Jason Adams @jason_the_adams (Team RepTeam RepA Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts.) – Automattic
This week’s AI contributor meeting focused on initial strategy and timelines for the upcoming WordPress 7.1 release cycle, the deployment of a new minor releaseMinor ReleaseA set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality. for the AI pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party., and structural maintenance across the PHPPHPPHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/index.php AI Client and MCP repositories. The group also held an extensive discussion around ecosystem contribution metrics, programmatic encryption experiments, and the standardization of settings fields layout within the Connectors APIAPIAn API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. interface.
Announcements & WordPress 7.1 Timeline
WordPress 7.0 Feedback: Following the successful launch of WordPress 7.0 last week, active installations and usage of the companion plugin have seen a significant initial increase. The support channels on WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ and GitHubGitHubGitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged by the repository owner. https://github.com/ remain stable and manageable.
WordPress 7.1 Schedule:@jeffpaul shared a tentative schedule for the 7.1 cycle, targeting July 15 for BetaBetaA pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1 and August 19 for the final release during WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US.
Release Squad Nominations:CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.release squad nominations remain open through the end of next week. @jeffpaul is actively reviewing submissions to coordinate the squad selection alongside @4thhubbard. Any critical AI enhancements intended for core must be finalized before the six-week window closes at Beta 1.
In-Person Adjustments:@justlevine noted that while the foundational context is excellent, the documentation should be slightly condensed for in-person attendees. The final prerequisites will be adjusted once the specific target testing sprint items are finalized.
Local Onboarding Instructions: Due to notorious local venue Wi-Fi constraints, the table will heavily emphasize local environments. The squad will issue proactive recommendations for contributors to download and configure software dependencies, such as Ollama packages, prior to arriving at the conference.
AI Plugin Releases & Encryption Experiments
Release Cadence Shift: A 1.0.1 minor plugin release containing bug fixes and structural polish is scheduled to deployDeployLaunching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. today. Moving forward, the plugin development cycle will shift from a bi-weekly cadence to monthly milestones, with version 1.1.0 slated for late June and version 1.2.0 targeted for late July.
API Key Encryption PR: The group reviewed an experimental PR by @dkotter introducing programmatic key encryption based on background implementation mechanics from @ericmann.
Gathering Real-World Feedback: Addressing ecosystem panic regarding plaintext API storage, @justlevine recommended merging the current experiment to gather immediate real-world testing data. The team noted that community feedback typically arrives much faster post-release, and the code can easily be refactored or rolled back to a dedicated encryptor class inside the plugin if needed prior to the 7.1 core freeze.
PHP AI Client Maintenance & Blockers
Feature Gaps: Essential feature updates, including streaming data support, sound generation, and native embeddings infrastructure, remain high-priority requirements for the 7.1 cycle.
Maintainership Bottlenecks: With @flixos90 stepping back and @jason_the_adams holding elevated structural responsibilities at Automattic, the repositories are facing a deficit in active maintainership.
Unblocking Repositories:@jeffpaul clarified that contributors should feel empowered to aggressively test and review PRs within the PHP repository. Merging reviewed work does not trigger a deployment until a release version is formally tagged. If a green button needs to be pressed on a validated community PR, @jeffpaul will assist in sourcing an available committer to ensure development does not stall due to bureaucracy. Team will pause for @jason_the_adams or @flixos90 approval on releases, but otherwise will proceed with merging PRs.
Contributor Pledges & Metric Weights
Revamped Profile Scoreboards: The team evaluated an active request from the Meta squad regarding data sets, weighted values, and scoring metrics for individual team pledge scoreboards on profiles.wordpress.org (core example, empty AI page).
Beyond Code Contributions:@karmatosed raised a critical flag that the AI team relies heavily on a “Swiss Army knife” contributor model. Metrics that rely purely on trackable GitHub PRs or code commits fail to recognize vital non-dev contributions such as documentation audits, outreach, leading event tables, public presentations, and UIUIUI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. design workflows.
Prior Art Modeling:@justlevine suggested checking in with the Performance team to see how they balanced plugin-to-core code metrics with documentation tracking. @jeffpaul noted that since Core and MetaMetaMeta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. are the only groups with established metric criteria, the AI team will temporarily mirror Core tracking mechanisms while iterating to account for unique non-code contributor tracks.
Connectors API Settings Fields Registry
Custom Metadata Fields: @andrei_lupu created an issue on the Gutenberg repository exploring how individual connector providers can safely register custom metadata fields beyond the standard URLURLA specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org and API key inputs. This infrastructure is particularly necessary for local or self-hosted configurations like Llama.
A Declarative PHP Approach: While custom layouts can technically be injected using heavy ReactReactReact is a JavaScript library that makes it easy to reason about, construct, and maintain stateless and stateful user interfaces.
https://reactjs.org components, @andrei_lupu argued that the vast majority of WordPress plugin developers need a declarative, server-side PHP registry class to register standard elements (text fields, selectors, radios) without needing a complex JavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser.
https://www.javascript.com build setup.
The “Fields API” Forcing Function: The group discussed how the unified Connectors configuration interface has inadvertently become a forcing function for an option fields utility. @justlevineand and @nikmclaughlin noted that building a standard, secure programmatic registry within Connectors provides a safer path toward core settings standardization in 7.1, preventing plugins from dangerously hijacking core interfaces with unvalidated custom scripts.
Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Bumping Minimum Dependencies:@justlevine confirmed that the ongoing MCP adapterMCP AdapterTranslates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts. integration is progressing steadily. Later today, the repository will officially merge a PR elevating the minimum environment requirement to WordPress 6.9.
