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.

NOTE
From here, you can navigate to release notes of previous versions such as 2024 or 2025.
Have a look at the Experience Manager Releases Roadmap to learn about the upcoming feature activations for Experience Manager as a Cloud Service.
NOTE
To receive a monthly email notification about updates to Experience Cloud release notes, subscribe to the Adobe Priority Product Update.

Release Date release-date

The release date of Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service current feature release (2026.7.0) is July 30, 2026. The next feature release (2026.8.0) is planned for August 27, 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.

IMPORTANT
Beta releases may contain defects and are provided “AS IS” without warranty of any kind. Adobe has no obligation to maintain, correct, update, change, modify or otherwise support (by way of Adobe Support Services or otherwise) the beta releases. Adobe advises customers to use caution and not rely on the correct functioning or performance of beta releases, or on any accompanying documentation or materials. Features and APIs in beta are subject to change without notice. Accordingly, any use of the beta releases is entirely at the customer’s own risk.

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 agents-in-aem

If you would like to explore the powerful, new AEM agentic capabilities across production, governance, optimization, discovery, and development, please learn about how you can access them here.

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.

AEM Assets (Beta programs) aem-assets-beta-programs

See AEM Assets beta programs.

Experience Manager Sites as a Cloud Service sites

Metadata support for Content Fragments metadata-support-content-fragments

Content Fragment metadata is now fully supported in the Content Fragments Admin UI. Authors can view and edit fragment metadata directly where they work with their content, with full parity in the new editors as well, and manage their metadata schemas entirely in the new experience. And clients using Touch UI schemas today can keep using them — now in the Admin UI and Editor for Content Fragments too.

New Content Reference Picker for new Content Fragment Editor content-fragment-editor-new-content-picker

An improved content reference picker will be rolled out for the new Content Fragment Editor. In a phased approach, it will be rolled out for all RDE and Development environments on August 10. On September 7, it will be enabled for all Stage environments, followed by Production on September 21. To request earlier access, please reach out via Adobe support channel.

Content Fragments Folder Actions content-fragments-folder-actions

The Content Fragments Admin UI now supports folder actions like Rename, Copy, Move and Delete. This creates alignment with Touch UI and Assets UI: same actions available on all surfaces.

Experience Manager Assets as a Cloud Service assets

New Features in Dynamic Media new-features-dynamic-media

Add countdown timer to Dynamic Media templates

You can now add a Countdown Timer layer to Dynamic Media templates to display a live countdown until a specified end time. Customize the timer’s appearance, enable or disable time units, define fallback text after expiration, and optionally make the timer clickable by configuring a destination URL.

Support for Assets Managed Services and On-Premise Deployments in Adobe Asset Link UXP for Photoshop

Adobe Asset Link UXP plugin for Adobe Photoshop is updated to version 2.0 and adds compatibility with Managed Services and On-Premise deployments of Assets. The UXP plugin works with Photoshop on the native Apple Silicon macOS, providing native performance and access to the latest Photoshop features while allowing users to connect to any Adobe Experience Manager Assets environment, independently of its deployment model. To install or update the plugin, use Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop app’s Plugins section, or go to this link.

Experience Manager as a Cloud Service Assets Beta Features assets-beta-program-features

UI Extensibility for Assets View ui-extensibility-assets-view-beta

Assets View supports UI Extensibility, a developer-first capability that empowers customers to tailor the out-of-the-box experience to meet their specific business requirements.
Customers can leverage existing stable extension points by following Adobe’s developer documentation to build and deploy extensions with minimal effort. For use cases where a required extension point is not yet available, Adobe works directly with customers to explore the requirements and assess the technical feasibility of delivering new extensibility APIs tailored to their needs, and may deliver such new APIs as Beta Releases.
Additionally, Adobe has developed a GenAI-powered extension generation tool currently available in an internal early adoption phase. This tool can significantly accelerate extension development time. Customers participating in this beta program will receive access to the tool and are encouraged to share feedback to help shape its evolution.
To participate or learn more, send an email to GRP-ASSETSVIEWUIEXTENSIBILITY@adobe.com.

