What's New in Arc XP

Release dates

Release summary

We're excited to announce the initial release of Ask the News, a new AI-powered Q&A experience that helps users quickly find answers cited in your journalism, while capturing first-party reader intent.

This initial launch delivers the core Ask the News experience, including AI-generated answers based on eligible news content, source attribution to supporting articles, and a conversational interface for exploring news topics more efficiently.

Highlights include:

This is the initial public release of Ask the News. Additional enhancements and feature updates will be delivered in future releases as we continue to refine the experience based on user feedback. See Ask the News on ALC for more information.

Users affected

Current Arc XP Platform customers

Action required

Interested in adding Ask the News to your Arc XP platform? Reach out to your Technical Account Manager to learn more about licensing, availability, and the steps to get started.

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Release summary

Signals API

Editorial Signals are a layer of human-controlled ranking rules that sit on top the Content Recommendation API’s machine-learned recommendations.

They let your newsroom override, nudge, or filter the model’s output without retraining anything: the changes take effect on the very next recommendation request.

In short: AI decides what is likely to engage a given reader; signals decide what is editorially encouraged, discouraged, or required for that reader to see (or not see).

Signals are exposed through a dedicated service: the Signals API (/signals/v1).

The four signal types

There are four distinct signal types. Each one answers a different editorial question.

Boost

”I want this to do better than the model thinks it will.”

Multiplies the item’s AI score by a weight between 1.0 and 10.0. Item rises naturally in the ranking.

Bury

”I want this to do worse than the model thinks it will.”

Multiplies the item’s AI score by a weight between 0.0 and 0.9. Item falls in the ranking but isn’t removed.

Pin

”This item must appear at position N.”

Forces the item into a specific 1-indexed slot, even if the content was not included in the preliminary candidate set. An absolute position override.

Exclude

”This item must not appear at all, regardless of relevance.”

Removes the item from the candidate set entirely. Takes precedence over every other signal, including Pin.

Boost and Bury are soft — they bias the ranking. Pin and Exclude are hard — they override it. The reranker applies them in a deterministic order (exclude → boost/bury → sort → pin → truncate), so the outcome is predictable no matter how many signals stack up on the same response.

Learn more in this Signals API guide.

Recommendations API: remove content anchor

The Recommendations API previously had the ability to anchor a recommendation based on the content ID. The initial implementation did not provide the expected results, and we are re-visiting the approach. For now, the suggested approach is to leverage anchoring by applying a section filter to the Recommendations API to achieve some measure of relatedness.

Recommendations API: Recency preview before ingestion

Before your catalog has been ingested and the model has trained, GET /recommend/v1/recommendations still returns a usable response so you can build and validate your rendering ahead of go-live.

In this state the API returns the five most recent active catalog items as a recency preview. The API returns up to five items in the free subscription tier. It is possible to request fewer items, but not more.

Preview items are fully enriched and carry the same attribution as personalized results, so your card-rendering code exercises the real response shape. What they do not carry is a relevance score — every preview item is scored 0.0. A response whose items are all scored 0.0 is the signal clients use to distinguish a preview from personalized results: no reranker is run, and no editorial signals (boosts, buries, pins) are applied to a preview.

If the catalog has no content yet (nothing has been ingested at all) there is nothing to preview, and the request falls through to the existing 403 response.

CDP Integration Guide

The Developer Portal now includes a new Connect Your CDP to the Recommender API guide that covers how to connect your customer data platform, analytics tool, or homegrown source into the Content Recommendations API.

This article outlines ingestion requirements and best practices along with common integration patterns covering:

Users affected

Beta customers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Fixed an issue where author form fields could become disabled after saving an author when an invalid URL service pattern caused Bio Page URL generation to fail. Author form fields now remain editable after a failed save, and URL generation errors are displayed without locking the form.

Users affected

Authors users

Action required

None

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Release summary

Customers can see granular Page vs API vs OBF traffic patterns as breakdown of Edge Requests and Render Requests charts in Traffic Patterns section. Previously we were showing single chart for Edge Requests, and another chart for Render requests all together.

Customers can now see page and template size warnings in a new chart in Bundle & Publish Activity section.

For more information about PageBuilder Performance dashboard, please check the documentation.

Users affected

PageBuilder users

Action required

None

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Release summary

PageBuilder Engine 7.1.0 upgrades Webpack from 4.47.0 to 5.107.2, bringing faster builds, less system resources and better long-term support for your development stack.

Our benchmarks shows good local development improvement, up to 2x build times, 20-30% less memory usage with Webpack5 update. At the same time we observed longer build times at Deployer in Arc environments. If your bundle currently runs close to Deployer timeout limit, Engine 7.1 release may result timeouts in Deployer.

