Release Notes 2026 release-notes-2026

This page lists all the features and improvements for Journey Optimizer released in 2026.

March '26 release notes march-26-rn

The New capabilities and Improvements sections cover capabilities already available.

Release date: March 24-25, 2026

New capabilities march-26-features

URL parameter encryption

URL parameters in tracking and landing page links added to your email messages can now be encrypted, providing an additional layer of security for sensitive parameter data.

  • Register and manage encryption keys in the dedicated Administration registry.
  • Use the new `Encrypt` helper function in expressions to encrypt sensitive data in URLs for the query parameters you want to protect at render time.

This capability is only available for a set of organizations (Limited Availability). To gain access, contact your Adobe representative.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: March 31, 2026

Convert images to email content templates

You can now convert images into email content templates directly in Journey Optimizer. Use AI-powered analysis to automatically generate structured HTML templates from visual references, significantly reducing email design time.

Previously released in Limited Availability, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: March 31, 2026

Landing page custom forms

With Journey Optimizer, you can capture profile attributes through your landing pages.

Create, design and manage custom forms tailored to your needs based on a specific dataset. You can then leverage these forms in landing pages to add the profile attributes of your choice into the dataset defined for each form.

Previously released in Limited Availability for customers in the United States and Australia, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: March 26, 2026.

Test activity in Orchestrated Campaigns

A new Test activity is now available in Orchestrated Campaigns. This activity routes workflow execution to different branches based on defined conditions, enabling you to validate campaign logic and configurations before activating live deliveries.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Dataset lookup support in journeys

A new Dataset lookup activity in journeys lets you dynamically retrieve data from Adobe Experience Platform record datasets at runtime — giving you access to information that is not part of the profile or event payload, so customer interactions stay relevant and timely.

Previously released in Limited Availability to a restricted set of organizations, the Dataset lookup activity in journeys is now available to all customers entitled to [dataset lookup](../data/lookup-aep-data.md), while remaining in Limited Availability.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Action activity replaces channel-specific journey activities

Following the General Availability of the Action activity in February 2026, legacy native channel activities (Email, Push, SMS, In-app, Web, Code-based experience, and Content Card) in the journey canvas are now deprecated.

You must now use the single Action activity to configure all channel actions, replacing the need for separate channel-specific nodes.

Existing journeys using legacy channel activities continue to function without any changes or migration required.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Advanced HTML editor for email templates

Advanced HTML mode for email content templates lets you edit the HTML source of your content in the Email Designer, add advanced expressions (such as conditions) in the source, and toggle between HTML view and Desktop view without losing your changes.

This capability is available in content templates for the Email channel only. It is currently in Limited Availability — contact your Adobe representative to gain access.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: March 10, 2026

Integration of custom Firefly models and third-party image generation models

Enable seamless integration of standard and custom Firefly models, along with approved third-party image models, to provide greater flexibility, control, and brand alignment when generating images.

Choose the right model for your needs:

  • Adobe model (powered by Firefly Image Model 4) for immediate image generation without additional setup
  • Partner model (powered by Gemini 2.5 Flash) for specialized capabilities
  • Custom models (brand-specific models trained on your own assets) for on-brand generation that aligns precisely with your brand identity, style, and visual guidelines.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: March 2, 2026

Live Activity for iOS

Bring real-time experiences directly to your customers' Lock Screens and Dynamic Island with iOS Live Activity in Adobe Journey Optimizer. Deliver live updates, from order tracking and flight status to event countdowns, live scores and delivery progress, without requiring users to open your app. Keep your audience informed and engaged at exactly the right moment, right where they are.

Previously released in beta, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: March 3, 2026

Journey Agent: Channel content create

Powered by Adobe Experience Platform Agent Orchestrator, Journey Agent is available in Journey Optimizer and enables you to analyze journeys through a natural language interface. You can now also generate and manage channel-specific content directly in Journey Agent, creating content for channels such as email and push, applying and previewing templates, refining tone and style through prompts, and opening content in Content Designer for in-context editing.

