Current Release Notes for Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service release-notes

The following section outlines the feature release notes for the current (latest) version of Experience Manager as a Cloud Service.

Release Date release-date

The release date of Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service current feature release (2025.12.0) is December 11, 2025. The next feature release (2026.1.0) is planned for January 29, 2026.

Maintenance Release Notes maintenance

You can find the latest maintenance release notes here.

AEM Beta Programs aem-beta-programs

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) beta programs are a way for customers to get access to prerelease features and code, provide feedback, and guide the future of AEM.

Benefits of participating
Getting early access to features that Adobe is developing lets customers and partners provide feedback and shape product development. It also helps them prepare to adopt new capabilities before general availability.

Current beta programs
The following sections list active beta programs.

Agents in AEM (Beta program) agents-in-aem-beta-program

Gain early access to powerful, new AEM agentic capabilities across production, governance, optimization, discovery, and development. Your feedback directly shapes Adobe’s roadmap and final features. See Overview of Agents in AEM to learn more.

This program typically lasts 4-6 weeks, but can be tailored to be flexible around your ability to actively participate.

To opt in to participate in this program, email aemagentsteam@adobe.com and include the following details to the extent possible:

AEM Foundation (Beta programs) aem-foundation-beta-programs

See AEM Foundation beta programs.

Cloud Manager (Beta programs) cloud-manager-beta-programs

See Cloud Manager beta programs.

Experience Manager Assets as a Cloud Service assets

New version of Figma Plugin for integration with AEM Assets is available

Malware detection for uploaded assets

AEM Assets now includes automatic malware scanning of uploaded files, ensuring that suspicious assets are quarantined before entering the DAM to protect your repository from threats. Administrators can configure scan settings and quarantine retention policies for streamlined security controls.

AI-Generated metadata – Eligibility Update

AI-Generated metadata in AEM Assets no longer requires the GenAI Rider to be signed in order to be enabled. The feature is now available to both customers who have signed the GenAI Rider and customers who have not yet been validated. Customers who have explicitly opted out of GenAI usage will continue to have the feature disabled. To manage the feature enablement at the environment-level, please see Disable AI-generated metadata. This change will be made for customers on release version 23482 or later.

Experience Manager Forms as a Cloud Service forms

New Early Access Features in AEM Forms forms-new-early-access-features

The AEM Forms Early Access Program offers a unique opportunity for you to get exclusive access to cutting-edge innovations and help shape their development.

These release notes list the innovations delivered in the current release. For the complete list of innovations available under the Early Access Program, see AEM Forms Early Access Program documentation.

Interactive Communication Enhancements

Template Locking

Lock content and layout elements within templates to maintain brand integrity and prevent unauthorised modifications. This ensures design consistency across all communications.

Content Overflow Support

Introducing the “Allow page breaks within content” option for flowed layouts. This enhancement enables smooth multi-page editing and better text management for complex documents.

XDP File Editing

The Interactive Communication editor now supports XDP editing, including fragment integration. You can now edit XDP files in a browser instead of Forms Designer that runs only on Microsoft Windows desktop.

Dynamic Page Numbering

Automatically display “Page # of ##” on master pages for clear, consistent pagination across multi-page documents.

Experience Manager as a Cloud Service Foundation foundation

Experience Manager as a Cloud Service Foundation New Features foundation-new

Upcoming Java API Deprecations java-api-deprecation

Several deprecated APIs were marked for removal on August 31st and thus should no longer be referenced. You will receive Actions Center notifications if deprecated API usage is detected in your code, and after Jan 29th, notices will appear during Cloud Manager builds to reinforce the importance of removing usage. See the deprecation article for full details, but for convenience, these APIs are listed below:

Java 11 Runtime Deprecation java11-runtime-deprecation

Adobe upgraded Stage and Production environments to the higher-performance Java 21 runtime on October 14th, 2025. Starting February 9th, neither the AEM Cloud Service SDK nor any cloud environments will work with Java 11 runtime.

Enforcement of AEM Java Logs Configuration Policy logconfig-policy

As noted in the April release notes, AEM Java logs must follow a standard format to ensure reliable monitoring across all customer environments. Custom log configurations—such as changes to log formatting, output files, or default log levels—are no longer supported. Logs must remain directed to the default files, and default log levels for AEM product code must be preserved. See full details in the Logging article.

