens. If your content is not structured and governed, other systems will still assemble an answer, but it may not be your best answer, and that is why discoverability, consistency, and relevance have become strategic issues, not just content issues.”

“The biggest risk? Marketers confuse tools with systems. When teams treat AI as a shortcut to more output, they scale inconsistency. And when a brand starts answering the same question ten different ways across AI responses and touchpoints, trust erodes fast.

“You combat it by building for clarity at scale from the start. AI has to be built into the platform, not bolted on beside it, because the moment those things live in separate places, standards drift, accountability gets fuzzy, and the brand starts to blur.

“That is why we designed SitecoreAI so planning, creation, personalization, and activation happen inside a governed system. The goal is not more noise. It is less chaos, more coherence, and better outcomes.”

“In five years, your website will still matter. It just will not be where discovery starts. Marketing teams will adapt by shifting from publishing to building a system for clarity at scale.

“First, they will get brutally clear on what question their brand is the answer to. Second, they will make sure they answer that question the same way, every time, across channels and surfaces, with standards and governance built into how work gets done. Third, they will make that answer easy to find and easy to trust in the moments where decisions are shaped, for both people and machines.

“That is the new playbook. Orchestrate the work. Discover where decisions happen. Connect and convert when intent shows up.”

“Quality will mean coherence and usefulness across decision moments, including the ones mediated by machines.

“Over the next decade, ‘success’ will shift away from measuring clicks, page views and content volume. And it will veer toward measuring what moves decisions:

• Are you discoverable in the moments that shape consideration?

• Do you answer the same question the same way, every time, across channels and formats?

• When intent appears, can you respond with relevance fast enough to win?

“Because in an AI assembled world, uncontrolled inconsistency is messy… and expensive.”

“One. The website is no longer the main stage. The eye-level shelf has moved again. Leaders who recognize where it now sits will spend more effectively because they’re aligning marketing budgets to how decisions happen.

“Two. ‘More content’ is not a strategy. The winners will be the brands that produce less chaos, not more output. They will invest in structure, governance, and a single source of truth so every fragment reinforces the same point of view.

“Three. AI will not replace marketing teams, but it will replace unstructured marketing. If your brand cannot explain what it stands for clearly, AI will not fix that. It will amplify confusion. AI is a mirror. It reflects your inputs.

“Four. The next category leader will be the platform that helps brands stay coherent, trusted, and distinctive across the expanding world beyond the website. Not just personalize more but make meaning hold together where decisions are made.”

The DaVinci Awards® were speaking to Mo Cherif, Vice President of AI and Innovation at Sitecore. Sitecore recently won a coveted Two-Star DaVinci Award for Technology.