This capability is only available for a set of organizations (Limited Availability). To gain access, contact your Adobe representative.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: March 4, 2026

AI model monitoring

Journey Optimizer now allows you to monitor the health, training status, and performance of your Decisioning AI models. This allows you to verify training success, troubleshoot failures, and understand impact on your outcomes in order to select the best offers for each customer using AI. Note that this capability is available for Decisioning only (not for legacy Decision Management models).

This capability is currently available for personalized optimization models only (not auto-optimization).

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: March 9, 2026

Trigger Orchestrated campaigns using a signal

Orchestrated campaigns can now be triggered via an API signal. To set this up, configure the target campaign as Triggered by a signal, publish it, then fire it using an API call. Any parameters included in the API call are available as variables within the running campaign. Note that signal-triggered orchestrated campaigns remain batch campaigns and are distinct from API-triggered campaigns.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Transactional category in Orchestrated campaigns

In Orchestrated campaigns, you can now set a channel activity to the Transactional category. This applies transactional channel configurations to that activity and is useful when business rules should not apply or when customers' opt-in is not required.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

This capability will be gradually rolled out to all regions over the next few days.

Improvements march-26-improv

Improvements coming with this release are listed below.

Personalization

  • Complete/base URL personalization - You can personalize destination URLs using profile attributes (for example, for the domain or path). To enable this capability, provide Adobe with your list of accepted domains. Read more

    Previously released in Limited Availability for use in journeys, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).

    Availability date: April 1, 2026

Reporting

  • Send-Time Optimization: updated controls location and new lift report - Send-Time Optimization (STO) controls have been relocated to the Action configuration menu. Additionally, a new lift report is now available in Journeys reports to measure the impact of STO on your campaign performance metrics. Read more

    Availability date: March 27, 2026

Configuration

  • AJO domain certificates renewal unsuccessful - You can now subscribe to receive system alerts, either by email or in the Journey Optimizer notification center, when a domain certificate used for email deliverability is nearing expiration or has already expired. Read more

    Availability date: March 26, 2026

  • AJO Secondary Recipient Feedback Event Dataset rename - The AJO Email BCC Feedback Event Dataset has been renamed to AJO Secondary Recipient Feedback Event Dataset. The impact varies depending on your situation:

    • Existing users: Only the display name is updated. The underlying table name remains unchanged.
    • New users and sandboxes: Both the display name and the table name reflect the new name.
    • Existing users with new sandboxes: Both the display name and the table name are updated to the new name.
    note
    NOTE
    New datasets show the new name immediately. For older dataset names, backfill and reconciliation proceed gradually and may take several weeks to complete.

    Availability date: March 2, 2026

Journeys

  • Update Profile action: support for multiple profile attributes - The Update Profile action activity now supports updating up to five profile attributes in a single node. Previously, each action could only update one attribute at a time, requiring multiple nodes to update several attributes. Use the new Update another field button to add additional field/value pairs, reducing canvas complexity and improving performance. Learn more

  • Wave sending of outbound messages in journeys - You can now schedule messages from Journey Optimizer journeys to be delivered in controlled batches over time. Learn more

    Previously released in Limited Availability for use in journeys, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).

    Availability date: March 16, 2026

  • Pause and resume details in journey technical details - The journey technical details now include additional pause and resume information: the date and time of the last pause and resume, the display name and internal identifier of the user who performed each action, and a full set of paused journey settings such as pause behavior, maximum pause duration, and auto-resume state. Learn more

    Availability date: March 2, 2026

Decisioning

  • Decisioning migration — offer and context attributes - The Migration API entity mapping now lists offer attributes (migratedofferattributes on the Personalized offer item schema) and context attributes (migratedcontextattributes on the migration dataset schema). Read more

    Availability date: March 31, 2026

February '26 release notes feb-26-01-rn

New capabilities feb-26-01-features

Journey arbitration

You can now use ranking formulas to automatically boost journey priority scores based on customer profile attributes and contextual factors, ensuring customers enter the most relevant journeys.

This capability is only available for a set of organizations (Limited Availability). To gain access, contact your Adobe representative.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: February 24, 2026

Action activity in journeys

Journey Optimizer supports a new generic Action activity that enables you to configure both single actions and multi-action inbound action groups, allowing for streamlined action configuration within the journey canvas. In particular, this new feature allows for:

  • A simplified native action configuration within the journey canvas.
  • The capacity to create multi-action inbound action groups.
  • The ability to add optimization to any built-in channel action.
  • The ability to add both experimentation and multilingual options to any action.