Brand Aware Metadata (BAM) brand-aware-metadata-beta

AEM Assets now supports Brand Aware Metadata, an AI-powered capability that automatically generates custom metadata for assets when uploaded or re-processed. This reduces the need for manual entry by orders of magnitude, helping teams find assets and deliver new experiences much faster. Customers maintain a library of prompts that define how AI should populate any given metadata field, tailored to their own brand vocabulary and taxonomy. This prompt library includes a playground to preview results and a prompt optimizer that automatically drafts suggested improvements.

Adobe is actively expanding BAM’s capabilities through direct co-innovation with customers. Where a specific use case is not yet supported, Adobe works with participating customers to understand their needs and may deliver expanded capabilities as the beta progresses. Customers in this program gain early access to new features as they ship and are encouraged to share feedback that directly shapes the roadmap.

To participate or learn more, send an email to GRP-AEM-ASSETS-BRANDAWAREMETADATA@adobe.com.

Assets Onboarding Agent assets-onboarding-agent-beta

If your organization is new to Experience Manager Assets, you can opt in to the Assets Onboarding Agent Beta program, which gives you access to the following AEM Brand Experience AI skills for onboarding:

  • Guides users through DAM setup and migration planning by using a conversational workflow to capture business needs and recommend how an AEM Assets deployment should be structured.

  • Creates core AEM Assets configuration artifacts such as folder hierarchies, tag taxonomies, metadata forms, and can help execute bulk import jobs to accelerate onboarding.

Why participate?

  • Go live faster with a ready-to-use DAM environment by eliminating repetitive, manual steps with AI assistance.

  • Lower operational overhead with automated configuration and preparation of folders, tags, metadata and asset imports.

  • Improve consistency, governance, and ensure adherence to best practices through a curated setup experience with intelligent recommendations tailor-made for your business.

To participate or learn more, send an email to GRP-AEM-ONBOARDING-AGENT@adobe.com.

Assets Sourcing portal for AEM Assets asset-sourcing-aem-assets

The Assets Sourcing Portal provides a secure, self-service experience for collecting assets from external contributors without granting them access to Adobe Experience Manager Assets. Contributors can upload assets, provide the required metadata, and submit content directly to a designated intake location while administrators maintain control over asset organization and governance.

Adobe works with participating customers to understand their needs and may deliver expanded capabilities as the limited availability program progresses. Customers in this program gain early access to new features as they ship and are encouraged to share feedback that directly shapes the roadmap.

To participate or learn more, send an email to Grp-AEM-Assets-Sourcing-Portal@adobe.com.

You can now generate optimized asset renditions directly from the Content Hub search bar without leaving the search experience. Create channel-specific asset variants by resizing, cropping, compressing, reformatting, or applying composite transformations, enabling faster asset preparation while maintaining brand consistency.

To participate or learn more, send an email to aemcontenthubbeta@adobe.com.

Experience Manager Forms as a Cloud Service forms

Early Access Features in AEM Forms

Table component in Adaptive Forms based on Core Components

Adaptive Forms based on Core Components can now include a Table component to present complex, structured data in tabular layouts. Government and financial services forms often require tabular layouts for numeric data, line items, and multi-column inputs. The Table component supports:

  • Structured row and column authoring with header and body rows
  • Repeatable rows with add and remove actions at runtime
  • Column sorting with ascending and descending order
  • Disable sorting on individual columns for accessibility compliance
  • Proportional column widths
  • Merge and split table row cells
  • Replace default text box cells with other Adaptive Form components
  • Row-level calculations using the Rule Editor
  • Table rendering in Submission PDF (Document of Record).

    For more information, see Add a table to an Adaptive Form (Core Components).

Document conversion APIs

Added support for new document conversion APIs that enable applications to convert documents to supported formats and optimize PDFs for printing and processing. The following APIs are available:

  • HTML to PDF – Converts HTML documents to PDF while preserving page layout and styling.
  • PostScript (PS) to PDF – Converts PostScript documents to PDF.
  • PDF to Image – Converts PDF documents into one or more image files.
  • PDF to PostScript (PS) – Converts PDF documents to PostScript format.
  • Flatten PDF Transparency – Flattens transparent objects in PDF documents to improve compatibility with print and document processing workflows.

