First training cohort draws 1,500-plus signups as enterprise teams turn to structured AI workflows that deliver up to 95% time savings

NEW YORK, April 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Optimizely, the leading digital experience platform (DXP) provider, today shared new data from its Opal University program, highlighting growing momentum for Optimizely Opal, its agent orchestration platform for marketing and digital teams, and signaling increased demand for hands-on AI training across the enterprise.

In the first two weeks, more than 1,100 marketing and digital leaders signed up for Opal University, with a waitlist for future cohorts now over 1,500. In its initial cohort, 50 participants built 170 AI agents in five days, with many already delivering measurable time savings across core marketing workflows.

The results highlight a broader shift in how marketing teams are approaching AI. While adoption of AI tools and generative platforms continues to grow, most organizations are still in the early stages of applying AI in a structured, repeatable way across their workflows.

“The teams that are actually winning with AI right now are focusing on change management and ensuring adoption happens not just because of top-down push but because marketers can get time back to create and optimize powerful campaigns,” said Allison Skidmore, Chief Customer Officer at Optimizely. “That’s exactly why we built Opal University. When marketers get hands-on time building agents that work for their workflows, adoption follows because they feel the benefit directly. That’s how you scale AI across the entire marketing lifecycle.”

From interest to impact in days
Opal University is a free, hands-on certification program designed for senior marketing leaders. Each five-day cohort walks participants through building three AI agents tailored to their organization’s needs, with a focus on immediate, practical application.

Early results include:

1,500+ sign-ups to date
375 AI agents built by over 60 participants in five days across two cohorts
80% to 95% time savings reported across recurring weekly workflows

Participants represent a broad mix of global enterprises, including Canva, Asana, LinkedIn, Zoom, DocuSign, KPMG, Deloitte, Bloomberg, EY, and Foot Locker.

Across both cohorts, participants built agents spanning a wide range of marketing functions, including:

70 agents for SEO, GEO and AI search optimization
39 agents for content operations
30 agents for CRO and experimentation
28 agents for research and intelligence
26 agents for customer success and sales
16 agents for compliance and QA
14 agents for productivity and ops

In practice, these agents are already reshaping how teams work:

A CRO prioritization workflow was reduced from several hours to 30 minutes
Performance benchmarking and analysis dropped from six hours to 18 minutes
Content migration timelines were reduced from seven to 10 days to about two days
Prospect research and landing page generation that previously took hours per week can now be completed in two minutes

Moving beyond AI pilot projects
The strong response to Opal University reflects a common challenge across the market. While teams are eager to use AI, many lack the frameworks and integration training needed to apply it consistently across campaigns, content and experimentation.

Optimizely Opal addresses this gap by embedding agentic AI directly into the Optimizely platform, connecting content creation, campaign management, experimentation and personalization into a single workflow. This allows teams to move beyond isolated use cases and operationalize AI across the full marketing lifecycle.

“Most teams are still running AI in pockets because MarTech has become too complex for it to work any other way,” Shafqat Islam, President at Optimizely added. “What Opal does is absorb that complexity — the governance, the brand context, the orchestration — so teams can build agents that understand their brand, their data, and their processes, and reuse them across the whole organization. That’s why we’re seeing adoption accelerate the way we are.”

This approach is already reflected in broader platform benchmarks, with Optimizely reporting a 79% increase in experiment velocity, an 85% increase in campaigns delivered, a 54% faster speed to market and an 80% increase in pages created.

Building the next generation of AI-native marketing teams
Opal University will continue as an ongoing program with weekly cohorts, designed to help senior marketing leaders build practical AI skills and scale those capabilities across their organizations. Participants receive certification, access to a dedicated community and early access to new features and agents.

As adoption grows, Optimizely is expanding its agent ecosystem through its directory of ready-to-use agents. In 2026 alone, the company has launched more than 15 out-of-the-box agents designed to help marketing and digital teams improve GEO performance, stay ahead with competitive analysis and run more impactful experimentation programs.

The company will continue to introduce new agents alongside deeper integrations across the platform, helping teams apply AI consistently across content, experimentation and personalization workflows.

Optimizely is helping pave the way for a more AI-native approach to marketing, where teams can plan, execute and optimize campaigns through coordinated, governed workflows that improve speed, consistency and performance.

To learn more about Opal University, visit: https://www.optimizely.com/ai-marketing-certificate/. To learn more about Optimizely Opal, visit: https://www.optimizely.com/ai/

About Optimizely
Optimizely is on a mission to make the lives of marketers better with Optimizely One, powered by Optimizely Opal, the world’s first AI orchestration platform for marketing and digital teams. Optimizely One combines industry-leading solutions across content management, content marketing, experimentation, commerce, personalization, and analytics—powering the entire marketing lifecycle through a single agentic workflow designed to support and scale work across marketers’ most critical tasks. With the flexibility of a fully composable platform, Optimizely is proudly helping global brands like Salesforce, Zoom, New Era and Mazda deliver experiences of the highest quality. Learn more at optimizely.com.

Optimizely and Optimizely One are the trademarks of Optimizely North America Inc., and are registered (or registrations are pending) in the US, EU, UK and other countries. All third-party trademarks cited are the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference purposes.