Previously released in Limited Availability, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: February 20, 2026

Note: All native channels are now accessible through the Action journey activity. Legacy native channel activities will be deprecated with the March release. Existing journeys that include legacy actions will continue to function as is—no migration is required.

Wave sending of outbound messages

You can now schedule messages from Journey Optimizer campaigns or journeys to be delivered in controlled batches over time.

Wave sending offers the following benefits:

  • Better deliverability – Spread sends over time to help maintain a strong sender reputation and reduce the risk of being flagged as spam.
  • Load control – Avoid overwhelming downstream systems (e.g. call centers, landing pages) by limiting how many messages go out at once.
  • High-volume and time-sensitive use cases – Suited to large audiences or when you need to control timing (e.g. call center capacity, ramp-up, or time-bound offers).

In campaigns, this capability is available to all environments (General Availability). For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

In journeys, this capability is only available for a set of organizations (Limited Availability) – To gain access, contact your Adobe representative. For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: February 19, 2026

Migrate subdomains to custom delegation

You can now migrate subdomains using the CNAME delegation mode to custom delegation directly from the interface, so you can meet stricter security policies in line with your company's guidelines without re-creating channel configurations.

This capability is only available for a set of organizations (Limited Availability). To gain access, contact your Adobe representative.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: February 19, 2026

Web push notifications channel

Adobe Journey Optimizer now supports Web push notifications, expanding the push channel beyond mobile. You can seamlessly deliver notifications to both mobile and desktop browsers, enabling you to reach customers directly on their devices without requiring an app. This enhancement allows you to engage users with timely, personalized messages in real time, leveraging the same authoring workflows and targeting capabilities already available for mobile push.

Previously released in Beta, this capability will be available to all environments (General Availability).

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: February 13, 2026

Content decision activity

A new Content decision activity is now available in the journey canvas for integrating personalized offers directly into your customer journeys. This activity enables you to deliver decision-based content and reference those offers throughout your journey—in conditions for creating eligibility-based branching, in custom actions for passing offer data to external systems, and in other activities for building fully personalized customer experiences.

Previously released in Limited Availability, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: February 10, 2026

Self-service migration tooling APIs

Migration tooling APIs are now available to programmatically migrate Decision management entities to Decisioning, featuring:

  • Flexible migration scopes (sandbox, offer, or decision level)
  • Automated dependency analysis and validation
  • Rollback support for completed migrations
  • Detailed migration reports with object mappings

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: February 3, 2026

Custom action monitoring

Gain deeper insight into the health and performance of your custom action endpoints with a new monitoring dashboard and enriched journey step event data. Track successful calls, errors, throughput, response times, and queue wait times to quickly understand when, where, and why anomalies occur.

Previously released in Limited Availability, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: February 3, 2026

Decisioning support in SMS channel

You can now personalize and optimize the content of your SMS messages with Decisioning. Use Priority Scores, Formulas, or AI Models to display the best content to your customers.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: February 2, 2026

Improvements feb-26-01-improv

Improvements coming with this release are listed below.

Configuration

  • Experience event usage in journey expressions - Starting April 1, 2026, the use of experience event attributes in journey expressions will no longer be supported for organizations that have not used this capability in the last 90 days. This capability has already been unavailable for new customer organizations since July 8, 2025. For alternatives, see Experience event lookup in journeys.

Content Management

  • Use themes to convert images to email templates - When converting an image to an email template in Journey Optimizer, you can now use a theme as input so the generated HTML follows your brand parameters. Styling such as background color, button color, fonts, line spacing, margins, and padding is applied automatically, reducing manual design work and delivering a template that is ready to use with minimal edits. Read more

    Availability date: February 17, 2026.

Email Designer

  • Text indentation - You can now apply customizable left indentation to the first line of paragraphs in text components directly from the properties panel. This improves readability for long-form content such as editorials and articles. Read more

    Availability date: February 18, 2026.