Forward-Compatible Pathways: Bumping the requirement allows the adapter to drop older library dependencies and natively rely on static analysis tools and the core Abilities APIAbilities APIA core WordPress API (introduced in 6.9) that creates a central registry of capabilities, making WordPress functions discoverable and accessible to AI agents, automation tools, and developers. Transforms WordPress from isolated functions into a unified system. framework. The repository remains open for documentation contributions, and a forward-compatible migrationMigrationMoving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. pathway will be provided for legacy library integrations.
Next Steps
Deploy today’s minor bug-fix release for the AI plugin.
Review, test, and provide technical feedback on the active Encryption PR.
Coordinate with @andrei_lupu on the Connectors custom fields registry issue within the GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc.
https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ repository.
Finalize and distribute the WCEU Contributor Day preparation checklists for local environments.
Upcoming Meetings
Contributors are welcome to join every Wednesday at 1700 UTC via Google Meet. In-meeting notes are captured live in a SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ Canvas and paired with aggregate transcription data to generate this meeting summary post. All team meeting schedules are published directly to the WordPress Meeting Calendar.
AI Team Office Hours (Slack): Thursday, 28 May 2026. Facilitator @jeffpaul.
Weekly AI Contributor Call (Google Meet): Wednesday, 3 June 2026.
AI 1.0.0 has been released and is available for download! “What’s new in AI…” posts (labeled with the #ai-release tag) are posted following every AI pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. release, showcasing new features included in each release.
We’re pleased to announce the release of AI 1.0.0, the latest update to the canonical plugin powering AI-powered features in WordPress. This release marks an important milestone for the plugin. Since the first AI Experiments release in late 2025, contributors across the WordPress ecosystem have helped test, refine, and expand a growing set of AI capabilities built directly on top of the AI Building Blocks initiative. With 1.0.0, the plugin continues evolving from an experimental sandbox into a more mature reference implementation for AI-powered workflows in WordPress.
AI 1.0.0 introduces new observability and governance tooling, expands moderation and media workflows, improves onboarding and providerProviderAn AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). handling, and includes a broad set of accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), internationalization, and developer experience improvements.
What’s new in 1.0.0?
New Experiment: Request Logging
This release introduces a new Request Logging experiment that provides observability into AI activity across WordPress. Once enabled, administrators can review AI requests and responses generated through coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., plugins, and themes to help teams better understand:
What AI operations are being triggered
Which features and providers are being used
How requests are performing
Potential debugging or workflow issues
This creates a foundation for improved transparency and operational awareness as AI usage within WordPress grows.
New Experiment: Connector Approvals
AI 1.0.0 also introduces a new Connector Approvals experiment focused on governance and administrative control.
This experiment allows site administrators to determine which plugins can access configured AI connectors. As more plugins begin integrating with AI services, Connector Approvals provides an additional layer of oversight around how provider credentials and AI capabilities are shared across a site.
This continues the broader focus on giving users and site owners flexibility and control over how AI integrations operate inside WordPress.
Expanded Comment Moderation Workflows
The Comment Moderation experiment introduced in previous releases continues to evolve in AI 1.0.0. This release adds:
Sorting and filtering in the Comments screen by Sentiment and Toxicity
Sentiment and Toxicity labeling directly in the Activity dashboard widgetWidgetA WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.
Improved handling for comments without moderation metadata
Better failed-analysis indicators when moderation requests fail
These updates help moderators more quickly identify problematic discussions and better understand the overall tone of conversations happening across their sites.
AI Alt Text in the Media Editor
AI-powered alt text generation is now integrated directly into GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc.
https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/’s experimental media editor workflow. This builds on the plugin’s existing media accessibility tooling by making AI-generated alt text suggestions more directly available while editing media items. The release also includes several improvements to alt text and media generation handling, including:
Better error handling when no AI provider is configured
Improved notices and onboarding guidance
Fixes for decorative image workflows
Additional handling for standalone image generation
Editorial Workflow Refinements
This release continues refining AI-assisted editorial workflows introduced in earlier versions. To better reflect real-world publishing terminology:
“Review Notes” has been renamed to “Editorial Notes”
“Refine from Notes” has been renamed to “Editorial Updates”
Additional improvements include:
Disabling Content Summarization until content reaches a minimum length
Reactive updates for Title Generation and Content Classification based on current editor state
Refined loading states and interface polish across multiple AI workflows
Improved Provider Handling and Onboarding
AI 1.0.0 includes significant improvements around provider detection, onboarding, and error messaging. When users attempt to trigger AI functionality without a configured provider, the plugin now surfaces more actionable guidance directing users toward configuring an AI Connector. Additional improvements include:
Better handling when previously configured providers are no longer available
More specific provider-related error messages
Deduplicated provider APIAPIAn API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. requests in developer mode
Improved handling of feature-specific provider configuration states
These updates help create a smoother onboarding and troubleshooting experience for both end users and developers.
Accessibility and Internationalization Improvements
Accessibility and internationalization continue to be core priorities throughout the plugin. AI 1.0.0 includes:
Improved keyboard focus visibility across multiple interfaces
RTL (right-to-left) rendering fixes throughout the admin UIUIUI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing.
Expanded runtime translation loading
Additional fully translatable user-facing text
What’s next in 1.1.0?
Work is already underway on additional Features, Experiments, and infrastructure improvements planned for 1.1.0 and future releases, including:
As always, we welcome feedback, testing, and contributions from the community. Whether you are interested in editor UXUXUX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it., APIs, accessibility, performance, or AI ethics and policy, there are many ways to participate.
