Spotlight

Report:

The Forrester Wave™: Digital Experience Platforms, Q4 2025

How does Forrester define the Digital Experience Platforms market in 2025?

Digital experience platforms (DXPs) are undergoing a profound transformation from composability to agentic intelligence. The market is no longer defined by who has the most capabilities - nearly every vendor provides customer data, content management, marketing automation, and commerce. What separates leaders from laggards is how well heat-seeking AI agents orchestrate those capabilities to deliver business outcomes. Winners are building self-learning systems that empower marketers and developers to work faster, smarter, and more creatively. Key differentiators include: 1) Agentic orchestration turning static capabilities into dynamic, goal-seeking systems, 2) Adoption readiness as the bottleneck rather than innovation itself, and 3) Vendors proving their own mastery by becoming 'customer zero' and delivering full digital experience engagements via forward-deployed engineers.

Key Facts for The Forrester Wave™: Digital Experience Platforms, Q4 2025 in 2025

How did the Digital Experience Platforms market evolve in 2025?

What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?

What are the common features of top products in the Digital Experience Platforms space?

No common features specified.

Scope Exclusions

Inclusion Criteria

Vendors must, among other requirements:

Offering Strengths — Relative Weighting

Strategy Strength — Relative Weighting

FAQs

Q: What does this research cover?

A: This research evaluates nine digital experience platform (DXP) providers across their current offerings, strategies, and customer feedback. The evaluation focuses on how vendors are implementing agentic AI orchestration capabilities to transform DXPs from static feature collections into dynamic, self-learning systems. It assesses vendors across 20 current offering criteria (weighted 80%) including practitioner tools, developer tools, customer data, content management, marketing automation, digital commerce, agent studio, and agent orchestration framework, as well as 8 strategy criteria (weighted 20%) including vision, innovation, roadmap, partner ecosystem, adoption, and community.

Q: Who should use this research?

A: This research should be used by enterprise technology and marketing leaders who are evaluating or selecting digital experience platform vendors. It helps buyers understand which vendors have built for the future of agentic digital experiences versus those still catching up. The report is particularly valuable for organizations assessing how well they can wield a platform with precision and agility, and how quickly they can learn and adopt AI-powered capabilities. Buyers can use the detailed scorecards, vendor profiles, and placement analysis to match platform capabilities and strategies to their specific business needs, technical maturity, and use cases.

Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?

A: To be included in this Forrester Wave evaluation, vendors must: 1) Provide broad, enterprise-level support by natively delivering all core DXP functions with a demonstrated track record for supporting large enterprises, 2) Offer their solution as a standalone product with its own SKU and pricing (not solely as a free feature within a larger portfolio), 3) Generate at least $80 million in annual revenue from the digital experience platform product in the last four quarters, 4) Have significant mindshare among Forrester's enterprise clients through frequent mentions in inquiries, advisories, and consulting engagements, and 5) Be recognized as a competitor by other vendors in the market.

Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?

A:

  • Insufficient enterprise-level support or track record
  • No standalone product offering with dedicated SKU and pricing
  • Annual DXP revenue below $80 million threshold
  • Limited mindshare among Forrester enterprise clients
  • Not recognized as competitor by other market vendors
  • Does not natively provide all core DXP functions
  • Product only available as bundled feature within larger portfolio

Q: What should buyers consider when evaluating products in this market?

A:

  • Agentic orchestration capabilities - assess how well the platform embeds agents that operate across capabilities to create dynamic, goal-seeking systems under human direction
  • Enterprise readiness for AI adoption - evaluate organizational change management, mindset, and vision needed beyond just technology implementation
  • Vendor's own platform mastery - examine if vendor uses their own platform as 'customer zero' and can deliver full digital experience engagements via forward-deployed engineers
  • Phased modernization support - assess vendor's ability to guide implementation across people, process, and technology dimensions
  • Platform orchestration vs. feature breadth - focus on how well features are woven together rather than just capability checklists
  • Workflow reimagination requirements - understand complexity of integrating agents with existing operations and need for organizational transformation

Q: How has the Digital Experience Platforms market evolved in 2025?

A:

  • Shift from composability to agentic intelligence - platforms continuously optimize how features are woven together
  • Agentic orchestration as the new differentiator - AI agents operate across platforms turning static capabilities into dynamic, goal-seeking systems
  • Adoption bottleneck - pace of AI innovation has outstripped enterprise readiness with vast, complex operations poorly understood
  • Vendor mastery requirement - best vendors becoming their own 'customer zero' showcasing agentic capabilities in their own operations
  • Need for forward-deployed engineers to guide enterprises through phased modernization across people, process, and technology
  • Evolution from feature breadth to orchestration quality - question shifting from 'What can this platform do?' to 'How well can we wield it?'
  • Self-learning systems empowering marketers and developers to work faster, smarter, and more creatively

Q: What differentiates Strength of Offering vs. Strength of Strategy?

A: Strength of Offering evaluates the current capabilities and features of the DXP platform (vertical axis), focusing on technical capabilities like practitioner tools, developer tools, customer data, content management, agentic AI features, and integration capabilities. Strength of Strategy evaluates the vendor's future direction and market approach (horizontal axis), focusing on vision, innovation, roadmap, partner ecosystem, adoption support, pricing, community engagement, and supporting services. The shift in this evaluation emphasizes that offerings are no longer just about feature breadth but how well agentic intelligence orchestrates those features, while strategy focuses on how vendors enable adoption and demonstrate their own platform mastery.

Reference

View Leaders
View Vendor Movements