AEO Rankings · Marketing

AEO for digital experience platforms: AI search visibility ranking

By monitoraeo Last updated August 06, 2026 Refreshed every 90 days

How AI search engines rank digital experience platforms by visibility and citations. 20 brands measured quarterly across Google AI Mode: which brands the AI names in answers, which domains it cites as sources, and how the leaders compare. Platforms used to build, orchestrate, personalize, and optimize digital experiences across websites, apps, commerce, and customer journeys. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →

Avg visibility across category

11%

Avg citation rate

20/20

Brands successfully audited

X LinkedIn

When asked about Digital experience platforms, AI engines consistently lead with Optimizely as the top choice. It is frequently mentioned alongside Sitecore and Adobe Experience Manager. Optimizely stands out with a 62.5% visibility rate among AI engines, making it a clear leader in this category.

The rankings are heavily influenced by data from top-cited sources such as gartner.com, g2.com, and cmswire.com. Many of these sources are aggregator and review sites, which suggests that platforms highlighted on these websites have broad exposure and third-party validation that boosts their credibility in the eyes of AI engines.

For buyers, this ranking means considering platforms that have strong positioning on these credible sources. AI engines value recent reviews and third-party validation, which points to Optimizely's topical authority in the digital experience platform space. Thus, checking where brands appear in reputable reviews can be a crucial step in the decision-making process.

At a glance

Category leader Optimizely 62% visibility · named in 5 of 8 AI answers

Most cited brand Liferay 62% citation rate · the AI's most-trusted source brand in digital experience platforms

Top cited domain gartner.com Referenced by AI across the digital experience platforms query set — the highest-leverage PR target in this category

Visibility spread 62pp Gap between top and bottom of the ranking · 16 brands at 0% (invisible to the AI)

What we observed in this category

Optimizely leads the Digital experience platforms category with a visibility score of 62.5%, more than 25 percentage points ahead of second-placed Sitecore at 37.5%. The category average visibility sits at just 7.5%, meaning Optimizely is appearing in AI responses at more than eight times the average rate. This gap matters because the top slot in an AI answer set tends to anchor buyer perception early in the research process, and Optimizely jumped from rank 8 to rank 1 in a single audit cycle, a shift of 62.5 visibility points from zero.

Liferay presents the sharpest divergence between visibility and citation in this category. Its visibility score is 0.0% yet its citation rate is 62.5%, the highest citation figure of any brand in the data. This means Google AI Mode references Liferay as a source or supporting evidence without surfacing it as a named recommended platform. Acquia shows a smaller but similar pattern, with 25.0% visibility against only 12.5% citation, while Sitecore is the only brand where both metrics are equal at 37.5%.

Google AI Mode is the top engine for every brand in this dataset, indicating the audit is anchored entirely on that single engine. Among cited third-party sources, Gartner and G2 appear first in the ranked list, followed by Liferay's own domain, CMSWire, and review platforms Peerspot and thecxlead.com. The presence of Liferay's domain as a top cited source helps explain its anomalous citation score despite zero named visibility, suggesting the AI pulls Liferay content as reference material rather than as a vendor recommendation.

Movers & shakers since last refresh

Biggest visibility risers

Optimizely 0% → 62% · rank #8 → #1
+62pp
Sitecore 12% → 38% · rank #1 → #2
+25pp
Adobe Experience Manager 0% → 25% · rank #7 → #3
+25pp

Biggest visibility fallers

Bloomreach 12% → 0% · rank #5 → #9
-12pp
Contentful 12% → 0% · rank #2 → #10
-12pp