This dependency upgrade is backwards compatible and should not require any code change on customers bundle code. But the customers own dependencies may have breaking behaviors between Webpack4 and Webpack5. Please test your bundle output (pages and templates) locally before deploying and promoting a deployment with Engine 7.1 in production.

This release also lays groundwork for smarter caching. There is no impact to your cached pages.

We created a small adoption guide to walk through key points to leverage webpack 5 to optimize your builds, both speed and final output size: Adopting Webpack 5 in Your Bundle

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

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Release summary

This release addresses a few issues in Composer including:

Users affected

Composer users

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release addresses a few issues in Composer including:

Users affected

Composer users

Action required

None

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Release summary

This release updates a few small issues in Composer including:

Users affected

Composer users

Action required

None

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Release summary

This release resolves a few issues in Composer including:

Users affected

Composer users

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release resolves a few issues in Composer including:

Users affected

Composer users

Action required

None

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Release summary

The Content Search dashboard — now available in both sandbox and production — provides insights into your Content API search usage, including request volumes, rate limiting, and error metrics.

As data begins flowing into the dashboard metrics, you may notice a jump in usage values, which is expected. For more information, please check the documentation.

Users affected

PageBuilder users

Action required

None

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Release summary

This release fixes a few issues in Video Center including:

Users affected

Editorial

Action required

None

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Release summary

This release addresses the following items in Composer:

Users affected

AI Assistant users + Composer users

Action required

None

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Release summary

Stronger recommendations for anonymous readers

The Content Recommendations API now uses anonymous reader activity more effectively to improve recommendation quality.

Improved multi-site onboarding

Multisite customers can now roll out the Content Recommendations API site by site instead of importing every site at once.

Improved API validation and feedback

The API has been updated to perform more stringent validation against the schema and provide clear feedback for rejected requests.

Users affected

Beta customers

Action required

None

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Release summary

The Arc XP CLI now supports migrating paid subscriptions into Arc XP Subscriptions.

For full details, input file format, and the recommended migration workflow, see Arc XP CLI: Subscriptions.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

Update to the latest Arc XP CLI version.

Release dates

Release summary

Editorial Signals are a layer of human-controlled ranking rules that sit on top of the Content Recommendations API's machine-learned recommendations.

They let your newsroom override, nudge, or filter the model's output without retraining anything — the changes take effect on the very next recommendation request.

In short: AI decides what is likely to engage a given reader; signals decide what is editorially required for that reader to see (or not see).

Signals are exposed through a dedicated service — the Signals API (/signals/v1).

The four signal types

There are four distinct signal types. Each one answers a different editorial question.

These controls are currently API only. A user experience will be added in an upcoming release.

Users affected

Beta customers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

CSRs can now terminate individual members of an Enterprise Group Subscription directly from the Subscriptions Admin UI.

In the Subscriptions Admin UI, open the overflow menu (...) on the member and select Terminate.

Users affected

Subscriptions CSRs

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Author creation logic is updated to assign an active status flag by default when none is passed to the API. This also corrects a bug in the UI that caused authors to appear as inactive when their status was not set.

Users affected

All

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release fixes a few issues in Video Center including:

Users affected

Editorial

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release addresses the following items in Composer:

Users affected

AI Assistant users + Composer users

Action required

None

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Release summary

This release fixes an issue with the AI Assistant and Tag Service where the AI Assistant wasn't correctly suggesting tags from Tag Service. This will now suggest tags from Tag service first regardless of if you are leveraging free form tags or not.

Users affected

AI Assistant users, Composer users

Action required

To leverage the AI Assistant, you must opt into one of our Arc Intelligence packages. Please contact your Technical Account Manager for more information.

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Release summary

Internal improvements on logging and performance around linking and page publishing process.

Users affected

Editors

Action required

None

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Release summary

Editorial Signals are a layer of human-controlled ranking rules that sit on top of the Content Recommendations API's machine-learned recommendations.

For example, you can now optimize the Sports module on your homepage to re-rank the items based on an individual consumer's interest.

Users affected

Beta

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

We're excited to announce that Audio Articles and Translation capabilities are now available directly inside Composer as part of the AI Assistant — no Chrome extension required– for customers on the Core Arc Intelligence Package.

The release also addresses a few other updates in Composer including:

Users affected

Composer Users

Action required

To Access Audio Articles and Translations, customers must be signed up for the Core Arc Intelligence Package

Release dates

Release summary

Strengthened the infrastructure and processing behind linking publishes, improving overall reliability and ensuring more consistent behavior during publish operations.

