If you work anywhere near digital experience, content, or customer engagement… you can feel it: MarTech is shifting faster than most organisations can keep up with.

And over the past few months, three significant moves from major players in the market have made one thing clear: the next era of MarTech will be defined by AI-native, visibility-led, and efficiency-driven platforms.

Here’s the quick breakdown:

1. Adobe goes after AI-powered visibility with its Semrush acquisition

Adobe announcing a ~$1.9B acquisition of Semrush was more than just another consolidation headline, but rather Adobe acknowledging that discovery is becoming as important as content creation.

It's no longer optimising for Google alone. It's optimising for AI search, chat assistants, and generative engines.

By bringing Semrush into the Experience Cloud, Adobe is essentially saying “You can create content in our ecosystem, and now you can ensure it’s found too.”

For marketers, that’s a big shift: visibility intelligence will soon sit alongside creative workflows, analytics, and personalisation.

2. Sitecore reinvents itself  while facing pressure to evolve

At its latest Symposium, Sitecore unveiled “SitecoreAI,” a rebuilt, AI-first, modular DXP that brings CMS, DAM, personalisation and analytics under a more modern umbrella.

A bold pivot... and an overdue one.

Because at the same time:

• More brands have voiced frustration over the cost and complexity of legacy Sitecore.
• Composable, SaaS-based stacks are becoming the default choice for speed, flexibility, and lower TCO.
• Agencies and enterprise teams are increasingly looking for lighter, more agile tooling.

Sitecore’s bet on a next-gen platform is promising, but it’s also a sign that the legacy DXP model is being challenged at its core.

3. Optimizely gains momentum as the “modern DXP” alternative

While the giants reinvent themselves, Optimizely has steadily climbed into a leadership position - particularly for organisations migrating away from older, monolithic stacks.

Across recent industry reports and migration data:

• Optimizely is seeing a surge of former Sitecore customers.
• Its experimentation roots are now integrated seamlessly into content + commerce.
• And its AI-powered personalisation and orchestration are hitting a sweet spot between capability and usability.

The takeaway: in a market tired of complexity, Optimizely is positioning itself as the “just right” middle ground — modern, flexible, powerful, and built for where digital marketing is heading.

So what do these moves signal?

Across all three stories, a common theme emerges:

The MarTech stack of the future isn’t about having more tools; it’s about tools that work together, learn together, and adapt quickly.

• AI won’t be a bolt-on; it will be the operating system.
• Visibility and discoverability will be as important as content creation.
• Legacy stack heaviness will continue to push brands toward modular, cloud-native, experimentation-friendly platforms.

The companies that embrace this shift early will win the next decade of digital experience.

‍