The AEO ranking

#	Brand	Visibility	Citation	Top engine
1	Optimizely optimizely.com	62%	38%	Google AI Mode
Optimizely leads with 62.5% visibility, more than eight times the 7.5% category average, after jumping seven ranks from position 8 in the previous audit cycle.
2	Sitecore sitecore.com	38%	38%	Google AI Mode
Sitecore holds the only perfectly balanced profile in the top five, with visibility and citation both at 37.5%, dropping one rank despite a 25-point visibility gain.
3	Adobe Experience Manager adobe.com	25%	25%	Google AI Mode
Adobe Experience Manager climbed four ranks to third, reaching 25.0% on both visibility and citation after entering from zero visibility in the prior period.
4	Acquia acquia.com	25%	12%	Google AI Mode
Acquia matches Adobe at 25.0% visibility but its citation rate of 12.5% is half that figure, producing a composite score of 21.2 versus Adobe's 25.0.
5	Liferay liferay.com	0%	62%	Google AI Mode
Liferay records 0.0% named visibility yet 62.5% citation, the highest citation rate in the entire dataset, suggesting AI treats it as a reference source rather than a recommended vendor.
6	Contentstack contentstack.com	0%	25%	Google AI Mode
7	Prismic prismic.io	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
8	Sitefinity progress.com	0%	12%	Google AI Mode
9	Bloomreach bloomreach.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
10	Contentful contentful.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
11	Kentico kentico.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
12	Uniform uniform.dev	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
13	Webflow webflow.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
14	Builder.io builder.io	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
15	Crownpeak crownpeak.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
16	Hygraph hygraph.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
17	Sanity sanity.io	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
18	Storyblok storyblok.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
19	Magnolia magnolia-cms.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode
20	Umbraco umbraco.com	0%	0%	Google AI Mode

Sources AI engines trust in this category

Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on digital experience platforms, these are the domains Google AI Mode cited most often. If you're not on this list — or if your competitors are — that's a concrete PR / linkbuilding target.

gartner.comg2.comliferay.comcmswire.comnetsolutions.comlinkedin.comthecxlead.compeerspot.com

How to read this AEO ranking

Four things worth knowing before you act on the numbers above. These are the same definitions across every industry page — for category-specific observations, see the What we observed section above (where available) and the per-brand insights inline in the ranking.

Visibility = being named

A brand's visibility % is the share of AI answers that mention it by name in the response prose. This is who AI engines actively recommend to the buyer. More on visibility →

Citation rate = being trusted

Citation rate is the share of AI answers that include the brand's domain as a clickable source link. This is what the AI treats as authoritative evidence, different from being named. More on citation rate →

Top engine differs by brand

The "top engine" column shows which AI surface each brand performs best on. Big gaps between a brand's score across engines usually points to specific content or schema gaps. How AI engines pick sources →

AEO rankings move month to month

AI engines re-crawl and re-rank on shorter cycles than classical search. We re-audit every brand on this list at least every 90 days and refresh this page automatically. How AI search ranking works →

Run an AEO audit on your own digital experience platforms brand

The brands above were curated from public market-leader lists. Want the same answer engine optimisation measurement against your own brand — including the queries you appear on, which competitors get named instead, and a prioritised fix list? Run a free preview.

Audit your digital experience platforms brand → Browse all AEO rankings Methodology →

Frequently asked about AEO for digital experience platforms

Who leads AI visibility in Digital experience platforms?

Optimizely leads with a visibility score of 62.5%, which is more than eight times the category average of 7.5% and over 25 points ahead of second-placed Sitecore.

Which brand has the biggest gap between citation rate and named visibility in this category?

Liferay has a citation rate of 62.5% but zero named visibility, meaning Google AI Mode uses its content as a reference source without recommending it as a platform.

What sources does Google AI Mode cite most for Digital experience platform research?

The top cited sources are Gartner and G2, followed by Liferay's own domain, CMSWire, Netsolutions, LinkedIn, thecxlead.com, and Peerspot.

Which brands have lost AI visibility since the last audit cycle?

Bloomreach dropped from rank 5 to rank 9 and Contentful fell from rank 2 to rank 10, both losing 12.5 visibility points and landing at 0.0% current visibility.

How concentrated is AI visibility across the 20 brands in this category?

Visibility is heavily concentrated at the top: the category average is only 7.5%, and 6 of the top 10 brands have zero named visibility despite some holding non-zero citation rates.

Which engine is driving AI visibility for Digital experience platforms?

Google AI Mode is the top engine for every brand in the dataset, meaning all visibility and citation figures in this audit are attributable to that single engine.