What’s new in AI 1.3.0 (18 AUGUST 2026)?

AI 1.3.0 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 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. release, showcasing new features included in each release.

We’re pleased to announce the release of AI 1.3.0, the latest update to the canonical plugin powering AI-powered features in WordPress. This release adds new editor workflows for translating content and generating slugs, introduces explicit controls for exposing custom abilities, and expands the plugin’s developer tools. It also includes security hardening, accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (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, and fixes across several existing experiments.

What’s new in 1.3.0?

New Editor Experiment: Content Translation

The new Content Translation experiment lets editors translate content without leaving the post editor.

After selecting a target language, the experiment translates supported Paragraph and Heading blocks. Editors can also choose to translate the post title. The translated content replaces the original content in the editor, where it can be reviewed and adjusted before publishing.

New Editor Experiment: Slug Generation

Slug Generation suggests concise, search-friendly permalinks based on the post title and content.

Suggestions are available from the permalink controls and during the pre-publish flow. Editors can review, edit, regenerate, and apply a suggested slug before publishing. The interface also previews how manually edited text will be normalized and prevents values that cannot produce a valid slug from being applied.

New Admin Experiment: Custom Abilities

Version 1.3.0 introduces a single opt-in setting for exposing the plugin’s custom WordPress Abilities through the Abilities APIAbilities API A 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..

Enabling the Custom Abilities experiment registers the following abilities:

  • ai/get-post-details
  • ai/get-post-terms
  • core/read-settings
  • core/read-users
  • core/read-content

These abilities are no longer registered automatically. Sites or integrations already using them must enable Custom Abilities under Settings > AI > Admin Experiments after upgrading.

Internal AI plugin features continue to work whether or not the experiment is enabled. The toggle controls external exposure through interfaces such as the Abilities API and Model Context Protocol (MCP).

New Developer Tool: Settings import and export

Administrators can now export non-sensitive AI plugin settings to a JSONJSON JSON, 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. file and import them on another site.

This makes it easier to move experiment and developer configurations between local, staging, and production environments. Credentials, 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. keys, tokens, and other sensitive values are excluded from exports and are not overwritten during import.

Import and export controls are available from the menu on the AI settings screen.

The release also adds an AI Plugin section to Site Health, including configuration information and status tests that can help administrators identify setup or connectivity problems.

Improved Content Classification

Content Classification now produces more relevant categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. and tag suggestions by giving the model better taxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies. context, distinguishing between broad categories and specific tags, and filtering out low-confidence results.

The update also introduces three filters for sites that need more control over classification:

  • wpai_content_classification_available_terms
  • wpai_content_classification_min_confidence
  • wpai_content_classification_candidate_pool_size

These filters can be used to customize the candidate terms supplied to the model, adjust the minimum confidence required for a suggestion, and control the size of the candidate pool.

New developer extension points

Version 1.3.0 adds per-abilityAbility A 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. filters for customizing system instructions, assembled prompts, and prompt builders without forking the plugin.

These extension points allow developers to modify prompts, providerProvider An AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). or model preferences, request options, and other ability-specific behavior while preserving the plugin’s default implementation.

The release also adds:

  • A public WordPress\AI\log_ai_request() API, allowing MCP servers and direct ability consumers to record activity in the AI Request Log.
  • Support for custom providers in the Abilities Explorer provider filterFilter Filters 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..
  • Origin-based Abilities Explorer statistics, ensuring custom-provider abilities still appear in their CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., Plugin, or Theme category.
  • Embedding-generation code from the PHPPHP PHP (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 as groundwork for environments that support embeddings.
  • Alphabetical ordering by display name for collections returned by core/read-users.

Security improvements

This release includes several changes to strengthen how the plugin handles generated content, bulk operations, and externally supplied image URLs.

Updates include:

  • Additional sanitization for content sent to or rendered from a large language model.
  • Nonce verification before bulk alt text and summary generation.
  • Validation that custom image URLs are public, use an allowed image type, and do not redirect to a different unverified location.
  • Limits for custom image downloads, including configurable MIME types, timeouts, and maximum file sizes.
  • A new wpai_bulk_action_max_items filter for controlling the number of items processed in one bulk request.

