The State of DXPs: AI, Omnichannel Strategies and the Road Ahead

The Gist

Investment in DXPs continues. Despite budget constraints, organizations are prioritizing digital experience platform (DXP) enhancements, focusing on AI, personalization and omnichannel engagement.
M&A activity heats up. After a quiet 2024, 2025 has seen a surge in mergers and acquisitions, reshaping the competitive landscape of DXPs.
AI’s growing role in DXPs. Generative AI is transforming DXPs, but vendors must establish ethical frameworks to maintain consumer trust Has the digital experience platform marketing stopped evolving? We’re hearing complaints. While AI is now embedded in many DXPs, practitioners tell us they still struggle with integration complexity, personalization gaps and underwhelming innovation.

The findings are in. And digital customer experience practitioners want more of the same from technology when it comes to creating experiences.

The 2025 CMSWire DXP Market Guide highlights a surge in investment and innovation in the digital experience platform (DXP) sector, driven by the demand for personalized, omnichannel engagement and the potential of AI-driven capabilities. Despite budget constraints in the tech industry, organizations are prioritizing DXP enhancements, with improvements in customer satisfaction, system integration and AI adoption leading the charge.

The report also notes a resurgence in mergers and acquisitions, the ongoing challenges of composable and headless architectures and the need for ethical AI frameworks to maintain customer trust.

However, there is also this: Has the digital experience platform marketing stopped evolving? We’re hearing complaints out there in the wild. While AI is now embedded in many DXPs, practitioners tell us they still struggle with integration complexity, personalization gaps and underwhelming innovation.

They're ready for some innovation — now.

We caught up with colleague Tim Harnett, senior manager of research and content for Simpler Media Group, the publisher of CMSWire, to discuss these DXP market trends.

Editor's note: See the bottom of the article for a special discount code for the full report.

Investment and Growth Trends: Demand for Personalization Remains

Nicastro: Given the substantial growth forecasts for the DXP sector, what do you believe is driving the sustained interest and investment in DXPs despite pricing pressures and budget cuts in the tech industry?

Harnett: We’re seeing continued demand for personalized, omnichannel digital experiences. Customers want tailored experiences across all their devices. They want brands to know whether they’re coming from the web, from their mobile device or a combination of the two — starting on mobile and finishing a transaction on the web. The last thing customers want to do is to have to start over just because they’ve jumped devices.

AI is going to have a transformative effect on the DXP industry, much like the profound technological shift that happened when companies moved their stack from on-premise to the cloud. The challenge here is that AI technology is moving very rapidly, while organizations can’t adapt as quickly. But they’ll need to, lest they be left behind by the competition.

Customer Satisfaction and Value Perception: Are Digital Customer Experience Tools Improving?

Nicastro: The State of the Digital Customer Experience report shows a rise in customer satisfaction with CX tools. What specific advancements or trends in DXP capabilities have contributed most to this increase in customer confidence?

Harnett: A few things stand out. DXP vendors have improved their omnichannel and cross-channel experiences. This allows organizations to better meet customer expectations for a unified brand experience. Personalization also continues to get better and better each year. DXPs are also becoming better integrated with other core business systems and applications, improving data flow, employee collaboration and the overall digital ecosystem.

Mergers and Acquisitions Impact: Consolidation Ahead for DXP Market?

Nicastro: How have mergers and acquisitions in the DXP space influenced the competitive landscape and feature set offerings of leading DXP providers?

Harnett: What’s fascinating is that we had very little M&A activity in 2024, but 2025 is starting off with a bang — particularly with the consolidation of Ibexa and CDP provider Raptor under the QNTM Group brand and DXP provider Contentstack acquiring CDP provider Lytics. It’s possible we’re going to see more mergers before 2025 is done, which will drive greater consolidation and innovation within the DXP market, while reshaping the competitive landscape for all DXP vendors at the same time.

Composable and Headless Architecture Challenges

Nicastro: While many vendors are promoting their support for composable and headless architectures, there are still gaps in cost and effort for implementation. What are the main barriers companies face when adopting these architectures, and how can vendors address these challenges?

Harnett: One of the biggest challenges to composable architecture is the complexity of implementation. It can be tough to get all your components working just right and talking to each other, meaning your costs and timeline might end up being more than you expected.

Headless vendors can address complexity by providing more turnkey, pre-integrated composable solutions, giving customers a bit more scaffolding to their headless solutions.

One novel way DXP vendors are addressing complexity challenges is by moving from a purely best-of-breed solution to an aggregator model, where their products are bundled with similar tech stack components that offer flexibility while falling short of being recognized as a full suite. This model might thread the needle for consumers who don’t need all the products offered in a suite but who need a bit more than picking and choosing their own components.

AI Integration in DXPs

Nicastro: We’re seeing a rapid expansion of generative AI features in DXPs. How do you see the integration of generative AI and LLMs reshaping the core functionalities of DXPs, and what should organizations be mindful of as they adopt these AI-driven capabilities?

Harnett: One of the biggest trends around DXPs is personalization, which AI can help with tremendously. AI itself is poised to disrupt the DXP market in a way not seen since the switch from on-premise to cloud.

But vendors will need to be cautious in their adoption of AI tools. Consumers are wary about AI, and vendors will need to have ethical frameworks in place on how and why they use AI. These discussions will need to come from the top down, and vendors should be transparent about how they use AI. This ethical framework will be necessary to maintain trust in your product.

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