This week’s AI contributor meeting coincided directly with the landmark launch day of WordPress 7.0. The team focused on tracking the coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. release timeline, stabilizing the freshly debuted version 1.0.0 of the AI pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party., resolving high-priority architectural questions for the Abilities APIAbilities APIA core WordPress API (introduced in 6.9) that creates a central registry of capabilities, making WordPress functions discoverable and accessible to AI agents, automation tools, and developers. Transforms WordPress from isolated functions into a unified system., and restructuring technical and operational frameworks for the upcoming 7.1 cycle.
Announcements & Timeline
WordPress 7.0 Launch: The final core release processing was officially kicked off during the meeting hour. The core trunk development branch is scheduled to reopen immediately following the final deployment to accept early alpha contributions for WordPress 7.1.
WordPress 7.1 Release:@jeffpaul noted that a formal call for the 7.1 major releaseMajor ReleaseA set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality. squad will likely be published tomorrow on Make/Core.
WordPress 7.0.1: to ensure immediate post-launch ecosystem feedback or technical regressions, a 7.0.1 release can be quickly shipped based on feedback seen by the Core team.
AI Plugin 1.0.0 Released: The AI experimentation companion plugin successfully hit its 1.0.0 milestone yesterday. The launch was intentionally prioritized a day ahead of WordPress 7.0 to guarantee immediate stability and cross-version compatibility for early adopters interacting with core AI primitives.
WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe (WCEU) Contributor DayContributor DayContributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ Planning
The team consolidated logistical and strategic planning across two discussion blocks during the call to finalize their approach for the upcoming Contributor Day:
Table Leadership: WordCamp Europe’s Core AI table will be co-led in person by @justlevine and @gziolo, with @gajendrasingh supporting asynchronously as the remote/online table lead. @justlevine confirmed his travel was successfully finalized, with generous corporate sponsorship provided by @rtcamp.
Venue Preparation:@karmatosed advised the group to actively anticipate spotty venue Wi-Fi by emphasizing local development environments and offline-ready resources.
User Research Orientation: The table will balance codebase contributions with beginner outreach. @karmatosed pointed out that many general attendees register for the AI table out of an interest to learn about or use AI rather than write core PHPPHPPHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/index.php. The team intends to use this captive audience for valuable user research to determine what specific AI tools and workflows the broader community actually wants.
Low-Barrier Onboarding:@neel33 proposed running a structured 20-minute onboarding workshop at the start of the day. This session will walk non-technical contributors through the exact process of setting up local sandboxes, configuring APIAPIAn API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. tokens, testing plugin experiments, and filing clear, actionable bug reports.
Abilities API Evolution
The group reviewed a dedicated list of milestone tickets to close out lingering architecture debates and chart a path forward for core primitives:
Supporting Massive Scale (#21): The team discussed the long-term optimization required to safely register, filterFilterFilters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output., and surface hundreds or thousands of concurrent abilities within an active system without introducing database degradation.
Action Item:@justlevine will advance this ticket by documenting emerging ecosystem trends and, if necessary, opening an expansive TracTracTrac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. ticket to coordinate broader core developer feedback.
Ecosystem Alignment:@justlevine noted that third-party infrastructure has heavily coalesced around the “find tool” layout pattern. Organizing an experimental “find abilities” discovery workflow within the companion plugin is designated as the next technical milestone.
Progressive Disclosure: As soon as the pending slug fragments PR safely merges into core trunk for 7.1, the team will begin prototyping multi-layered, complex nested abilities.
AI Plugin Updates & Experiments
Following the successful deployment of version 1.0.0, development focus officially shifts toward polishing experimental features targeted for the upcoming version 1.1.0 lifecycle, scheduled for release on Thursday, June 4.
Displaying Additional AI Providers (#27): Discussion centered on defining strict, objective criteria for displaying third-party providerProviderAn AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). options on the core Connectors page. @jeffpaul suggested prioritizing free, open-source models that natively map to existing text or image generation primitives within the plugin. @justlevine noted that criteria could also be applied as checklist for how Core might add other default connectors to that screen.
Experiment Initialization (#159): The team discussed refactoring how plugin experiments are booted, moving initialization logic away from explicit register() methods toward standard, hook-based init() action routines. Sentiment leaned towards closing out this PR, but agreed for folks to comment on the PR to then decide next step.
Programmatic Encryption & Secrets Management (#560):@dkotter highlighted an active exploratory PR reviewing a standalone encryption utility built on prior implementation code from @ericmann (originally drafted from conversation within the core Two-Factor plugin SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ channel). The utility has zero UIUIUI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. footprint and focuses strictly on exposing standard backend get_secret and set_secret mechanics to act as a proving ground for pitching a dedicated core Secrets Management API in 7.1.
Content Provenance (C2PA)
Preserving Asset Manifests: The group evaluated three open PRs (#294, #302, #459) in the AI repository dealing with asset authenticity metadata. The current logic ensures that when an image containing an active C2PA manifest is uploaded, WordPress preserves the embedded provenance trail rather than silently discarding it during standard attachment optimization routines.
Authority Systems:@jason_the_adams and @dkotter are examining the overarching authority structure of the system, seeking to clarify the technical and legal implications if WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ eventually acts as an official content signing entity for open-source media verification. @jeffpaul previously provided a PDF from @originvault to @isotropic and @jason_the_adams to help guide WPORG in conforming to the C2PA spec.
Operational Clarity & Maintainership
Defining Commit Boundaries:@jason_the_adams called for clearer operational boundaries regarding companion repository maintenance. Several primary provider plugins (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) are experiencing review friction and risk stalling without explicitly named maintainers authorized to commit community PRs. @jason_the_adams aims for formalize where Automattic intends to lead/contribute in these areas.
