#222- Automattic Resumes WordPress Contributions, WordPress AI Team, Open Horizons Scholarship

Issue #222 | June 3, 2025 | Reading time: 15 mins

Hello!

This week on The WP Week Newsletter, we cover Automattic resuming WordPress contributions, the launch of the new WordPress AI Team, the Open Horizons Scholarship by Automattic, exciting new projects, and more.

Don’t forget to subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter, where you can hear more details and discussions about these topics and more.

See you next week!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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🗣️TALK OF THE TOWN

Automattic restarts WordPress contributions following a hiatus

Automattic, after significantly reducing its contribution hours earlier this year to the WordPress project from a staggering 3,539 hours per week to a mere 45 hours, is now returning to contributing to the WordPress project. Automattic is re-engaging across key areas of the project, from WordPress Core, Gutenberg, Playground, Openverse, and WordPress.org.

📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

WordPress AI Team announced

As WordPress celebrated its 22nd birthday, Mary Hubbard announced the formation of the new WordPress AI Team. The team is set to drive and unify AI efforts across the WordPress ecosystem, fostering open innovation through collaboration, community values, and a plugin-first development approach.

Automattic announces Open Horizons Scholarship: Automattic has launched the Open Horizons Scholarship, a $30,000 initiative to support active WordPress contributors from underrepresented, underserved, and economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The program is designed to fund travel and participation at flagship WordPress events.
Update on the GatherPress project: GatherPress, after initial tests, is about to begin real-world trials with local communities hosting events via GatherPress. The latest version features a redesigned RSVP block, and upcoming releases will add RSVP via email and Fediverse, plus calendar and management improvements.
WooCommerce 9.9 release is delayed: Initially scheduled for Monday, June 2, 2025, the release has been postponed by the team to a tentative date of Wednesday, June 4, 2025. The delay follows fatal errors found in both 9.9.0 and 9.9.1.
Introducing the new Plugin Review Team Reps: David Perez and Francisco Torres are the new team reps for the WordPress.org Plugin Review Team.
15,000 WordPress sites affected by arbitrary file upload vulnerability in MasterStudy LMS Pro WordPress plugin: The vulnerability that made it possible for authenticated users such as subscribers to upload arbitrary files to a vulnerable site and achieve remote code execution in certain configurations, which is typically leveraged for a complete site takeover, was patched recently.
Google: Database speed beats page count for crawl budget: Google confirms 1M page crawl budget threshold stands after 5 years, but database efficiency matters more than page count for SEO performance.
Google’s query fan-out patent: Thematic search: A patent that Google filed in December 2024 presents a close match to the Query Fan-Out technique that Google’s AI Mode uses. The patent, called Thematic Search, offers an idea of how AI Mode answers are generated and suggests new ways to think about content strategy.

💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

Sticky Header Effects has been acquired by POSIMYTH Innovations: Sticky Header Effects for Elementor, used by over 300,000 websites, is now part of the POSIMYTH Innovations family.
CAPTCHA 4WP plugin acquired by WPkube: CAPTCHA 4WP will soon be available at captcha4wp.com, where Devesh (founder of WPkube) and his team will ensure the plugin’s ongoing development and success.
WP Rocket announces partnership with Hosting.com: WP Rocket has announced a new global partnership with Hosting.com. Through this collaboration, WP Rocket becomes an officially integrated optimization tool within hosting.com’s services. The rollout will begin with customers in Australia and expand across North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia throughout the summer.
Greyd teams up with Remkus de Vries: Greyd has partnered with seasoned WordPress expert Remkus de Vries in a strategic move to elevate their product and services.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

Share your Pride Photo Drive is back for 2025

LGBTQ+PRESS is running the second edition of Share your Pride Photo Drive, and to participate, submit any photo to the WordPress.org photo directory featuring rainbow themes using the hashtag #ShareYourPride2025. Submissions are accepted until July 1st, 2025. Prizes include $150 for the best photo, $100 for the second-best, $50 for the third-best, and $50 each for the top three most submitted photos.

ServMask Inc. is looking to sponsor WordPress contributors through Five for the Future: They are willing to sponsor 20-40 hours per week and if you’re currently contributing or eager to start and need sponsorship, reach out to them.
Nominations are open for the 2025 .ORG Impact Awards: Hosted by the Public Interest Registry, the .ORG Impact Awards recognize the changemakers and community builders behind some of the world’s most inspiring .org websites. The nominations will close on June 4, 2025.
GenerateBlocks Pro 2.2 alpha is now available: This release has introduced two new blocks, the Site Header Block and the Navigation Block.
Introducing the official Brevo Add-On v1.0 for Gravity Forms: The add-on allows you to automatically send form data to Brevo as soon as a user submits your form.
11 years of All-in-One WP Migration: All-in-One WP Migration, released back in 2014, is celebrating its 11-year anniversary. The plugin has over 5 million active installations, and in 202,3 it crossed 60+ million downloads.
Rocket Theme is going offline after 20 years: After nearly 20 years, RocketTheme is closing down due to rising costs and changes in web development. Founded in 2004 as MamboDev and rebranded after Joomla’s launch, RocketTheme grew to lead in template design and pioneered innovations like the Gantry Framework.

