This week’s AI contributor meeting focused on the evolving direction of the CoreCore Core 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 APIAPI An 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 pluginPlugin A 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.

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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

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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

WordPress 7.0 Preparation

• Contributors reviewed timelines and priorities related to the WordPress 7.0 release cycle
• 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 ProviderProvider An 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!

WP-Bench & Agent Skills

• The group discussed ongoing maintainership and contribution needs around both WP-Bench and WordPress Agent Skills
• @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 UXUX UX 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 blockBlock Block 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 GutenbergGutenberg The 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

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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 SlackSlack Slack 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.

Props to @neel33 for pre-publish review.

#core-ai, #summary