Project Prototyping Guardrails:@justlevine advised against launching ancillary side-projects without verifying active support teams first, noting that scattered repositories inadvertently pull focus and resources away from higher-priority core milestones.
Looking Ahead to 7.1 Strategy
Landscape Re-survey:@jason_the_adams suggested taking a step back on upcoming calls to re-survey the broader AI space, acknowledging that model behavior and agent frameworks have shifted drastically since the team’s roadmap was first drafted a year ago. @jason_the_adams to disseminate any additional strategic guidance from @matt to the broader Core AI team.
Meeting Layout Changes: Future contributor agendas will likely phase out rigid component headings (e.g., separating PHP vs. JS clients) in favor of a consolidated “Existing Work” overview paired with an expanded, open-floor strategy session.
Core Streaming Support: Native streaming data support remains the top requested missing feature among early 7.0 testers. Building out deep streaming infrastructure is officially marked as a critical priority for the 7.1 cycle.
Next Steps
Track feedback and bug reports following the WordPress 7.0 core launch.
Review and leave feedback on the Connectors Visibility criteria ticket (#27).
Update documentation and core tickets regarding Abilities structural scale (#21).
Conduct code compatibility reviews on the experimental Secret Management encryption PR(#560).
Upcoming Meetings
Folks are welcome to join on Wednesday’s at 1700 UTC via Google Meet with in-meeting notes captured in a Slack Canvas and then paired with Gemini meeting notes to help generate this meeting summary post. All team meetings are published to https://make.wordpress.org/meetings/#ai.
Weekly AI Contributor Call (Google Meet): Wednesday, 27 May 2026.
AI Team Office Hours (Slack): Thursday, 28 May 2026.
The CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. AI team is transitioning leadership. Felix Arntz (@flixos90) and I have served as co-leads for Core AI over the past year, and we’re both stepping back from our roles. Jason Adams (@jason_the_adams) will take over as Team RepTeam RepA Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. and lead our Core AI effort going forward.
It’s been a remarkable year for Core AI, after our formation in May 2025. The Abilities APIAbilities APIA core WordPress API (introduced in 6.9) that creates a central registry of capabilities, making WordPress functions discoverable and accessible to AI agents, automation tools, and developers. Transforms WordPress from isolated functions into a unified system. landed in WordPress 6.9, the WP AI Client is going core in WordPress 7.0, and continued evolution of the MCP AdapterMCP AdapterTranslates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts. and AI PluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. (which remain canonical for now) has been deeply impressive. There have been contributions from hundreds of folks across the community, with incredible energy at in-person events throughout the year. There’s real momentum behind making WordPress well positioned for the AI era.
Jason is in a strong place to carry that forward, surrounded by the contributors and community that has shaped around this work over the past year – with ongoing support from @jeffpaul and @swissspidy, both founding members of Core AI.
Felix and I both plan to stay involved as advisors as the team continues this work.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far, and thank you to @matt, @4thhubbard, and @matveb for their continued support of this work.
This week’s AI contributor meeting focused on the final coordination for the WordPress 7.0 release, the roadmap for the AI PluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. 1.0.0, and a deep dive into security experiments regarding Connector Approvals and Request Logging.
Announcements & Timeline
Reviewed the current WP 7.0 timeline and where the coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.-ai teams work fits in
Field Guide: The comprehensive developer field guide is expected to be published alongside RC4. @jeffpaul noted that the content regarding Connectors APIAPIAn API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways., Abilities, and the AI Client is being finessed for accuracy. Draft, with current edits available here; any and all feedback in the guide ASAP is greatly appreciated!
AI Plugin 1.0.0: The team is targeting Tuesday, May 19 for the V1 release, strategically launching one day before WordPress 7.0 to provide a stable companion for early adopters.
WordPress 7.0 Field Guide
The team reviewed the draft status of the 7.0 Field Guide.
Action Item: Contributors are asked to review the draft and lacking that then the published version immediately upon release. If any technical errors are spotted regarding AI implementations, they must be called out quickly for immediate adjustment.
Table Leads: The team is seeking a Table Lead for Core AI for WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe – Please pingPingThe act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” in the #core-aiSlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ channel if you would like to know more.
Leadership Strategy:@karmatosed and @justlevine emphasized the importance of “empowering new blood,” suggesting that experienced contributors like @justlevine (remote) and @swissspidy (local) could pair with and support newer leads rather than just leading the table themselves. @swissspidy confirmed after the meeting, in slack that, he has not yet confirmed if he will be attending.
Digital Participation:@justlevine confirmed he will provide digital support for contributors working remotely during the event.
AI Plugin 1.0.0
A significant portion of the meeting was dedicated to the specific features intended to ship in the V1 release:
Connector Approval Experiment
The Problem: Right now, any installed plugin can potentially use the Connectors API and reuse stored AI credentials, which means site owners may not have clear control over which plugins are actually using those keys. The concern is not only general plugin access, but also the newer AI-specific risk: once an LLM can access sensitive data, that data may be sent upstream into model history with little practical privacy boundary.
The Proposed Solution:@dkotter adds a Connectors Approval flow that blocks plugin access by default and requires admin approval before a plugin can use a connector. The goal is to create a practical first layer of interference around access to sensitive connector data now, without waiting to solve the entire long-term secrets architecture.
@justlevine,commentary: David helped reframe the value of the experiment by distinguishing LLMs from traditional plugin risk. He argued that the immediate problem is not just secret storage, but that LLMs can absorb and pass along context in a non-deterministic way, which makes access control especially important. His view was that the first step does not need to fully solve encryption or the deeper secrets-management layer; it can instead focus on preventing access to the sensitive data that LLM-powered features might otherwise consume. He also reinforced the value of “emergency breaks,” such as the existing constant-based kill switch and approval controls, because they give site owners a way to limit or stop unsafe behavior while the platform matures. Finally, he suggested that Connectors could be positioned as a more robust and safer pattern for registering credentials and related options than traditional settings, which could help drive adoption of this more managed model over time.
