Here are the Assets-specific new features in AEM 6.5.
Adobe Asset Link
The new and improved Adobe Asset Link lets you discover, use and edit assets from AEM directly inside Creative Cloud desktop apps.
- Place assets in your designs, or download a copy
- Add new assets to AEM directly from Creative Cloud apps
- Search AEM Assets and Creative Cloud Assets, access collections, and preview assets and basic metadata directly from Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator
- Check out assets stored in AEM Assets directly from Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator into Creative Cloud Assets
- Keep work-in-progress assets and final production assets in separate locations
- Single sign-on with your Creative Cloud credentials for access to AEM Assets
AEM desktop app update
Open and edit any asset type in any desktop application, including non-Adobe assets.
- Search for assets directly from the desktop app
- Preview assets and open them in the associated desktop application
- Browse AEM assets in the app's built-in browser, with less need for Finder or Explorer
- Edit assets locally and upload the changes to AEM when done
- Upload files and folder hierarchies to AEM with progress monitoring
Adobe Stock integration
Search and license Adobe Stock assets from the AEM UI.
- License and save original assets from Adobe Stock to AEM
- Search, preview and save Adobe Stock assets directly from the AEM Assets web UI
Remote DAM for Sites authoring
A long-awaited and very useful feature: Sites authors can use assets from a remote DAM when authoring pages.
- Configure a connection to a remote DAM in the cloud
- Search the remote DAM seamlessly from the content finder
- Drag and drop remote assets into the local page editor like local assets
- Preview pages that use remote DAM assets
- Edit remote DAM assets further on the Sites instance with a local copy
- Publish pages with remote DAM assets
Brand Portal enhancements: asset distribution
- Better user reporting (logins, shares)
- Browse and search enhancements
- File acceleration for downloads
- Guest access
- Scheduled publishing
- Dynamic Media video support
- Configurable URL
- Folder hierarchy support for multi-brand and team use
- Access restrictions on original assets
- Additional admin configurations
- Performance improvements
Brand Portal: asset sourcing
- Share folders directly from the DAM with an external agency
- Upload on Brand Portal to source brand and campaign assets from external agencies and teams
- Publish to the DAM for review and multichannel campaign use
- A new contributor role for external agency users
- Admin configurations to control upload sizes
More on the portal in AEM with Brand Portal.
User experience enhancements
- A new permission management tool in the Touch UI
- Accessibility enhancements
- Better bulk operations with a Select All option
Dynamic search facets
A new dynamic faceted search gives a faster experience: filters are dynamic, and result counts are shown per filter or facet.
Visual search
Adobe Sensei-powered search finds visually similar assets.
- A Find Similar action in card, list and detail views
- Search facets to refine the results further
Dynamic Media with Sensei
Machine learning extended to video — one of the notable features of AEM 6.5.
- Video Smart Crop — automatically re-crops a video to new aspect ratios while keeping the points of interest in frame
- Best Frame Selection — recommends optimal thumbnails when a video is uploaded
- Video Smart Tags — suggests tags based on the video's content
Related: storage concepts in AEM 6.5 and media handlers in AEM workflows.