WordCamp US 2026 wrapped up; more than 1,100 people showed up and WordPress 7.1 landed live on stage.
This issue of WP More is brought to you by GoDaddy’s Airo for WordPress; build a fully functional WordPress website in minutes!
Hello WordPressers!
Welcome to this week’s WP More roundup. This is WP More newsletter issue 53, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.
WordCamp US 2026 just wrapped up in Phoenix. More than 1,100 people showed up for four days of sessions, a hackathon-style Contributor Day, and the live release of WordPress 7.1. It was a big week for the community. I was getting so much fomo seeing all the amazing photos and posts from X and LinkedIn. If you were also an attendee, what are your thoughts on WordCamp US?
In this Issue:
- WordPress 7.1 “Mary Lou” Is Here
- Build Your First AI-Powered WordPress Plugin
- A WooCommerce Developer Takes on the Plugin Repo
- WordCamp US 2026 Wraps in Phoenix
- WordPress Must Read
- On Other WordPress News
- From WordPress Community
WordPress 7.1 “Mary Lou” Is Here
WordPress 7.1, named after pioneering jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams, shipped on August 19, live at WordCamp US 2026. The release is built around how you actually work: navigating the admin, controlling your designs, and collaborating with others.
The admin bar now follows you across every editor, so you always have familiar tools within reach. Responsive styling is built in, letting you control how blocks look at different screen sizes without writing custom CSS. A new media editor brings freeform cropping, image flipping, rotation, and metadata editing into one place. Notes now support rich text and @mentions, making it easier to leave feedback and loop in collaborators.
Two new blocks landed as well: Playlist and Tabs, along with browser-based image compression that reduces server load on uploads. Over 800 contributors shipped more than 1,500 enhancements and fixes, including 170 first-time contributors.
Read the full blog on WordPress.org →
If you’ve been eyeing the new AI features in WordPress core, the next piece shows exactly how the pieces fit together in a real plugin.
Build Your First AI-Powered WordPress Plugin
The WordPress Developer Blog published a step-by-step guide to building an AI-powered plugin using three core building blocks: the Abilities API, the WordPress AI Client, and the MCP Adapter. The tutorial walks through building “Photo to Post,” a plugin that takes an image URL, generates a text description via an AI vision model, writes a draft post from that description, and sets the image as the featured image.
The key concept is ability composition: the orchestrator ability calls two smaller abilities rather than touching the AI Client directly, so each piece stays reusable. Once registered, the abilities work over the REST API, in the dashboard, and through an AI agent, all without separate code for each. The AI Client handles provider differences behind the scenes, so the same code works with OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google. Good reading for any developer watching where WordPress AI is headed.
Read the full blog on WordPress Developer Blog →
From AI development to the plugin repo itself; this next story is about what actually happens when you finally just try.
A WooCommerce Developer Takes on the Plugin Repo
Rodolfo Melogli of Business Bloomer spent 15 years building WooCommerce plugins but never published one to the official WordPress.org repository. SVN, PHPCS, review queues, readme standards; it all felt like a locked door he assumed wasn’t worth opening.
Then he started using Claude Code. Seven days later, he had four plugins live on WordPress.org. The process involved running plugins through Plugin Check and WPCS, handling a rejection for a name that was too generic, and iterating until approval. He also launched two new brand websites alongside the plugins.
His honest takeaway: shipping fast is now the easy part. What still matters is domain knowledge built over years, good ideas, and the marketing to make sure anyone actually finds what you built. A refreshingly grounded take on what AI tooling can and cannot do for the average WordPress developer.
Read the full blog on Business Bloomer →
Before the WordCamp US recap, a word from our sponsor.
Brought to you by GoDaddy
I tested GoDaddy’s Airo for WordPress and I was genuinely surprised.
Most AI site builders I’ve tried do just one job: help you launch a basic site. After that, you’re left on your own with the block editor, a developer, a designer, or whoever handles day-to-day updates.
GoDaddy’s AI WordPress builder felt different. I gave Airo a simple five-word prompt, and within minutes, it built a full 5-page site with relevant images, setting up section animations in the block editor and generating all the page copy.
But the most interesting part? The Airo chat assistant stays pinned inside your WordPress dashboard and every page of wp-admin even after setup.