Security Concerns:@jason_the_adams pushed on the idea of “false security,” pointing out that this does not stop a bad plugin from pulling API credentials directly from the database or otherwise bypassing the approval flow. Others agreed that secret management or encryption on its own would not fully solve that, because WordPress does not yet have a true per-plugin sandbox or permissions layer around secrets. The group aligned that this experiment should be documented carefully so users understand it improves control and creates friction, but does not eliminate the broader platform-level gap.
Decision: The group landed on moving forward with the PR as an experiment for 1.0, not as a complete security solution. The reasoning from @jeffpaul was that it is better to start with a clear, limited control mechanism now than to wait for a perfect model, and that this gives the team something concrete to build on for 7.1 work around secrets management, permissions, and safer connector access.
AI Request Logging
Database Strategy: The team reached a consensus on using a custom database table for logging rather than post metaMetaMeta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress., primarily due to enterprise-level performance concerns. This was based on this PR.
Data Structure: To prevent bloat, the log will use truncated context. @mikeyarce suggested adding tracking for cached vs. non-cached tokens to assist with cost analysis for providers like Anthropic and OpenAI.
Version Management & Philosophy
Versioning: The question was asked if 1.0.0 is meant to imply semver-style stability, or if we are following WordPress-style versioning, where experiments can still change in breaking ways. The group leaned toward dropping strict SemVer expectations and following WordPress-style versioning, with experiments explicitly not guaranteed future compatibility.
Compatibility: The group reiterated that features marked as Experiments do not guarantee future compatibility. Users opting into these features should expect potential breaking changes as the team iterates.
Next Steps
Review and finalize the WordPress 7.0 Field Guide content tomorrow.
Perform final testing on the Connector Approval and Request Logging PRs.
Finalize the AI Plugin 1.0.0 release for Tuesday.
@justlevine to finalize MCP AdapterMCP AdapterTranslates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts. documentation and plugin scaffolding over the weekend.
Formalize the call for WCEU Table Leads in the Slack channel.
Upcoming Meetings
AI Team Office Hours (Slack): 14 May 2026. @jeffpaul and @justlevine will facilitate.
Weekly AI Contributor Call (Google Meet): 20 May 2026 (WordPress 7.0 Release Day).
AI 0.9.0 has been released and is available for download! “What’s new in AI…” posts (labeled with the #ai-release tag) are posted following every AI pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. release, showcasing new features included in each release.
We’re pleased to announce the release of AI 0.9.0, the latest update to the canonical plugin powering AI-powered features in WordPress. This release introduces two new Experiments focused on content workflows and moderation, adds a new WP-CLIWP-CLIWP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ command for bulk alt text generation, and continues refining the plugin’s administration experience. This release also includes a new Developer Mode model-selection experience, improvements to image generation workflows, updates to the AI settings page UIUIUI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing., and additional developer tooling and documentation enhancements.
What’s new in 0.9.0?
New Experiment: Comment Moderation
AI 0.9.0 introduces a new Comment Moderation Experiment that can automatically evaluate comments using sentiment analysis and toxicity detection. This Experiment is designed to help site owners reduce spam, harassment, and low-quality engagement by using AI-powered moderation signals during the comment review process. The feature can assist moderators by flagging potentially problematic comments before they are published and sending them to moderation for further review.
New Experiment: Content Resizing
This release also adds a new Content Resizing Experiment that allows users to shorten, expand, or rephrase selected content directly within the post editor. The Experiment is intended to support common editorial workflows like:
Shortening long paragraphs
Expanding thin content
Rephrasing copy for clarity or tone
Iterating on draft content without leaving the post editor
This continues the plugin’s focus on bringing lightweight editorial AI workflows directly into WordPress.
Developer Mode model controls
AI 0.9.0 adds a new Developer Mode settings toggle on the AI settings page that allows developers to configure the desired providerProviderAn AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). and model on a per-feature basis.
This makes it easier to:
Compare model behavior between features
Test different providers during development
Optimize workflows for cost, speed, or output quality
Experiment with local and hosted models
The feature is especially useful for developers building or extending AI-powered experiences within WordPress.
AI settings page improvements
AI 0.9.0 includes several refinements to the plugin administration experience. The AI settings page has been updated to use @wordpress/ui components and now features a more compact layout, including moving the global AI toggle into the page headerHeaderThe header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. alongside an infotip. These updates continue the ongoing effort to align the plugin more closely with modern WordPress administrative UI patterns.
Image generation improvements
This release also includes several updates to image generation workflows. AI-generated images are now saved using descriptive, “slugified” filenames derived from the post title or generation prompt instead of generic timestamp-based filenames. The plugin also now applies image generation guidelines directly within prompts instead of relying on system instructions. Together, these updates improve both media organization and image generation consistency.
WP-CLI support for bulk alt text generation
This release introduces a new WP-CLI command for bulk alt text generation: wp ai alt-text generate. The new command allows developers and site administrators to generate alt text programmatically across larger media libraries and automation workflows.
This is particularly useful for:
Large existing media libraries
Batch-processing accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) improvements
CI/CD and migrationMigrationMoving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. workflows
Editorial automation pipelines
Additional improvements and fixes
Other notable improvements in AI 0.9.0 include:
Basic styles for the Content Summary blockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.