Locale support for Interactive Communication

Interactive Communication Editor now allows authors to configure the locale for an Interactive Communication. The selected locale determines language and region-specific formatting, such as dates, numbers, and currencies, enabling localised content for different audiences

Virus scanning and custom validation for file attachments

Validate file attachments in Adaptive Forms before or on submission using custom validation logic, such as integrating a malware or virus scanning service. You can use form rules to trigger validation, or configure validation to run on form submission. Both approaches reject invalid or infected files before persistence, helping protect sensitive data and systems. For details, see Implement a custom validator and Tutorial: Antivirus scanning integration.

Experience Manager as a Cloud Service Foundation foundation

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

Security Health security-health

Security Health gives administrators a clear view of their security posture, updated daily. AEM as a Cloud Service now scans your production environments daily and surfaces the findings directly in Experience Hub, under the Admin and IT profile. The checks align with the OWASP Top 10 and cover the issues that most often turn into real incidents. Security Health detects known vulnerabilities in the third-party Java libraries your custom code depends on, with the CVE ID, score, and severity grouping for each finding. It also flags permission problems before they become security problems, from redundant access control entries that create a false sense of protection to too broad permissions that grant far more access than a user actually needs. Every finding comes with the detail to act on it, and each list can be exported as CSV. You can also automatically fix the security health findings with ASO (AEM Sites Optimizer) as an extra option. This release covers the first set of security checks, and additional types of security findings will be added over time.

Security Health

ChatGPT Plugin aem-chatgpt-plugin

ChatGPT users can browse OpenAI’s Plugin marketplace to 1-click install the Adobe Experience Manager Plugin. This MCP server exposes a growing set of tools to interact with AEM, including editing content through prompting.

Learn more.

AEM MCP Server aem-mcp-server

Adobe now offers a unified AEM MCP Server, replacing the need to configure multiple domain-specific MCP servers individually. Configure a single URL — https://mcp.adobeaemcloud.com/adobe/mcp/aem — in your chat application or coding agent to access a growing set of capabilities, including Content operations (pages, content fragments, and assets – see below) and Experience Governance checks.

New Assets capabilities include upload/download, move/copy/delete, publish/un-publish, editing metadata, inspecting references, and identifying unused assets.

The AEM MCP Server is also used by the AEM Claude Connector and AEM ChatGPT Plugin.

Snapshots for RDEs rde-snapshots

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.

AEM Code Assessment and auto-fix via IDE AI agent ide-ai-aemcode-issues

AEM Cloud Service Java-stack teams using AI-assisted development tools like Cursor, Claude Code, Visual Studio, and IntelliJ get a new capability: a code assessment IDE agent skill that automatically detects and fixes issues right in your AEM codebase — catching problems earlier and cutting down on review cycles.

Supported checks include:

  • replacing deprecated APIs
  • modernizing Sling Model dependency injection
  • updating outdated Maven dependencies
  • adding missing timeouts to outbound HTTP calls
  • bounding unbounded queries
  • Sling schedulers
  • resource change listeners
  • the Replication
  • JCR or OSGi event handling

Experience Manager as a Cloud Service Foundation Important Notices foundation-notices

IMS Authentication Rich Errors ims-auth-rich-errors

To help troubleshoot IMS integrations, imsauth has added support for rich errors.

Instead of returning only an HTTP status code, these errors provide additional context to help diagnose and resolve issues that can block authentication and access.

Java API Deprecations java-api-deprecation

It is critical to remove usage of deprecated APIs.

Since April 14, 2026, Cloud Manager pipelines that contain code using APIs targeting 2/26/2026 removal fail during the Code Quality step. Deployments will be blocked until the deprecated API usage is removed. This may prevent you from releasing time-sensitive updates and could impact your business operations.

Starting September 14, 2026, environments still using these deprecated APIs will not receive critical Adobe release updates and will not be subject to Adobe’s standard commitments around performance and availability. As a result, you will not receive new features or bug fixes, application stability and uptime may be negatively affected, and security risk exposure may increase further.