To test its capabilities, I sat on the homepage and typed into the chat: “Change the main header copy.” It updated the text instantly without me specifying the page. I typed “Undo that,” and it reverted the change immediately. No jumping into the page editor, no navigating menus, all done directly through chat.
In minutes, I had a complete site (Homepage, About, Contact, Blog with a sample post, and supporting pages) from a single five-word prompt.
WordCamp US 2026 Wraps in Phoenix
WordCamp US 2026 ran August 16–19 at the Phoenix Convention Center in 111°F heat, drawing 1,156 ticket holders across four days of sessions, demos, and hallway conversations. Contributor Day ran as a hackathon this year, with 425 participants across 26 teams shipping 22 pull requests and 21 finished items, including three plugins and two new features.
At the closing keynote, Matt Mullenweg called for WordPress to prioritize simplicity, said the project may have pushed AI too hard, and floated rebranding some features as “automation.” He also acknowledged WordPress’s slight market-share dip, suggesting that WP Engine sites no longer pinging the WordPress.org update server fully account for the drop. The WordPress 7.1 release went live during the session itself; by the time Mullenweg noticed, the counter had already passed 330,000 downloads and 1.4 million auto-updates.
Read the full report on The Repository →
WordPress Must Read
→ We Checked 60,000 WordPress Plugins to Find the Ones Still Growing. They Share One Thing. (wp-rankings.com)
→ AI Creates Opportunity While Artists Ship at WordCamp US 2026 (wordpress.org)
→ Homework from WordCamp (ma.tt)
→ State of the Community 2026 (thewpocc.org)
→ The integer that delayed WooCommerce 11.0 (remicorson.com)
On Other WordPress News
→ AI Contributor Weekly Summary – 19 August 2026 (make.wordpress.org)
→ WordCamp US opens, students ship 108 sites in Bangladesh, and a lesson in the dark (make.wordpress.org)
→ Plugin Check just got an update 2.1.0 🚀 (x.com)
→ Call for WordPress 7.1.x Release Managers (make.wordpress.org)
→ What’s new in AI 1.3.0 (18 August 2026)? (make.wordpress.org)
→ WordPress 7.1 “Mary Lou” Launches at WordCamp US With Responsive Styling, Improved Media Handling, and New Blocks (therepository.email)
→ What’s new in Gutenberg 23.8? (19 August) (make.wordpress.org)
→ WooCommerce 11.1: What’s coming for developers (developer.woocommerce.com)
→ Accessibility Improvements in WordPress 7.1 (make.wordpress.org)
→ WordPress Contributor Toolkit 1.0: A smoother workflow for your first Core contribution (make.wordpress.org)
→ The WordPress.com Student Plan Is Here: Give Your Students a Website They Can Keep (wordpress.com)
→ Automattic Launches Free WordPress.com Student Plan for Teachers and Students (therepository.email)
From WordPress Community
→ My WordPress Contribution Journey: A Transparency Report by Satyam Vishwakarma (satyamvishwakarma.com)
→ What’s Next: Open Source Programs, Docs, and SBOMs by Courtney Robertson (courtneyr.dev)
→ Fueled Partners with beehiiv to Launch Its Official Plugin for WordPress (fueled.com)
→ PressConf Heads to Europe for the First Time, Announces Four-Day Barcelona Conference in October (therepository.email)
→ State of the Community Survey Finds Three in Four Feel Worse About WordPress, but 90% Agree on What Matters (therepository.email)
→ GoDaddy’s Airo for WordPress Delivers AI that Builds, Grows, and Continuously Improves Your Website (godaddy.com)*
*Sponsored
Until Next Week
WordPress 7.1 went live during Mullenweg’s own closing keynote. By the time he noticed, it had already hit 330,000 downloads and 1.4 million auto-updates. If you haven’t upgraded yet, the responsive styling controls and browser-based image compression are worth checking first.
Three in four respondents in the State of the Community survey said they feel worse about WordPress than a year ago. Mullenweg acknowledged it on stage and said the project needs to simplify. What does that actually mean to you in practice? Fewer features, better defaults, a cleaner admin? And after reading Rodolfo’s story about finally opening the plugin repo door after 15 years of assuming it was too complicated, is there something similar sitting on your own list?
Hit reply with your take. If this issue was useful, pass it along to someone in the WordPress community.
— Nishat, WP More
Follow → X.com | LinkedIn | BlueSky | Facebook
Join Our Community → Sub-Reddit | X Community
Leave a Reply