Optimizely has launched a family of purpose-built AI models designed specifically for marketing tasks. Early testing shows these post-trained models achieve 10 times greater cost efficiency compared to state-of-the-art large language models whilst maintaining frontier-level quality. The models are tailored for specific marketing functions rather than being general-purpose tools. They draw on Mark-IQ, Optimizely's data layer built on each organisation's context, including experimentation history and web analytics. Optimizely also introduced Mark-Bench, an open-source benchmark to evaluate AI performance for marketing tasks. The benchmark tests models against 285 tasks spanning 15 marketing functions and over 6,000 criteria. On Mark-Bench's default configurations, Optimizely Agent Platform scored 67% compared to 60% for Claude Code at half the cost. The models will be available to all Agent Platform customers.

Optimizely introduces Virtual Teammates, giving marketers role-specific AI coworkers. Aug 31, 2026, 09:02 ET New digital coworkers retain context, proactively take on recurring work, and operate across marketing tools within defined identity and permissions NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Optimizely, the AI platform for marketing, today announced Virtual Teammates, a new class of digital coworkers built to work alongside marketers across their day-to-day workflows. Unveiled at Opticon, Virtual Teammates can take on defined responsibilities, retain knowledge about an organization over time and proactively complete work without requiring marketers to prompt an AI tool task by task. The launch addresses a growing challenge for marketing teams: AI adoption has increased, but so has the work required to manage an expanding set of disconnected tools. In a recent global Optimizely study of more than 2,000 B2B marketing leaders, 81% said they personally switch between two or more disconnected AI tools each week, including 19% who use four or more. Rather than adding another tool marketers need to operate, Virtual Teammates are designed to function as ongoing members of the marketing team. Each Virtual Teammate has a defined role, responsibilities, and organizational permissions. Marketers can assign them work, involve them in conversations and workflows, and configure recurring responsibilities triggered by schedules or events. Over time, they retain relevant context from previous conversations, projects, and decisions so marketers do not have to continually re-explain how their organization works. "Marketers want to grow their business, not spend time re-explaining it to multiple AI tools," said Alex Atzberger, CEO of Optimizely. "A Virtual Teammate learns how your organization works once, then keeps going. This is the most exciting innovation since the introduction of agents." At launch, Optimizely is introducing a roster of Virtual Teammates for common marketing roles, including: * Chief of Staff: Helps marketers prepare for meetings, track follow-ups, monitor competitive intelligence, and deliver recurring briefings. * SEO & AI Search Analyst: Monitors search and AI visibility, audits AEO performance and identifies opportunities before taking action, and reports on what was done after. * Marketing Analyst: Turns marketing data into decision-ready insights by monitoring acquisition, content performance, and conversion trends. * Personalization Strategist: Identifies personalization opportunities, designs, and builds campaigns, and monitors performance to recommend next steps. * CRO Manager: Analyzes experiments and performance to identify areas for improvement and recommend actions for marketers to investigate and act on. Organizations can access role-specific Virtual Teammates from a directory, where they can hire and customize ready-built teammates with role-based expertise rather than requiring marketers to build agents and workflows from scratch. Teams can adapt each teammate's responsibilities in plain language and connect it to the systems needed to perform its work. Virtual Teammates can also operate on a schedule. A Chief of Staff, for example, could deliver a weekly briefing or share background details ahead of a meeting. An SEO/GEO Specialist could continuously monitor changes in search visibility and surface issues that warrant attention. Because the teammate retains relevant context over time, each assignment builds on the work and decisions that came before it. Organizations remain in control through individually scoped permissions and built-in oversight. Companies can set where human review is required, while each Virtual Teammate's activity is tied to its own identity that can be traced back to that identity for greater visibility and accountability. "A lot of AI adoption stalls out because getting from idea to finished work is still hard. Even when the AI does its part, you don't always know who did what, or trust it enough to let it act on its own," said Kevin Li, SVP, Product at Optimizely. "That's why we built Virtual Teammates with their own identity and permissions from day one. They carry the work through to execution, and every action ties back to a clear audit trail." Virtual Teammates extend Optimizely's Agent Platform with a role-based approach to AI collaboration, moving AI from individual prompts and isolated tasks toward persistent, proactive support across marketing workflows. About Optimizely Optimizely is the AI platform for marketing, built for the experience-makers who shape how brands show up in the world. Bringing together content management, content marketing, experimentation, commerce, personalization, and analytics into a single platform, Optimizely gives marketers the freedom to create, customers the experiences they remember, and AI agents the content they come looking for. With Optimizely, you're free to grow. Learn more at optimizely.com. Optimizely is the trademark 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. SOURCE Optimizely

Optimizely has launched Virtual Teammates, AI-powered digital coworkers designed to work alongside marketers in their daily workflows. The new offering was unveiled at Opticon and includes five role-specific teammates: Chief of Staff, SEO & AI Search Analyst, Marketing Analyst, Personalisation Strategist, and CRO Manager. The virtual teammates can take on defined responsibilities, retain organisational knowledge over time, and proactively complete work without requiring task-by-task prompting. They operate with defined roles, responsibilities, and permissions within marketing teams. The launch addresses growing AI tool fragmentation. An Optimizely study of over 2,000 B2B marketing leaders found 81% switch between two or more disconnected AI tools weekly, with 19% using four or more. Virtual Teammates aim to function as ongoing team members rather than additional standalone tools.