See the deprecation article for full details, but for convenience, these APIs are listed below:

Expand to see the Java API deprecations
  • org.apache.sling.commons.auth
  • org.apache.felix.webconsole
  • org.eclipse.jetty
  • com.mongodb
  • org.apache.abdera
  • org.apache.felix.http.whiteboard
  • org.apache.cocoon.xml
  • ch.qos.logback
  • org.slf4j.spi
  • org.slf4j.event
  • org.apache.log4j
  • com.google.common
  • com.drew
  • org.apache.jackrabbit.oak.plugins.memory

Preparing for Java 25: AEM Cloud Service Runtime Upgrade Timeline

Java 25 is the next long-term support (LTS) release after Java 21, delivering improvements across performance, developer productivity, and security:

  • Performance — Reduced memory footprint, more efficient garbage collection, and faster JVM warm-up benefit cloud-native deployments.
  • Developer productivity — Cleaner object initialization, more expressive pattern matching, and simplified concurrent task management reduce boilerplate and improve code clarity.
  • Security — Modernized cryptographic key derivation API to simplify common security workflows.

To help organizations plan testing and validation ahead of the necessary Java 25 runtime upgrade, Adobe is providing the following target dates. Any updates to this timeline will be communicated via release notes.

Timeframe
Milestone
Mid-October 2026
AEM Cloud Service SDK supports Java 25 runtime. The Java 25 JDK is available for download from the Adobe Software Distribution portal.
November 2026
Customers are encouraged to optionally enable the Java 25 runtime in their Cloud environments to validate behavior. Early adoption maximizes time to surface and resolve issues.
February – May 2027
Adobe will gradually migrate lower environments (RDE, Dev) to the Java 25 runtime. Customers should validate behavior and report unexpected issues, and are encouraged to enable staging and production environments as well. A temporary rollback to Java 21 is available while resolving any problems.
June 2027
All environment runtimes (including staging and production) migrate to Java 25. Java 21 runtime is decommissioned. The AEM Cloud Service SDK will no longer support Java 21.

AEM Cloud Service continues to support compiling customer code with Java 11, Java 17, and Java 21. However, Adobe recommends building with Java 25 (once available in AEM) to take full advantage of the latest language features and performance improvements.

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

AEM Edge Functions (Public Beta Program) edge-functions

AEM Edge Functions is now in public beta so you can try it out in a self-serve way without contacting Adobe to enable.

This feature 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. It’s available for both AEM Cloud Service Java Stack and Edge Delivery Services projects, for AEM Sites customers.

Common use cases include:

  • Personalizing content based on geolocation, device type, or user attributes
  • Acting as middleware between the CDN and your origin
  • Reformatting responses from third-party APIs (and perhaps aggregating multiple API responses) before delivering them to the browser
  • Composing and serving server-rendered HTML at the edge using content stitched from various backends

Follow this tutorial for a concrete walk-through for both Edge Delivery Services and AEM as a Cloud Service Java-stack variations.

By using the AEM Edge Functions Beta, you acknowledge that it is still in development and that you should not rely on the correct functioning of the technology or availability of data. This feature is provided as-is,
may change without notice, and is not covered by production SLAs.

Replication AI Troubleshooting (Beta Program) replication-ai-troubleshooting-beta

Using the AI Assistant in AEM Author and other interfaces, you can troubleshoot replication-related issues such as blocked queues. To join the Beta Program, email aem-devagent@adobe.com, describing your interest.

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.

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

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.

OpenTelemetry for Application Performance Monitoring (APM) (Alpha Program) apm-alpha

AEM as a Cloud Service now supports OpenTelemetry-based telemetry export, letting you monitor AEM alongside the rest of your systems in the APM tools your teams already use.

Use this integration to:

  • Investigate slow or failing requests
  • Track JVM health and resource usage over time
  • Build dashboards and alerts for your AEM tiers
  • Correlate AEM behavior with other services during incidents

To join the alpha, email aemcs-apm-beta@adobe.com, describing your use case.

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.

recommendation-more-help
experience-manager-cloud-service-help-main-toc