Starting on January 29th, any unsupported custom logging overrides will be ignored. Based on our analysis, most customers will not be impacted and Adobe has contacted customers whose current configuration may be affected.

Please review and update any downstream processes that rely on custom logging behavior. For example:

Experience Manager as a Cloud Service Foundation Early Adopter Features foundation-early-adopter

Pause Automatic Maintenance Updates pause-updates

Go‑live days, live events, peak sales—these moments can’t break. Our new self‑service features stop automatic mainteanance updates when it matters, so your teams stay focused.

Edge Computing (Beta Program)

Edge computing allows you to execute JavaScript at the CDN layer, bringing data processing closer to the end user. This reduces latency and enables responsive, dynamic experiences at the edge.

Common use cases include:

We have a limited number of opportunities available for either AEM Publish Delivery or Edge Delivery Services projects for live production sites. If you’re interested in participating or want to learn more, please email aemcs-edgecompute-feedback@adobe.com with a brief description of your use case.

Edge Authentication for Edge Delivery Services (Beta Program) edge-authentication

Edge Authentication lets you restrict access to Edge Delivery Services pages to only those who have authenticated with your identity provider (IdP). This is achieved by deploying an OpenID Connect (OIDC) configuration YAML file.

If interested, please email aemcs-edgecompute-feedback@adobe.com with a brief description of your use case and any questions you may have.

Canary Production Deployments to Test Code Before Accepting Live Traffic (Beta Program) canary-beta

Validate a production build with internal-only test traffic before exposing it to end users. Ship to production, route only canary traffic (using a special header), monitor behavior, then either promote to live traffic or roll back—without impacting customers.

Deploy your code releases to production, but restrict it to only internal test traffic before deciding whether to accept live traffic versus rolling back.

Email aemcs-canary-deployments-beta@adobe.com to request access and share feedback.

AI Answers - Smarter, Context-Aware Responses for AEM Sites (Beta Program) ai-answers-beta

AI Answers introduces a new way for your visitors to interact with your content. Powered by Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology, it uses your AEM-managed data to deliver accurate, brand-consistent answers directly within your digital experiences.

We are preparing to launch the AI Answers Beta Program and are now inviting customers to register their interest. Because the beta will have very limited capacity, early sign-ups will receive priority consideration. Participating in the beta will allow you to explore AI Answers in your AEM Cloud Service environment, validate performance and accuracy, and help shape the future experience before it becomes generally available.

To request participation or receive updates, please contact feedback-ai-answers@adobe.com.

Snapshots for RDEs (Beta Program) rde-snapshot-program

In beta, Rapid Development Environments (RDEs) now support a feature to take a snapshot of the current state of code and content, which can be restored at a later time. This can be useful when syncing code that may need to be reverted, or when switching between development of different features. It’s also possible to restore just the mutable content as a known starting point for testing.

Please email aemcs-rde-support@adobe.com if there’s interest in using and providing feedback on this feature.

Accelerate AEM Development with AI (Alpha Program) ai-dev-alpha

AEM Java-stack teams are increasingly using AI-assisted development in tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, Visual Studio, and IntelliJ to speed up feature delivery and improve code quality. We’re gathering real-world experiences to help shape future Adobe-supported AI capabilities.

Share what’s working for your team—and what you’d like Adobe to provide—by emailing aemcs-java-adopter@adobe.com.

Expanded Application Performance Monitoring (APM) (Alpha program) apm-alpha

For observability, AEM Cloud Service currently supports Adobe-provided New Relic One and customer-managed Dynatrace. As we explore support for additional APM options, please email us at aemcs-apm-beta@adobe.com with your preferred vendor or technology, along with use cases.

Experience Manager Guides guides

You can find a complete list of new and enhanced features of the latest release of Adobe Experience Manager Guides here.

Cloud Manager cloud-manager

You can find a complete list of Cloud Manager monthly releases here.

Migration Tools migration-tools

You can find a complete list of Migration Tools releases here.

Universal Editor universal-editor

You can find a complete list of Universal Editor releases here.

Generate Variations generate-variations

You can find a complete list of Generate Variations releases here.

Experience Cloud Release Notes experience-cloud

You can find information about releases of other Experience Cloud applications here.