May '26 pre-release notes may-26-rn
The pre-release notes below are subject to change without prior notice until the release availability date. Links, screens and updated documentation are published once changes are live in production. While most changes are delivered on the release date, a few may roll out later — refer to the Availability Date listed for each entry for details.
See also Adobe Experience Platform Pre-release notes.
Release date: May 19–20, 2026
New capabilities may-26-features
The following capabilities are targeted for this release.
SMS, MMS, and RCS are now unified under a single Mobile Message action in Adobe Journey Optimizer, making it easier to manage all mobile message types from one place. As part of this update, you can now author rich media RCS messages — including images, carousels, and suggested actions — directly in Journey Optimizer through a new native authoring experience.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
Orchestrated campaigns can now be linked together by triggering an orchestrated campaign directly from another orchestrated campaign's End activity.
This makes it possible to break complex orchestration logic into smaller, reusable flows that can be called from multiple parent campaigns rather than rebuilt each time. The payload passed at runtime is available for segmentation and personalization in the downstream campaign, so each linked campaign can behave based on the context it receives.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
Use the new Optimize node to target specific audiences to determine the best path to meet your business-centric KPIs.
This tool allows you to develop more effective marketing campaigns that are more likely to resonate at the 1:1 level, improve marketing personalization efforts for customers and enhance critical customer engagement KPIs, such as conversions and revenue.
Previously available in Limited Availability, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).
Availability date: May 19, 2026
You can now use formulas to automatically boost journey priority scores based on customer profile attributes and contextual factors, ensuring customers enter the most relevant journeys.
Previously available in Limited Availability, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).
Availability date: May 19, 2026
You can now add Decision policies into Direct Mail journeys and campaigns. Decision policies are containers for your offers that leverage the Decisioning engine to dynamically return the best content to deliver for each audience member.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
Journey Optimizer now uses the Content Advisor selector, a unified modal for selecting both Experience Manager Assets and Content Fragments. The new selector supports browsing, searching, and filtering across all assets, includes Dynamic Media renditions, and incorporates enhanced user interface capabilities that allow you to easily add image renditions when dynamic assets are used.
Previously available in Limited Availability, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).
Availability date: May 19, 2026
Non-recurring Read Audience journeys now automatically stop once the last active profile exits. Previously, these journeys remained Live until the 91-day global timeout expired — even when no profiles were flowing through them anymore. With this improvement, journey status reflects actual execution state as soon as it completes, keeping your journey inventory accurate without manual intervention.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
AI Assistant now operates in the journey advanced expression editor to convert natural-language prompts into valid expressions and conditional logic. Describe the expression you want to build, and AI Assistant generates ready-to-use code you can apply immediately or refine through follow-up prompts.
This capability is available to all customers as a Public Beta.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
You can now set your journey to Simulation. This mode allows you to validate your logic using simulated users. These are temporary profiles created specifically for the simulation, allowing you to test freely without needing to manage persistent test profiles in Adobe Experience Platform.
Previously released in Limited Availability, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).With General Availability release, you can now use Journey Agent to generate simulated users and events directly in the Simulation menu.
Availability date: May 28, 2026
Orchestrated campaigns now support loading a CSV or TXT file directly into the campaign canvas as the targeting audience, without first ingesting the file into Adobe Experience Platform. The file data is consumed at execution time and is not persisted as an Adobe Experience Platform dataset. During file setup, you can define column mappings, data types, NULL handling, and per-column error policies. This supports ad-hoc sends or partner list campaigns where building a full ingestion pipeline is not practical.
This capability is only available for a set of organizations (Limited Availability). To gain access, contact your Adobe representative.
Availability date: May 28, 2026
Improvements may-26-improv
The following improvements are targeted for this release.
Campaigns
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Folders for journeys and campaigns - You can now organize your journeys and campaigns into folders to improve navigation and management in the interface.
This capability is only available for a set of organizations (Limited Availability). To gain access, contact your Adobe representative.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
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Customer alerts for campaign lifecycle events - New system alerts now notify you of key lifecycle events for Action and API-triggered campaigns. Subscribe at the sandbox level.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
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Override the default execution field in campaigns - Previously available at the journey level, you can now override the default execution field set globally for your Email, SMS and WhatsApp deliveries in the campaign parameters.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
Decisioning
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Adobe Experience Manager content fragments in Decisioning - You can now map Adobe Experience Manager content fragments to decision items in Decisioning and leverage them inside decision policies to deliver the right fragment to the right customer at the right time.
This capability is only available for a set of organizations (Limited Availability). To gain access, contact your Adobe representative.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
Email Designer
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Rich text in editable fragment fields - You can now add rich text to customizable fragments that are used in your emails content. For example, when using the Text component as an editable field in the Email Designer, you can directly format the content (for example, bold and italics) and insert hyperlinks.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
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Restrict inheritance breaking in fragments - When creating or editing a fragment, you can now choose whether it can be modified when used in emails. Locking a fragment ensures it stays synchronized everywhere it appears, preventing local edits that could break brand standards or compliance requirements. This setting can be updated later, applying to future usages.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
Journeys
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Certificate-Based Custom Authentication in custom actions - Custom actions now support Certificate-Based Custom Authentication. By adding subType: “certificateCredential” to a custom authorization configuration, Journey Optimizer uses Adobe’s managed certificate to sign a JWT client assertion and exchange it for an access token — no client secret required. Designed for enterprise APIs that enforce certificate-based identity verification, such as Azure Entra ID.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
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Supplemental identifier support for external audiences - Supplemental identifiers in journeys are now supported for external audiences, including audiences imported from a CSV file and audiences created with Federated Audience Composition. You can designate any non-identity attribute or non-person identity attribute from the audience as the supplemental ID, no schema labeling is required.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
Reporting
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Exclude bot clicks for email and SMS reporting - New estimated metrics are now available to help filter out non-human (bot) interactions from email and SMS reporting. These include estimated clicks, click-through rates (CTR), and click-to-open rates (CTOR), providing a more accurate view of real customer engagement. Existing metrics remain unchanged, and these new metrics can be used alongside current reporting for improved analysis.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
Integrations
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Open-time personalization with countdown timer using Dynamic Media- Journey Optimizer and Adobe Experience Manager Dynamic Media integration enables open-time personalization for Dynamic Media templates, unlocking hyper-personalized use cases. Customers can create and publish personalized templates in Adobe Experience Manager and use them in Journey Optimizer, with data rendered at open time.
Availability date: May 19, 2026
Orchestrated campaigns
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Add links in Enrichment activity - The Add Link functionality is now available in the Enrichment Activity for Orchestrated Campaigns. This allows you to create a direct relationship between your working table data and your existing database tables.
Availability date: May 26, 2026
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Loop-based personalization for relational data - The personalization editor now supports a Loop block that iterates over relational collections, such as orders, accounts, or bookings, and renders one content block per record inside a single email or SMS. Collections are configured through the data picker using personalization tokens, with no expression writing required.
Availability date: May 28, 2026
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Personalize email sender details per recipient and campaign - Orchestrated campaigns now support personalization of email header fields, including From name, From address, and Reply-To, using profile attributes or relational data. This allows sender details to reflect the relevant advisor, location, or branch for each recipient, rather than routing all sends through a single corporate address.
Header values can be set at the channel level and overridden per campaign using contextual data for more precise control.
Availability date: May 29, 2026