Updates to the Content Summary Experiment block structure using a Group variation block
Better RTL support in the AbilityAbilityA registered, self-documenting unit of WordPress functionality that can be discovered and invoked through multiple contexts (REST API, Command Palette, MCP). Includes authorization and input/output specifications. schema JSONJSONJSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. viewer
Additional localization coverage for user-facing error strings
These updates improve consistency across AI workflows, refine the administration experience, and continue strengthening the plugin’s developer tooling and reliability.
What’s next in 1.0.0?
Work is already underway on additional Features, Experiments, and infrastructure improvements planned for 1.0.0 and future releases, including:
A similar thank you to translators assisting from the Faroese, Japanese, and Spanish locales ensuring language packs are available for users. Translating the AI plugin is a greatcontribution and others contributing in this manner is very much welcome and appreciated!
Get involved
As always, we welcome feedback, testing, and contributions from the community. Whether you are interested in editor UXUXUX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it., APIs, accessibility, performance, or AI ethics and policy, there are many ways to participate.
This week’s AI contributor meeting focused on the evolving direction of the CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. AI team, preparation for the WordPress 7.0 release cycle, and an extended discussion around connector approval and APIAPIAn API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. key security within the AI pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. ecosystem.
Announcements
@jason_the_adams shared high-level conceptual updates following a recent strategy discussion with @isotropic and Matt about the future direction of the Core AI team
The team confirmed that the initial foundational AI building blocks for WordPress have largely been delivered, with future work expected to include both technical iteration and broader ecosystem enablement
@4thhubbard is expected to take a more active interest in following Core AI team progress and future direction discussions
Contributors were reminded that WordPress 7.0 field guide draft reviews and milestone ticket work should be completed by the end of the week where possible
Core AI Team Direction
Discussion continued around what comes next for the Core AI team now that many of the original foundational goals have been achieved
Topics discussed included continued iteration on the AI plugin and providers, ecosystem education and outreach, AI best practices and guidance, supporting other WordPress contributor teams with AI tooling and workflows, and long-term strategic positioning for AI within WordPress
Additional public updates about future direction are expected in the coming weeks
Key focus areas included reviewing and improving the draft 7.0 field guide, finalizing AI-related milestone tickets, stabilizing functionality ahead of RC1, and ensuring documentation and developer references are complete
The team aims to have remaining milestone work merged before RC1 on May 14 where possible
AI ProviderProviderAn AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). Plugin Releases
Discussion continued around releases for the Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic provider plugins
The goal is to ship updated releases prior to WordPress 7.0 in order to include bug fixes, provider updates, and additional compatibility improvements
Longer-term maintainership for provider repositories also remains under discussion << if you have interest and availability to help here, please comment on this post!
@jason_the_adams noted continued strategic interest in WP-Bench as a way to encourage providers to improve model performance for WordPress-specific tasks
Contributors interested in helping with WP-Bench were encouraged to get involved, particularly around expanding execution tests
AI Plugin
Version 0.9.0 of the AI plugin is planned for release this week and is expected to include Content Resizing, Content Moderation, and additional bug fixes and polish
The current goal is to ship AI plugin 1.0.0 during the week of the WordPress 7.0 release
Potential additions in 1.0.0 still under discussion include AI Request Logging, refinements to “Review Notes” and “Refine from Notes”, Connector Approval functionality potentially including secret management, and additional UXUXUX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. and workflow improvements
Connector Approval Experiment
A significant portion of the meeting focused on discussion around the proposed connector approval experiment
The feature is designed to help site administrators control which plugins can access configured AI provider connectors and API keys
The proposed approach would blockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Connector access by default, allow admins to explicitly approve plugin access, and provide visibility into which plugins are attempting to use connectors
Security & Secrets Management Concerns
Contributors discussed the limitations of attempting to solve API key security entirely within plugin-land
Concerns raised included the possibility of creating a false sense of security, existing WordPress limitations around secure secret storage, and the need for a more fundamental secrets management API within WordPress core
At the same time, several contributors argued that introducing an experimental approval mechanism now could help reduce immediate risks, gather real-world feedback, and drive broader conversations around secure key management in WordPress
@jeffpaul stressed that this experiment was planned as a first step towards potential elevation to a GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc.
https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ experiment (with a broader test base), and potentially to WordPress core in 7.1 (as it was too late to try and get something stable into 7.0, but that this was a notable concern with the existing Connectors and WP AI Client implementations)
The group generally agreed that additional discussion and review are still needed before a final decision is made regarding inclusion in the AI 1.0.0 release
Next Steps
Continue defining the long-term Core AI team strategy
Review and finalize WordPress 7.0 field guide content
Merge remaining AI milestone tickets ahead of WP 7.0 RC1
Ship provider plugin releases with pending bug fixes by WP 7.0 release
Continue testing and reviewing the Connector Approval PR
Gather additional contributor feedback around API key security and secrets management approaches
Upcoming meetings
Folks are welcome to join on Wednesday’s at 1700 UTC via Google Meet with in-meeting notes captured in a Slack Canvas and then paired with Gemini meeting notes to help generate this meeting summary post. All team meetings are published to https://make.wordpress.org/meetings/#ai.
The next bi-weekly AI Team Office Hours SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ discussion is scheduled for 14 May 2026.
The next weekly AI Contributor weekly Google Meet video call is scheduled for 13 May 2026.
This week’s AI contributor meeting focused on MCP adapterMCP AdapterTranslates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts. progress, release planning leading up to WordPress 7.0, contributor onboarding, and testing priorities for upcoming AI pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. releases.
