What’s new AI features in the works? WP 7.0 nearly there! Faster WooCommerce, Hidden Plugins Finally Surfacing in the WordPress.org plugin pages.
Hello WordPressers!
Welcome to this week’s WP More roundup — WP More newsletter issue 38, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one place.
WordPress is moving quickly right now and not just in one direction. This week we’ve got AI features landing in the editor, a long-overdue fix to plugin discovery, a major version inching toward release, a new WooCommerce update packed with performance improvements, and a candid post-mortem on a governance experiment that didn’t pan out. A lot to cover, so let’s get into it.
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In this Issue:
- WordPress AI Experiments 0.4.0 Brings Image Generation to the Editor
- WordPress 7.0 Beta 3 Is Out and Needs Your Testing
- WooCommerce 10.6 Focuses on Performance and Better Defaults
- The WordPress Plugin Featured Tab Is Finally Rotating Again
- FAIR Winds Down Its WordPress Ambitions
WordPress AI Experiments 0.4.0 Brings Image Generation to the Editor
The AI Experiments plugin just hit version 0.4.0, and this release is focused on two things: helping you create images without leaving WordPress, and giving editors smarter feedback on their content.
The new Generate Image workflow lets authors create images from a text prompt directly inside the block editor, no need to hunt for stock photos or switch to another tool. You can tweak the prompt, generate variations, and insert your chosen image straight into the post. The same functionality is also available in the Media Library, so generated images go directly into your site’s collection for reuse later.
The other big addition is Generate Review Notes. This experiment analyzes your content and surfaces AI-generated suggestions, things like missing alt text, readability issues, grammar corrections, and SEO improvements, right inside the editor, either for the full post or individual blocks.
- Image generation works both in the editor and the Media Library
- Review Notes can flag accessibility, readability, grammar, and SEO issues
- Next up in 0.5.0: image editing, contextual tagging, and deeper WordPress 7.0 integration
Read the full blog on Official Make WordPress blog here.
Speaking of WordPress 7.0, that release is getting closer and Beta 3 just dropped.
WordPress 7.0 Beta 3 Is Out and Needs Your Testing
WordPress 7.0 Beta 3 is available, and the final release is scheduled for April 9, 2026. This beta includes more than 148 fixes and updates since Beta 2, 70 in the editor and 78 in core, making it a meaningful step forward in stability.
One notable improvement in Beta 3: the WP AI Client Connectors screen now dynamically pulls in providers from the WP AI Client registry, beyond the three default options. That means more flexibility when connecting AI tools to your WordPress site.
This is not a release to run on a live site, but testing it on a staging environment is genuinely useful. You can try it via the WordPress Beta Tester plugin, a direct download, WP-CLI, or WordPress Playground right in your browser — no setup required.
- Beta 3 has 148+ fixes across the editor and core
- AI provider setup is more flexible with dynamic registry support
- WordPress Playground makes it easy to test with zero installation
Read the full blog on Official WordPress blog here.
WooCommerce users have their own update to look forward to; version 10.6 is almost here too.
WooCommerce 10.6 Focuses on Performance and Better Defaults
WooCommerce 10.6 was scheduled to be released in March 2026, and it brings a solid set of improvements across performance, UX, and developer tooling.
On the performance side, checkout pages now run fewer SQL queries thanks to deferred transient deletion, and cache priming has been consolidated across product data stores to reduce redundant queries. The Recent Reviews widget now loads asynchronously, which prevents admin lockouts when review data causes errors.
For store builders, the Product Collection blocks get a noticeable UX upgrade. Instead of seeing an empty “no products” placeholder when inserting hand-picked products or category-filtered collections, you now see a searchable picker right away. Brands also get dedicated first-class support with a new collection type. In the cart and checkout, the remove item button has been redesigned as a trash icon, and sale badges and product variations now display more compactly.
- Fewer SQL queries on checkout and admin pages
- Product Collection blocks are now open with a searchable interface instead of empty states
- New tax-inclusive shipping filter for EU compliance
Read the full blog on Official WooCommerce Developer blog here.
While WooCommerce keeps shipping improvements, a different part of the ecosystem is rethinking how plugins get discovered in the first place.
The WordPress Plugin Featured Tab Is Finally Rotating Again
For roughly eight years, the Featured Plugins tab inside the WordPress admin showed the same static list. That’s changed. Contributor Nick Hamze has launched an experiment that rotates eight plugins every two weeks, specifically targeting newer plugins with fewer than 10,000 installs that have been released in the past year.
The curation isn’t just automated filtering; there’s a human layer. Hamze looks at whether a plugin solves a real problem, whether the developer is active in support forums, and whether the UX feels like someone actually cared. Plugins also need to meet a quality baseline: real, readable code with proper security practices, a useful readme, and no unnecessary feature bloat.
The impact showed up fast. Ollie Menu Designer, one of the first eight featured plugins, roughly doubled its install count within hours of appearing on the list. That’s the kind of distribution most small plugin developers can’t generate on their own.
- Eight plugins rotate every two weeks, all under 10,000 installs and under 12 months old
- Human curation beyond automated criteria determines the final picks
- Featured placement can dramatically accelerate growth for smaller plugins
Read the full report on The Repository here.
Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:
- Joost de Valk and Karim Marucchi Step Away from FAIR as Project Pivots to TYPO3
- After FAIR’s Co-Founders Step Back, the WordPress Community Weighs In
- WordPress Contributor Dashboard Pilot Now Live, Team Proposes Next Phase
- WordPress 7.0 Beta 2 Ships With Connectors UI, Delivering on Mullenweg’s AI Vision
- Yoast Launches Schema Aggregation in Partnership with Microsoft, Giving AI a Site-Wide View of WordPress Content
- CloudFest Hackathon 2026: A Record Year for Projects, a New Schedule, and an AI Art Experiment
- PressConf Returns to Tempe with a New Mission: Challenge the WordPress Community
- Automattic Again Seeks to Dismiss WP Engine’s Latest Complaint, Moves to Drop WooCommerce From Case
Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing hard-hitting WordPress journalism.
Not everything in the WordPress ecosystem is moving forward, though — sometimes it’s just as important to know when to step back.
FAIR Winds Down Its WordPress Ambitions
Karim Marucchi and Joost de Valk, two long-time WordPress voices, have announced they’re stepping away from FAIR, the neutral package management initiative they launched under the Linux Foundation to address WordPress governance concerns.
The technical work was real and functional. FAIR was a working alternative to the existing infrastructure, not just a concept. But after months of conversations with hosting companies and major ecosystem players, the conclusion was clear: no one was willing to fund it. Hosts acknowledged the problems but weren’t ready to invest in a solution that required shared commitment and financial risk.
Marucchi and de Valk are candid about what this revealed. The very reluctance of large players to step up actually clarified something Matt Mullenweg has pointed to for years, that the ecosystem’s incentive structure is misaligned, with many companies benefiting from WordPress without contributing proportionally. That doesn’t mean they agree with how he’s handled it, but they see the economic reality more clearly now.
FAIR itself will continue in a different direction: the TYPO3 community has embraced the project, particularly given European interest in digital sovereignty and federated package management.
- FAIR was technically viable but couldn’t secure ecosystem funding to move forward
- The experience gave its founders more empathy for the underlying economic tension, even if not the methods
- The project lives on with TYPO3
WordPress Must Read
→ FAIR: Successes, Lessons, and What’s Next (halfelf.org)
→ Mike Little: the British co-founder of WordPress you’ve probably never heard of (but should)… (netribution.co.uk)
→ WordPress Faces an Event Horizon, Not a Sunset (therepository.email)
→ WordPress, AI, plugins, future of software engineering (ma.tt)
→ Building FAIR, and Letting Go of What Could Have Been (carriedils.com)
On other WordPress News
→ WooCommerce 10.5.3: Dot release (developer.woocommerce.com)
→ Real-Time Collaboration in the Block Editor (make.wordpress.org)
→ Call For Feedback: Increasing Value of Release Party Testing Phase (make.wordpress.org)
→ Retiring the WordPress Campus Connect–Specific Mentor Program (make.wordpress.org)
→ Store API Vulnerability Patched in WooCommerce 5.4+ – What You Need To Know (developer.woocommerce.com)
→ What’s new in Gutenberg 22.6? (25 February) (make.wordpress.org)
→ Bringing WordPress Campus Connect to Malaysia: A Milestone for Open-Source Education at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (make.wordpress.org)
→ Introducing Core Team Reps for 2026 (make.wordpress.org)
→ Developer documentation restored. (make.wordpress.org)
→ Transparency Report Update: July – December 2025 (transparency.automattic.com)
→ Elemnetor launches agency survey for WordPress pros (elementor.com)
From WordPress Community
→ WPPT Follow Up with Nick Hamze (youtube.com)
→ Contribute to the first-ever Checkout Summit edition even if you can’t attend. (checkoutsummit.com)
→ Meet Wapuulika: The Official Mascot of WordCamp Asia 2026 (asia.wordcamp.or)
→ What GoDaddy learned from talking to hundreds of web designers and developers in 2025 (godaddy.com)
→ Iterating on Notes in WordPress (nomad.blog)
→ Gutenberg Changelog #127 – WordPress 7.0 Beta and Gutenberg 22.6 (gutenbergtimes.com)
→ Hostinger posts fourth consecutive year of 50%+ growth, driven by platform-wide AI agent use (hostinger.com)
→ What Automattic’s AI Enablement Training Means for WordPress (automattic.com)
→ SudoWP Initiative Launched to Secure Abandoned WordPress Plugins (wp-content.co)
→ Jonathan Desrosiers on WordPress Sustainability, Community Engagement, and Release Strategies (wptavern.com)
→ How WordPress Is Reaching the Next Generation of Contributors (thewpminute.com)
Conclusion
That’s a full week in WordPress; AI tools getting practical, a major version nearly ready, performance gains in WooCommerce, a small but meaningful fix to plugin discovery, and an honest look at why a governance effort didn’t take root.
If any of these stories sparked a thought, hit reply. We’d love to hear what’s on your mind. And if a fellow WordPress user would find this useful, feel free to pass it along.
Nishat, WP More
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