Optimizely Opal - Moving Beyond "Just an Assistant"
As 2025 comes to an end, it feels like a good moment to pause and take stock of what actually happened this year - especially around Optimizely and the growing role of AI across the platform. There was a lot of noise in the market, plenty of bold claims, and no shortage of new features. Some of it landed well, some of it will take more time to prove its value.
AI continued to show up everywhere in 2025. Sometimes in places where it made sense, sometimes where it felt unnecessary. Despite all the predictions, Skynet still hasn't taken over the world - but progress has been fast and hard to ignore. For Optimizely, this year marked an important step for Opal, as 2025 was less about flashy announcements and more about defining its role inside Optimizely One.
Optimizely positioned Opal as more than a chat-based assistant. With announcements at Opticon and subsequent releases, the idea of agent orchestration started to take shape - not as a fully autonomous system, but as a way to connect AI-driven tasks into structured workflows that teams can actually control. In practice, this meant a shift away from one-off prompts toward something more repeatable and intentional.
Instead of using AI in isolation, Opal began supporting chained tasks. This didn't magically solve complexity, but it did reduce friction in places where teams were already spending time. For many organizations, that alone might be a meaningful improvement.
Opal seems to work best where teams already had clear processes - not where AI is expected to "fix” broken ones. One thing Optimizely did reasonably well this year was focusing on specific use cases rather than generic AI promises. Agents designed for content, experimentation insights, translation, or discovery were easier to evaluate because they mapped to real workflows teams already had. That's probably a healthy signal.
Platform Progress Beyond Opal
While Opal got most of the attention, the rest of the Optimizely platform continued to evolve in smaller, incremental ways. Optimizely's CMS updates acknowledged an uncomfortable truth: content is no longer consumed only by humans. GEO-related improvements were a first step toward adapting to AI-driven discovery, though this space is still very much in flux. Most teams are still figuring out what this means in practice.
What to Expect Going into 2026
Looking ahead, a few themes seem likely to define the near future. AI fatigue is real. In 2026, tools that don't show clear value will quietly disappear from stacks. For platforms like Optimizely, the challenge will be proving that AI features support outcomes - not just activity.
As more teams gain access to similar AI capabilities, differentiation will come from strategy and execution. AI can speed things up, but it doesn't replace thinking. If anything, it makes weak ideas more visible.
Despite the hype, agent-based systems will likely evolve incrementally. Expect better coordination, more context awareness, and tighter integrations - but also plenty of edge cases and manual oversight. That's fine. That's how useful tools usually grow.
As AI gets closer to core workflows, governance stops being optional. Teams will need clearer controls, clearer ownership, and clearer boundaries - especially in regulated environments.
Search and discovery are still shifting under our feet. Generative answers, reduced clicks, and AI-mediated journeys will continue to challenge traditional content strategies. There are no stable best practices yet - only experiments and adaptations.
Final Thoughts
2025 wasn't about AI suddenly solving everything. It was about learning where AI actually fits.
For Optimizely, Opal became more concrete and more usable, even if it's still evolving. The platform moved forward in measured steps rather than giant leaps - which, in a space as noisy as AI, is probably the right approach.
Going into 2026, the real work is less about adopting new tools and more about using the ones we already have with intent, discipline, and a clear understanding of what they can - and can't - do.