Decisioning

  • Edge inbound support for using Adobe Experience Platform data in Decisioning - Using Adobe Experience Platform data in Decisioning now supports edge inbound use cases, in addition to email and custom actions in journeys. Read more

    This capability is only available for a set of organizations (Limited Availability). To gain access, contact your Adobe representative.

  • Decisioning preview in Code-based Experience channel - You can now preview decision items when configuring Decisioning with the Code-based Experience channel. Preview is available directly in the authoring interface before going live. Read more

    Availability date: February 18, 2026

Personalization

  • Execution Metadata helper - The executionMetadata helper function is now available to all Journey Optimizer customers. Use it to dynamically append contextual information to any native action and capture it in a dataset for export to external systems. Read more

    Previously released in Limited Availability, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).

    Availability date: February 20, 2026.

SMS

  • SMS Webhooks - Webhooks are now supported across all SMS providers. You can configure each webhook based on its intended purpose: Inbound webhooks to capture incoming messages and Feedback webhooks to receive delivery receipts, status updates, and other message-related events. Read more

    Availability date: February 2, 2026.

January '26 release notes jan-26-rn

New capabilities jan-26-01-features

Decisioning support in Push channel

You can now personalize and optimize the content of your Push notifications with Decisioning. Use Priority Scores, Formulas, or AI Models to display the best content to your customers.

Experience Decisioning with push notifications requires a specific version of the Mobile SDK. Before implementing this feature, check the release notes to identify the required version and ensure you have upgraded accordingly. You can also view all available SDK versions for your platform in this section.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: January 30, 2026

Direct mail channel in journeys

Previously limited to Campaigns, Direct Mail channel is now available on the journey canvas, enabling you to incorporate Direct Mail into your journeys. Direct Mail can now be used in both batch and 1:1 journey scenarios, with support for file extraction configuration and time-based frequency settings.

Previously released in Limited Availability, this capability is now available to all environments (General Availability).

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: January 29, 2026

Quiet hours (time-based exclusions)

Quiet hours let you define time-based exclusions for Email, SMS, Push, and WhatsApp channels. They ensure that no messages are sent during specific periods of time, helping you respect customer preferences and compliance requirements. You can apply quiet hours through rule sets, which can be assigned to individual actions in campaigns or journeys for precise control.

Previously released in Limited Availability, this feature is now available to all environments. With this General Availability release, the feature now includes the ability for customer to queue a campaign action until the completion of Quiet Hours, and the ability to preview the activated Quiet Hours rule.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: January 29, 2026

Message export

A new Message Export capability is now available for email and SMS channels. This feature allows you to automatically export sent message content to a dedicated Experience Platform dataset, enabling you to:

  • Meet regulatory compliance requirements (such as HIPAA)
  • Archive messages for legal claims and customer care inquiries
  • Retain copies of personalized content sent to individuals

Records are retained in the AJO Message Export Dataset for 7 calendar days from ingestion. During this retention period, you can export them to your own storage via Experience Platform destinations. The feature is enabled at the channel configuration level, giving you granular control over which messages are exported.

This capability is only available for the email and SMS channel, for organizations that have purchased the Message Export add-on offering. For more information, contact your Adobe representative.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: January 28, 2026

Direct mail channel in orchestrated campaigns

Direct mail channel is now available in orchestrated campaigns. The Direct mail activity facilitates direct mail sending within your Orchestrated campaign, for both one-time and recurring messages. It serves to automate the process of generating the extraction file required by direct mail providers. You can combine channel activities into the Orchestrated campaign canvas to create cross-channel campaigns that can trigger actions based on customer behavior and data.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: January 28, 2026

Journey Agent - Create a Journey

Journey Agent now offers creation capabilities, enabling Journey Optimizer users to build and configure marketing journeys through a natural language interface. With these new skills, practitioners can quickly create journeys by simply describing their requirements in conversational prompts. This innovation streamlines the journey creation process, allowing marketers to concentrate on strategy rather than technical configuration.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: January 12, 2026

Action campaign retrieval API

A new Journey Optimizer API is now available, enabling you to programmatically retrieve and inspect campaign-related data such as details, versions, and configurations.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: November 24, 2025

Email Designer themes

You can now quickly apply pre-approved themes to ensure brand consistency across all emails, speed up your campaign creation process, and independently produce high-quality emails while reducing dependency on design teams.