Announcements
The AI plugin release cadence remains on track with releases planned approximately every two weeks leading up to WordPress 7.0
@gajendrasingh shared that they have sponsored contribution time for the AI project and are looking to become more involved with contributor workflows and ongoing initiatives
MCP Adapter
Continued work preparing the MCP adapter for release as a standalone WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ plugin
Current focus areas include plugin polish, documentation, and preparing the WordPress.org submission process
Additional coordination is planned around maintainership and ownership responsibilities for related WordPress Agent Skills work
Abilities APIAbilities APIA core WordPress API (introduced in 6.9) that creates a central registry of capabilities, making WordPress functions discoverable and accessible to AI agents, automation tools, and developers. Transforms WordPress from isolated functions into a unified system.
Work continues on slug fragments for the Abilities API, targeted for further progress once commits reopen following the current release cycle
Additional abilities-related issues are being collected to improve roadmap visibility and prioritization
AI Plugin
The team confirmed plans for AI 0.9.0 the following week and one additional release prior to WordPress 7.0 on May 20
The final release before 7.0 may become either 0.10.0 or 1.0.0 depending on readiness and scope
Testing & Stability
Additional testing is now considered a top priority before WordPress 7.0
Contributors were encouraged to test the AI plugin with popular themes and plugins including Yoast, Elementor, and Advanced Custom Fields (ACF)
Focus is currently shifting toward refinement, edge-case handling, compatibility testing, and bug fixes
The group agreed that polishing existing functionality is currently more important than introducing new experiments
Connector Approval Experiment
@dkotter shared updates on an experimental proof-of-concept PR focused on preventing plugins from accessing a user’s OpenAI connection without approval
The work explores approaches for improving connector security and user trust within the AI connector system
Contributors were asked to help with code review, functional testing, and feedback on implementation approaches
ProviderProviderAn AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). & Model Selection
Work is also underway on a feature allowing users to select providers and models on a feature-by-feature basis rather than relying entirely on automatic model selection
The discussion acknowledged tradeoffs between simplicity for most users and advanced configurability for power users
WordPress Agent Skills Maintainership
Contributors discussed the need for clearer ownership and maintainership for the WordPress Agent Skills project following shifts in contributor availability
Additional conversations with project leadership are planned to clarify ownership, review expectations, quality control workflows, and long-term stewardship
Next Steps
Continue preparing the MCP adapter for WordPress.org release
Coordinate maintainership discussions for WordPress Agent Skills
Continue AI plugin compatibility testing across popular plugins and themes
Review and test the connector approval experiment PR
Finalize and share the provider/model selection PR for contributor feedback
Facilitate the upcoming SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ office hours and show-and-tell session
Upcoming meetings
Folks are welcome to join on Wednesday’s at 1700 UTC via Google Meet with in-meeting notes captured in a Slack Canvas and then paired with Gemini meeting notes to help generate this meeting summary post. All team meetings are published to https://make.wordpress.org/meetings/#ai.
The next bi-weekly AI Team Office Hours Slack discussion is scheduled for 30 April 2026.
The next weekly AI Contributor weekly Google Meet video call is scheduled for 6 May 2026.
This week’s AI contributor meeting focused on maintaining progress during a period of reduced contributor availability, resolving several blocking decisions for WordPress 7.0, and confirming next steps for MCP, connectors, and PHPPHPPHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/index.php client work.
Announcements
Several leads and contributors will have limited availability over the next month due to high-priority initiatives elsewhere.
The team agreed to continue making reversible decisions (and documenting them) rather than pausing work entirely while key leads and contributors are unavailable.
@jason_the_adams and @isotropic are planning a vision alignment meeting with Matt to define the next phase of the WordPress AI team.
The AI Experiments pluginAI Experiments PluginWordPress's AI laboratory bringing all building blocks together. Serves as both a user tool and developer reference implementation. First release (v0.1.0) includes Title Generation experiment. 0.8.0 release was targeted for Thursday April 23rd, with releases expected roughly every two weeks leading up to WordPress 7.0.
AI pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.
Continuing work preparing for the 0.8.0 release this week.
Discussion about shipping Google ProviderProviderAn AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). v1.0.4 to resolve reported issues.
Ongoing work to implement thought signatures across provider plugins.
Continued discussion around adding embeddings support, with outreach planned to additional contributors to help advance PR work.
MCP
No direct code updates reported this week.
Significant architectural decisions were made (see below).
Key Decisions
Several decisions were made to prevent blockers ahead of the WordPress 7.0 release and with a ~month delay for some key A8c leads and contributors.
MCP AdapterMCP AdapterTranslates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts. Distribution
The MCP adapter will be released as a standalone WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ plugin (prior analysis on options).
This enables dependency installation workflows and improves adoption flexibility.
Composer distribution remains an option but will not be the primary delivery method.
This decision depends on leadership availability and will be revisited once availability improves.
Experiment Elevation Process
Stable experiments may be elevated to features using GitHubGitHubGitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged by the repository owner. https://github.com/ issues.
During leadership absence, decision authority is delegated to active plugin maintainers (@dkotter@jeffpaul) to maintain forward progress.
Embeddings within PHP/WP AI Clients
AI plugin experiment work blocked by this not being available
@jason_the_adams to reach out to colleague (Christopher) to potentially help advance or guide work on this front
Working Through Limited Availability
The team agreed to prioritize forward movement through reversible decisions.
Large or irreversible decisions should still be deferred until full leadership availability returns.
Documentation of decisions and rationale will remain critical to maintain alignment.
Improving the WordPress 7.0 User Flow
Continued discussion around improving the user journey from installation to successful AI usage.
Focus remains on reducing friction and minimizing failure states in early adoption flows.
Open Questions
Which additional experiments should be elevated to features before WordPress 7.0?
How should embeddings be integrated into the PHP and WordPress AI clients?
Who can assist with ongoing connector UXUXUX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. testing during reduced contributor availability?
