In sprints 220-228, Icecat delivered a series of significant enhancements across multiple areas of our platform, including AI-powered text translation and alternative text generation, customer-specific content distribution, regulatory and compliance updates, functional improvements in Icecat Brand Cloud, security and access enhancements, and other supporting developments. These updates aim to streamline partner workflows, improve data accessibility and compliance, and strengthen overall platform security and performance. For additional details, please refer to the previous Icecat Release Notes.
Over the past several sprints, we have introduced significant enhancements to Icecat Brand Cloud, enabling brands and editors to leverage AI for text translation and alternative text generation across multiple content assets. These features simplify multilingual product content creation, standardization, and customization for customer-specific taxonomies.
In sprint 224, we delivered a foundational capability: configurable AI rules for translation and alternative text generation. Icecat administrators can now define how AI models behave when processing various types of content.
The new rule management interface allows admins to configure prompts and parameters for AI actions, ensuring outputs align with specific brand or customer requirements.
Admins can customize rules using a flexible set of parameters:
This structure allows for precise control enabling tone variations, customer-specific rules, and asset-specific handling.
Before activation, admins can test and adjust rules directly in the rule creation interface, ensuring output quality and alignment with requirements. A rule management dashboard with filtering and review capabilities simplifies rules maintenance.
After laying the groundwork with configurable rules, subsequent sprints focused on integrating AI Assistant functionality to product assets:
These features provide measurable value to brand partners and Icecat editors by enabling faster multilingual content creation through reduced manual translation time, ensuring a consistent brand voice with defined tone and prompts per asset and customer requirements, and simplifying management with centralized rule configuration and AI output testing.
Over the course of several sprints, we have significantly evolved the way customer-specific content is created, distributed, and managed in Icecat. This ensures personalized experiences for channel partners while maintaining consistency with default brand content and existing distribution flows.
In sprint 220, we introduced customer-specific Product Stories export for users assigned to the taxonomy under which this content is created. This marked the first step toward taxonomy-driven personalization in Icecat.
Key Features:
In sprint 221, Customer-specific content (Descriptions, Bullet Points, Product Stories) is now visible on Icecat.biz product pages for logged-in partners assigned to the relevant taxonomy. This ensures alignment between what partners see on Icecat.biz and what they receive in export files.
Two major updates resolved inconsistencies and expanded access to public Product Stories were delivered:
We introduced improvements to metrics calculation, reporting clarity, and historical transparency for customer-specific Product Stories. These updates ensure accurate insights for both partners and the Icecat team:
During recent sprints, we delivered several updates aimed at ensuring Icecat content and platforms comply with new regulations and improve data accessibility for brand and channel partners. These enhancements address contact details for GPSR, EAA accessibility requirements, and EPR packaging data export.
We enhanced how brand and manufacturer contact details are stored and displayed to support General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) requirements.
We conducted a comprehensive audit to ensure our services align with the European Accessibility Act (EAA). Multiple enhancements were rolled out across sprints to improve accessibility for all users.
We are enhancing the way Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) packaging information is shared with channel partners.
Packaging details are currently provided through relations functionality. Brands create a dedicated packaging product under a packaging category. This packaging product is then attached to the master product.In the future, as packaging taxonomy matures, we plan to develop a dedicated packaging management functionality.
In sprint 228, we updated the logic for publishing products in daily index files. When a relation between a packaging product and a master product is created or updated, it now triggers both products to be included in the daily index files. This ensures partners are promptly informed about packaging product additions or updates.
Over the past several sprints, we have delivered multiple updates to Icecat Brand Cloud aimed at improving usability, transparency, and data management efficiency for brand users, editors, and channel partners. Below is an overview of the main enhancements, grouped by functionality.
We introduced a series of improvements to make report management more intuitive, flexible, and secure:
Enhancements to the Coverage from File tool improve clarity and reduce manual effort:
We introduced several improvements to help brand users and editors find relevant products faster and filter results effectively:
Updates in product creation, image handling, and text editing were designed to simplify daily operations and reduce repetitive manual tasks:
Over the past sprints, we focused on strengthening platform security, making two-factor authentication (2FA) more accessible, and modernizing how partners retrieve sensitive files. These improvements address vulnerabilities, enhance user protection, and align with best practices for secure data management.
We continuously address vulnerabilities reported in penetration tests and identified by our internal security team. In sprint 223-225, we resolved seven issues from the latest penetration test report and implemented two additional security improvements discovered during internal reviews.
Additionally, earlier in sprint 221, we introduced brand access restrictions: users not assigned to any brand can no longer access Icecat Brand Cloud. Instead, they now see a UI message instructing them to obtain brand authorization before gaining access.
Improving account security for brand and channel partners was another priority. In sprint 224, we updated the 2FA setup process in user profile settings by adding an alphanumeric key alongside the QR code. This allows users to configure authenticator apps more flexibly and generate secure six‑digit login codes.
In sprint 225, our goal was to improve the security of the Icecat Brand Cloud database by informing users about the option to enable 2FA. From now on, when a user logs in and their account is not protected by 2FA, they will see a message encouraging them to secure their profile and product data by enabling 2FA in their profile settings. This adds an extra layer of protection in case the user’s login and password are compromised.
To protect sensitive partner data, we provided an alternative to the legacy method for retrieving Personal Index Files (PIF) and Personal Catalog Files (PCF), which relied on passing login and password in the query string. In sprint 225, we introduced a secure API token–based method for file retrieval. This approach is compatible with accounts that use 2FA and ensures a more secure integration for channel partners.
In addition to major feature rollouts, several enhancements and infrastructure updates were delivered to improve user experience, platform stability, and data accessibility across Icecat services. These developments focused on partner communication, Catalog Object Cloud improvements, and technical maintenance.
Improving the onboarding experience for new channel partners was an important step in promoting broader adoption of Icecat tools. In sprint 221, we updated registration emails to include information about the Icecat PIM Free Trial, allowing partners to explore our Product Information Management capabilities immediately after registration. This proactive communication helps partners understand the value of Icecat’s ecosystem earlier in their journey.
We continued to invest in making Catalog Object Cloud more informative and accessible to end users:
In sprint 221, several backend and infrastructure improvements were completed to maintain security, performance, and reliability:
All these developments enhance the efficiency, security, and usability of the Icecat ecosystem. Brand and channel partners benefit from faster content management workflows, greater control over AI-driven translations, improved compliance tools, and more transparent product information access via Catalog Object Cloud. Technical upgrades and security improvements ensure the platform remains robust, scalable, and aligned with evolving regulatory and market requirements, enabling partners to deliver richer product experiences to their customers with confidence.
Read further: Icecat, AI, development updates, Icecat, icecat release notes, online visibility, product story, taxonomy