Previously released in beta version, this capability is now available for a set of organizations (Limited Availability). To gain access, contact your Adobe representative.

For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

Availability date: November 5, 2025

Improvements jan-26-01-improv

AI

  • AI Assistant Content Quality Checks - In addition to brand alignment, you can now evaluate overall content quality to uncover potential issues with readability, cohesiveness, and effectiveness, independent of your brand guidelines. These automated checks help identify unclear messaging, inconsistent tone, or structural gaps. Read more.

    Discover this feature in video.

Journeys

  • Combine native and Adobe Campaign message actions - Journey Optimizer now lets you combine Adobe Campaign v7/v8 message actions with native channel actions in the same journey. Read more

    Availability date: January 27, 2026.

  • Custom action error response payload - You can now define an optional error response payload for custom actions. When a call fails, the error payload is exposed in the journey context (under the action’s errorResponse node) and is available in the timeout/error branch, alongside jo_status_code, to support richer fallback logic and debugging. Read more

    Availability date: January 27, 2026.

  • Journey payload size validation in journeys - Journey Optimizer now validates payload sizes to help ensure optimal performance and system stability. When building or publishing journeys, you receive clear warnings and errors if payload sizes approach or exceed recommended limits, along with actionable guidance to optimize your journey configuration. This proactive validation helps you identify potential issues early and maintain journey performance. Read more

    Availability date: January 27, 2026.

  • Journey alerts - New pre-configured alerts are available for journeys.

    • Profile Discard Rate Exceeded - Ratio of profile discards to entered profiles over the last 5 mins exceeded threshold
    • Custom Action Error Rate Exceeded - Ratio of custom action errors to successful HTTP calls over the last 5 mins exceeded threshold
    • Profile Error Rate Exceeded - Ratio of profiles-in-error to entered profiles over the last 5 mins exceeded threshold

    For more information, refer to the detailed documentation.

    Availability date: October 14, 2025.

Orchestrated campaigns

  • Data usage label inheritance for audiences - Labels applied in Adobe Experience Platform now automatically carry over when saving audiences in orchestrated campaigns, reducing manual DULE tagging. Read more

  • Predefined filters with parameters - You can now create predefined filters with parameters in orchestrated campaigns for reusable, editable rules. Read more

  • Select attributes and copy distribution values - You can now select or copy values directly from the distribution of values view in orchestrated campaigns. Read more

  • Message confirmation before send - A confirmation step is now enabled by default before sending orchestrated campaigns to reduce accidental sends. Read more

  • Predefined retargeting filters - To support easier retargeting for orchestrated campaign use cases, this release introduces new campaign feedback filters. These filters let you directly target audiences based on message engagement, such as sent, opened only, opened or clicked, or opened and clicked, and select the specific campaign or in-transition campaign you want to retarget. Read more

  • Rate control support - Orchestrated campaigns now support rate control to help you pace deliveries and align with volume constraints. Read more

  • Restart button - Orchestrated campaigns now include a restart button so you can quickly re-launch runs when needed before publishing the campaign. Read more

  • User-generated metadata support - The executionMetadata helper function is now available in the personalization editor for Orchestrated campaigns, enabling you to attach contextual information to any native action and store it in a dataset for export to external systems. Read more

    Availability date: January 27, 2026.

  • Revert live campaigns to draft status - You can now revert live orchestrated campaigns to draft status when they encounter execution errors or when you need to modify scheduled campaigns before they start executing. This option is available until the first message is sent. Read more

Campaigns

  • Schedule Campaign using Profile Time Zone - Campaign scheduling can now use each profile’s time zone to deliver messages at the intended local time. Read more

    Note: This improvement is only be available for a set of organizations (Limited Availability).

    Availability date: January 27, 2026.

Permissions

  • Prevent self-approval for journeys and campaigns - Added an option when creating or setting Approval Policy to prevent journey or campaign creators from approving their own objects. Read more

    Availability date: January 27, 2026.

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