🚀 NEW PROJECTS

Introducing Star Shop: Vedanshu Jain on X announced the launch of the Star Shop project, an upcoming hosting platform for Woocommerce.
Introducing SponsorMeWP: Michelle Frechette and Marcus Burnette have launched this project, which is aimed at connecting contributors with companies looking to support open source work. The website features a list of contributors available for sponsorship across various areas, including Core, Documentation, and more.
Introducing DB Version Control for WordPress: The new plugin by Robert DeVore exports your WordPress content to clean, readable JSON files that work seamlessly with Git and other version control systems.
Meet SiteMait, the upcoming AI agent: Amadeu Arderiu provided a quick demo of the upcoming SiteMait, an AI agent currently in alpha/beta phase.
All new Ollie Theme Academy launched: Mike McAlister has launched a completely free, all-in-one course on WordPress block theme development.
All new Shopify AI Agents: Jotform has announced its latest offering, Shopify AI Agents, which are AI-powered chatbots designed for Shopify store owners. They provide 24/7 customer support directly from your Shopify store by answering common questions, showing order statuses, recommending products, and even triggering Jotform forms directly through the chat interface.
Matteo Collina releases php-node, the Platformatic native module that allows users to run PHP in Node.js: With Platformatic/php-node you can run PHP applications within the same process as a Node.js application, allowing for communication between Node.js and PHP without any network connection in the middle.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

More posts and podcasts from the WordPress Community you don’t want to miss

The five layers of sharing thoughts and ideas: Matt Mullenweg explored how thoughts evolve into ideas and spread through five distinct layers of sharing, each with unique contexts and challenges.
Sam Sidler on why you should reconsider donating to the WordPress Foundation: Sam Sidler argues that donations to the WordPress Foundation do not directly benefit the WordPress community or fulfill its stated mission. It critiques the foundation’s limited and unclear activities, highlights its role primarily as a trademark holding entity, and questions recent promotional efforts like the Automattic scholarship. From The Delta.
In conversation with Miriam Schwab: Miriam Schwab shares her journey from Toronto to Israel, evolving from a patent editor to a self-taught WordPress expert and entrepreneur. She built a successful agency, founded Strattic (later acquired by Elementor), and now serves as Head of WordPress Relations. Alongside her career, she reflects on motherhood, personal growth, and her continued passion for community and learning. From Seriously, Bud?
Community split as Mary Hubbard’s move to rebuild trust faces scrutiny: From cautious optimism to blunt skepticism, the community is split on whether Mary Hubbard’s proposed reforms can rebuild trust in WordPress governance, especially without accountability for past bans. From The Repository.
Why an AI team matters for WordPress: Tammie Lister shared her excitement about the newly formed WordPress AI team, coinciding with WordPress’s 22nd birthday, and emphasized the importance of collaboration, curiosity, and community input in shaping the future of AI within the project. From Tammie Lister.
Francisco Torres reflects on his two-year journey with the plugin review team: Francisco Torres, on completing two years with the WordPress.org plugin review team, reflects on key achievements including developing a robust internal code review tool, reviewing thousands of plugins, and significantly improving the security and quality of the plugin ecosystem.
Honoring AAPI Creators on WordPress.com: The post showcases some of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) creators and bloggers who have made WordPress.com their home. From WordPress.com
Google Site Kit development plus Fueled: This case study explores how Google partnered with Fueled to solve a key challenge faced by millions of WordPress site owners, the lack of a seamless way to access Google’s essential tools like Analytics, AdSense, and Search Console. The result was Site Kit, a free, first-party plugin that integrates these services directly into the WordPress dashboard. From Fueled.
Being human -15 Years of Human Made: In this episode of Being Human, we catch up with Human Made founders, Tom, Joe and Noel to celebrate 15th anniversary of Human Made and reflect back on the last 15 years.
Celebrating GAAD 2025: Community wins, WordPress progress, and what’s next: The article recaps the Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) 2025, highlighting a successful virtual contributor day where 86 people pledged 382 hours to improve web accessibility, especially within WordPress. From Equalize Digital.
Emotionally unemployable: Agency life with Kurt and Toby: Kurt von Ahnen and Toby Cryns reflect on the unique ups and downs of running a small WordPress agency. From their early days coding in HTML and building Flash websites to managing client rosters, teams, and productized services, the hosts explore the joys and hard-won lessons of agency life. From The WP Minute.
Felix Arntz on how Speculative Loading is speeding up your WordPress website: In this episode, Felix Arntz, Senior Software Engineer at Google and WordPress Core committer, explains how speculative loading, introduced in WordPress 6.8 speeds up site navigation by preloading pages users are likely to visit next. From WP Tavern Jukebox.

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

Vibe code WordPress plugin masterclass: From WP Minute Tutorials
Automate your WordPress plugin updates with GitHub Actions: From Aslam Doctor
Building your one-page website from scratch using Elementor: From BlueGrid
How to make block themes better with theme JSON: From ACF
A modern Sass workflow for WordPress theme development: From Kinsta
Using AI tools to spin up a WordPress plugin: From Kinsta

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

WordCamp Europe on 5-7 June 2025: Tickets are now available. The schedule has been published.
WPCampus 2025 on July 23–25, 2025: The call for proposals is now open.
WordCamp US on August 26-29, 2025: The call for organizers and sponsor applications is now open.
SomeConf 2025: The event is in the early planning stages. The call for sponsors and speakers is now live.
WordCamp Canada on October 16-17 2025: The call for sponsors is now open.
WordCamp Asia 2026: It is tentatively planned for early February 2026 and the call for organizers is now open.

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