Users affected

Editors

Action required

None

Release dates

Sandbox and Production - Monday, May 11, 2026

Release summary

Fixed styling system initialization across Themes blocks that was causing layout regression issues with Engine 7 upgrade.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

Follow the Upgrade to Themes v4 migration guide

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Summary

We are excited to announce the Open Beta of the Content Recommendations API, Arc XP's new personalization platform for media companies. Participating customers will receive six months of free access to the API (and an IFX integration used to ingest content) and can use it to power personalized site, app, and email experiences that drive deeper engagement with their audience.

This doc summarizes what's available today, what it takes to get started, and what's on the roadmap.

What's available in the initial release

The Content Recommendations API is a personalization service that learns from your content catalog and audience behavior to return ranked content recommendations on demand. Each customer operates with their own fully isolated recommendation model: content, audience data, and the trained model are never shared across tenants.

The initial release supports two core recommendation types:

Cold-start behavior is handled automatically. New or anonymous users receive popularity-weighted results until they accumulate interaction history, and newly published content is eligible for recommendations immediately based on its metadata, no special handling required on the customer's side.

What participating customers need to do

The API is the personalization backend only. To put recommendations in front of readers, each participating customer is responsible for two integration workstreams:

Arc XP CMS customers can use an IFX recipe to wire up the content webhook end-to-end without custom code. Non-Arc XP CMS customers will need to build a direct integration from their CMS to the Collector API's content endpoint.

A full onboarding checklist is available on the Arc XP for Developer site.

What's coming next

This initial release is only the foundation and we have significant functionality slated for release over the coming weeks and months. Planned updates include additional filtering and personalization controls, stronger editorial controls, and deeper integration hooks. Customers who join the beta now will benefit from those additions as they ship, within their six-month free access window.

Getting Started

Talk with your Technical Account Manager about enrolling in this beta. The free access beta is limited to customers who begin their beta engagement in May 2026.

Release dates

Release summary

Strengthened the infrastructure and processing behind linking publishes, improving overall reliability and ensuring more consistent behavior during publish operations.

Users affected

Editors

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

We're excited to announce that Audio Articles and Translation capabilities are now available directly inside Composer as part of the AI Assistant — no Chrome extension required– for customers on the Core Arc Intelligence Package.

The release also addresses a few other updates in Composer including:

Users affected

Composer Users

Action required

To Access Audio Articles and Translations, customers must be signed up for the Core Arc Intelligence Package

Release dates

Release summary

This release improves logging and observability around linking issues, making it easier to diagnose problems when they come up. It also includes general stability improvements to the linking process.

Users affected

Editors

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release introduces updates to Composer including:

Users affected

Composer users

Action required

None

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Release summary

This release introduces some UX updates and functionality previously only in the Chrome extension including: 

Users affected

Composer users + Arc Intelligence Customers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release introduces updates to Composer including:

Users affected

Composer users

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Customers will now able to upload your organization's existing style guide documentation directly to the AI Assistant — no more manually updating prompts. Simply upload your files and the AI Assistant will reference them when providing style guide feedback in Composer. Any combination of uploaded files and manually added rules will be applied when this workflow runs.

Read more on the Composer AI Assistant.

This release also includes some non-customer facing structural updates to Composer.

Users affected

Composer users

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release introduces some UX updates and functionality previously only in the Chrome extension including: 

Users affected

Composer users + Arc Intelligence Customers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Author creation logic is updated to assign an active status flag by default when none is passed to the API. This also corrects a bug in the UI that caused authors to appear as inactive when their status was not set.

Users affected

All

Action required

None

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Release summary

This release removes the limit of the number of websites that can be created in the API.

Users affected

All

Action required

None

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Release summary

This update includes a change in the internal logic to make conditional content available to all users. There are no changes to the current contract.

Users affected

All

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Customers will now able to upload your organization's existing style guide documentation directly to the AI Assistant — no more manually updating prompts. Simply upload your files and the AI Assistant will reference them when providing style guide feedback in Composer. Any combination of uploaded files and manually added rules will be applied when this workflow runs.

Read more on the Composer AI Assistant.

This release also includes some non-customer facing structural updates to Composer.

Users affected

Composer users

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

Additional Photo Crop Presets

New aspect ratios (2:3 and 4:5) are now available for image cropping.

Users affected

Editorial Users

Action required

None

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Release summary

PageBuilder CLI 3.3.0 is a maintenance release focused on security and stability.

Users affected

Developers

Action required

None

Release dates

Release summary

This release fixes an issue with the AI Assistant where it was incorrectly prompting a save warning for unresolved changes. The AI Assistant will persist any non-acted upon AI suggestions– those that require human review– after save without causing any unnecessary warnings.

Users affected

Composer users

Action required

None