Next Steps
Vision alignment meeting: @jason_the_adams to meet with Matt and James and share outcomes with the team.
MCP Adapter submission: @justlevine to initiate the WordPress.org plugin process. @jeffpaul to assist with WPORG submission coordination.
Connector flow improvements: Review and iterate on connector user flow and visual consistency.
Embeddings support: Continue evaluating existing PR work and recruit additional reviewers.
Design alignment: Create supporting tickets to unify branding across plugin surfaces.
Upcoming meetings
Folks are welcome to join on Wednesday’s at 1700 UTC via Google Meet with in-meeting notes captured in a Slack Canvas and then paired with Gemini meeting notes to help generate this meeting summary post. All team meetings are published to https://make.wordpress.org/meetings/#ai.
The next bi-weekly AI Team Office Hours SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ discussion is scheduled for 30 April 2026.
The next weekly AI Contributor weekly Google Meet video call is scheduled for 29 April 2026.
AI 0.8.0 has been released and is available for download! “What’s new in AI…” posts (labeled with the #ai-release tag) are posted following every AI pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. release, showcasing new features included in each release.
We’re pleased to announce the release of AI 0.8.0, the latest update to the canonical plugin powering AI-powered features in WordPress. This release introduces new editorial workflows, deeper integration with Guidelines, and improvements to the overall admin experience. This release also promotes Image Generation and Editing to a full Feature and introduces dashboard widgets that surface AI capabilities and Connectors information directly in the WordPress dashboard.
What’s new in 0.8.0?
New Experiment: Refine from Notes
This release introduces a new Refine from Notes experiment that automatically applies editorial feedback to your content.
Instead of manually reviewing Notes and making edits one by one, this workflow lets you leverage AI to:
Generate Review Notes on your content (using the previously released Review Notes experiment)
Automatically apply changes from those Notes to post content
Refine posts more efficiently with fewer manual edits
This supports more streamlined editorial workflows and moves toward more agent-like content refinement experiences.
New AI Dashboard Widgets
AI 0.8.0 introduces the first set of AI dashboard widgets, bringing AI insights and capabilities directly into the WordPress dashboard.
This includes:
AI Status widgetWidgetA WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. showing plugin onboarding steps, then Connector and Feature / Experiment configurations
AI Capabilities widget highlighting available Abilities and configured Connector model capabilities
A new extensibleExtensibleThis is the ability to add additional functionality to the code. Plugins extend the WordPress core software. framework for registering additional dashboard widgets
These widgets improve discoverability and help site administrators quickly understand what AI capabilities are available on their site.
Promoted Feature: Image Generation and Editing
Image Generation and Editing has been promoted from an Experiment to a Feature.
That means:
It’s now considered stable and ready for broader use
It appears in the Features section of the AI settings screen
It continues to support supported image-capable models
As part of this transition, references to older DALL·E models have been removed in favor of newer image generation models, including gpt-image-2.
Respect Guidelines Automatically
AI abilities can now integrate with Gutenberg’s Guidelines experiment, allowing generated content to respect site-wide editorial standards.
This enables:
Consistent tone and style
Alignment with editorial expectations
More predictable AI-generated outputs
When Guidelines are configured, supported abilities automatically use them as part of their generation workflow.
Improved Title Generation Workflow
Title Generation now uses a modal interface, allowing users to preview and refine suggestions before applying them to a post.
This update makes the workflow more flexible and safer by allowing:
Multiple regeneration attempts
Inline editing before applying changes
Better control over final output
Additionally, Title and ExcerptExcerptAn excerpt is the description of the blog post or page that will by default show on the blog archive page, in search results (SERPs), and on social media. With an SEO plugin, the excerpt may also be in that plugin’s metabox. Generation have been improved to prevent unwanted formatting, such as:
Conversational preambles
Wrapper quotes
Markdown artifacts
MetaMetaMeta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. commentary
These improvements are especially noticeable when using smaller language models.
Bulk Enable or Disable Experiments
Managing Experiments is now faster with support for bulk enabling and disabling Experiment groups.
This is especially useful for:
Testing workflows across multiple Experiments
Quickly toggling features during development or evaluation
Managing large sets of capabilities more efficiently
Improved AI Settings Experience
Several UIUIUI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. improvements refine the overall settings experience:
Improved visual hierarchy makes card titles more prominent
Button loading states now match WordPress standard loading patterns
Feature descriptions now clearly list supported AI providerProviderAn AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). models
AccessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) improvements to modal workflows
Review Notes now appear only on supported post types
These changes make the interface clearer and more consistent with WordPress design patterns.
Performance Improvements for Review Notes
Review Notes now send reduced context during processing.
This helps:
Reduce token usage
Improve performance
Lower overall model costs
These changes are particularly helpful on larger content workflows.
Additional Improvements and Fixes
Other notable improvements include:
The legacy AI settings ai page now redirects automatically to the new ai-wp-admin page (powered via wp-build)
Added support checks using wp_supports_ai() before initializing Features or Experiments
Improved dependency error handling in asset loading
Modernized internal string handling using str_starts_with() and str_contains()
Deferred requirement error messages until translations are available
Refactored bootstrap and asset loading systems for improved reliability
Updated testing documentation to match the current test setup
Updated blueprint configuration to use WordPress betaBetaA pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. versions
These updates improve overall stability and compatibility across environments and help streamline development workflows and maintain consistency across the codebase.
What’s next in 0.9.0?
Work is already underway on several features and refinements planned for 0.9.0, including:
As always, we welcome feedback, testing, and contributions from the community. Whether you are interested in editor UXUXUX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it., APIs, accessibility, performance, or AI ethics and policy, there are many ways to participate.
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