Sites using the AI plugin are encouraged to update promptly.

Accessibility and workflow improvements

AI 1.3.0 includes several improvements to keyboard navigation, focus management, and editor feedback:

  • Focus now moves predictably when generating, accepting, or dismissing Content Classification suggestions.
  • Generated title and reply fields receive focus when their content is ready.
  • The Suggest Reply tone menu supports Escape dismissal and restores focus appropriately.
  • Provider and model details in the AI Request Log are more accessible to keyboard and assistive technologyAssistive technology Assistive technology is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them. Assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistive_technology users.
  • ExcerptExcerpt An 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. and summary controls now share their generating state across multiple editor interfaces, preventing duplicate requests.
  • The experiments list has been reorganized, with related admin experiments grouped together and editor experiments sorted alphabetically.

The release also fixes several workflow issues:

  • Content Resizing preserves links, emphasis, inline code, and other inline HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites..
  • Editorial Updates supports Pullquote and other blocks that store text in a value attribute.
  • Editorial Updates links to WordPress visual revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. when available.
  • MetaMeta Meta 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. descriptions applied to pages and custom post types are preserved when Yoast SEO is active.
  • Completed bulk actions no longer run again when a list is sorted or paginated.

Upgrade notes

Custom Abilities must be enabled

Integrations using ai/get-post-details, ai/get-post-terms, core/read-settings, core/read-users, or core/read-content must enable the new Custom Abilities experiment after upgrading.

Post meta keys now use the wpai_ prefix

The following meta keys have been renamed:

  • ai_generated to wpai_generated
  • ai_generated_summary to wpai_generated_summary
  • ai_note to wpai_note

The plugin migrates its own stored data, but third-party code that references these keys directly should be updated.

Public APIs have been deprecated

The AI_Service class and get_ai_service() helper are deprecated and will be removed in the next major releaseMajor Release A 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.. Developers should use wp_ai_client_prompt() directly.

The unused wpai_meta_description_result_temperature filter is also deprecated and is scheduled for removal in the next release.

Plugin data is removed when the plugin is deleted

Deleting the AI plugin now removes its settings, transients, scheduled events, and request-log table. Deactivating the plugin does not remove this data.

Additional updates

The preferred models for the three default providers have been updated to more recent models. The plugin also no longer sets custom temperature values on its requests, improving compatibility with models that do not support those parameters.

AI 1.3.0 has been tested with WordPress 7.1 and includes updated WordPress packages, development tools, testing dependencies, and GitHubGitHub GitHub 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/ Actions.

What’s next?

Work is already underway on additional Features, Experiments, and infrastructure improvements planned for 1.4.0 and future releases, including:

These concepts are still exploratory, but they help test how AI could support real workflows across WordPress.

Thanks to contributors!

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to this release, including:

@dkotter, @jeffpaul, @yogeshbhutkar, @milindmore22, @ekamran, @hbhalodia, @gautam23, @alkesh7, @gajendrasingh, @laurisaarni, @mikinc860, @justlevine, @thehercules, @hasanazizul, @n1schay, @malaytiwari, @ankitkumarshah, @gziolo, @jorgefilipecosta, @theaminuldev, @anubhav24, @carlos-widgilabs, @fahimmurshed, @trap-bytes, and others involved in review, testing, translating, and 59 commits across 203 files between 1.2.0 and 1.3.0. Your help and feedback are what make these Features and Experiments possible.

A similar thank you to translators assisting from the Czech, English (UK), Danish, German, German (Formal), Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Argentina), Spanish (Chile), Spanish (Spain), Turkish, and Vietnamese locales ensuring language packs are available for users. Translating the AI plugin is a great contribution 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 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., APIs, accessibility, performance, or AI ethics and policy, there are many ways to participate.

You can explore the 1.3.0 release today, review open issues and pull requests, and help shape what comes next.

Props to @dkotter for reviewing this post.

#ai-experiments, #ai-features, #ai-plugin, #ai-release, #canonical-plugins, #core-ai