Sitecore Stream - Configure AI capabilities into Sitecore XP using Stream Platform DxP package

Hi Folks,

Recently, I delivered a webinar on "Do more in era of less with AI capabilities, Ideation to execution with Sitecore Stream" and I also have a blog around the same which you can read here on Sitecore Stream - Do more in era of less with AI capabilities, Ideation to execution

The purpose of the webinar session and above blog is to first set the tone for reader and audience to understand what Sitecore Stream is and how it operates and what values it can bring in, if possible, I will share the slides too so you can go through it.

That session and the blog above were more from how Sitecore Stream is solving marketer's challenges

Today, I will be showing you how you can configure the power of stream and its Brand Aware AI capabilities right into your on-prem XP, Why XP is because all other SaaS based (Cloud based) DxP products like XMC, Search, CH already has the power of Stream, So I will show you the steps of configuring Stream into on-prem XP version.

Prerequisites: 

To be able to configure stream in your XP, Following are the prerequisites 

1) You will need Sitecore Stream license, Your on-prem XP is actually going to talk to your SaaS Stream and its configuration of brand-kit etc to generate content, so you need Stream license.

2) Your Sitecore version should be >=10.2 to be able to use this.

3) Sitecore Stream for Platform DxP package or module, which you will install using package installation wizard.

Configuration Steps

Step-1: First of all, to download the package you will need to login to https://portal.sitecorecloud.io/ 

Step-2: If you have stream subscription then and have access to Stream App, you will see that on the launchpad, so click on the Stream App

Step-3: Click on "Sitecore Stream for Platform DXP" and it will download a package

Step-4: Open your on-prem Sitecore instance and install the package you downloaded and verify the files to ensure that installation was successful.

NOTE: It is important to note that, when you download the package, it ships with other compressed folders too, so you can not give the downloaded package directly to Sitecore, but make sure to unzip it and only use folder called "SitecorePackage" to be uploaded in installation wizard of Sitecore package installation.

Step-5: To verify if the package installation was successful You can go to dashboard and see Stream section

So now, you have all binaries and config files now available which can talk to the SaaS Stream app in your subscription, now it is time to configure the connection to the Stream app so we can start getting the AI capabilities built into Sitecore.

Step-6: Configuring the connection to Sitecore Stream involves adding connection string of stream in connectionstring.config file, Connection string consists of "Client_id, client_secret, authority, audience"

While authority and audience values are fixed and global to the installation (authority=https://auth.sitecorecloud.io and audience=https://api.sitecorecloud.io), you just need to generate client_id and secret from Sitecore Stream portal itself from the "Admin" menu as shown in below screenshot. (Make sure you note them down somewhere, else they are only displayed once).

Step-7: Now write that values into connection string and put it in the our standard sitecore's connectionstring.config file

HINT: What i did was the package ships with all the helpful documentation, there is a "docs" folder in the package which has all the "MarkDown - .md files, which also helps with step by step processes, I referred to install.md and i updated my client_id and client_secret into the sample given in install.md and copied the whole connectionstring from there.

<add

name="sitecore.aiclient.stream"

connectionString="client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID;client_secret=YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET;authority=https://auth.sitecorecloud.io;audience=https://api.sitecorecloud.io"

/>

Step-8: How to make your local XP brand aware? You have configured the stream connection, but you would want to generate the content in context of your brand, right? if you do not know what is "Brand aware -AI" in Stream, please refer to my blog post on Stream where I have explained this.

Again, you will find how to configure brand-kit connection into your XP, is given in install.md file which ships with the package, here are the steps

1. Get your Brand Kit ID from the Stream Portal URL

2. Get your Organization ID from the Sitecore Portal URL

3. Update the following settings in `Sitecore.AiClient.config` located at "\App_Config\Sitecore\AiClient" folder

 <setting name="Sitecore.AiClient.Stream.BrandKitId" value="<<BRAND_KIT_ID>>" />

 <setting name="Sitecore.AiClient.Stream.BrandKitReferencePath" value="/api/brands/v1/organizations/org_<<ORG_ID>>/brandkits/<<BRAND_KIT_ID>>" />

You can get the brand kit id by going to Stream app -> Brand Kits -> Select your brand kit 

and click on your brand it and find the brand kit id in URL address bar of the browser

NOTE: Above brand kit configurations is for platform DxP package 1.0, In versions later than this brand kit selection can be done directly from Stream dialog box.

That is it my friends :) You connected and configured Sitecore Stream into your XP, now to check that, go to content editor and you will see AI icon

Content generation is possible with following field types

1) Single-line text

2) Multiline text

3) Rich text

Step-9: Let's open content editor and check AI icons on above field types

Step-10: See how you can use generative AI right into the editor and power of AI using Stream, Click the AI icon on the "Content" field and it will open Stream window, See I have requested Stream AI to generate the content

Thing to observe is, I have grounded the AI data using the brand-kit, so it knows how to output brand related content, for demo of my webinar I already grounded data for SUGNAGPUR and you can see AI is outputting it exactly that, that is called "Brand-Aware AI"

On top of it, you can also do things like "Make it shorter", "Improve writing", "Fix spelling and grammar", "Make longer", "Change Tone" (like soft, hard, friendly) using the button available on top of stream dialog box.

Read more on what are the possible option here

Summary

As you can the power of AI and its capabilities can be configured right into your Sitecore XM/XP (>-10.2 versions) and that also having brand awareness

This is pretty neat and need of the hour, which will make content authors and marketer's life easy and efficient.