Issue #242 | October 22, 2025 | Reading time: 19 mins
Hello!
This week on The WP Week Newsletter, we cover the Matt Mullenweg’s talk at WordCamp Canada 2025, who can organize WordPress Campus Connect Events, WordPress Abilities API being worked on for WordPress 6.9 release, 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
🙌 This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by Kinsta, WP Shell and WP Job Openings
🗣️TALK OF THE TOWN
Matt spoke at WordCamp Canada about WordPress, open source, and his projects in publishing, commerce, and messaging. He highlighted innovations like running WordPress in a browser, AI-assisted tools, and WooCommerce growth, addressed questions on Creative Commons photos, AI content, and theme guidelines, shared WordPress history and key features, and emphasized community collaboration, learning from other CMSs, and supporting independent events.
📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND
All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies
WordPress Campus Connect events can be organized by anyone in good standing with ties to an educational institution. The initiative empowers students to learn practical WordPress skills while providing organizers with support, guidance, and resources through applications, the Community Handbook, and the campusconnect Slack channel
- WordPress AI Team focuses on Abilities API for WordPress 6.9 release: The recent meeting of the team focused on finalizing the Abilities API for WordPress 6.9 beta, prioritizing core features like registering and retrieving abilities while deferring complex additions. The API was validated via GatherPress integration, PHP and WordPress AI clients are progressing, and MCP Adapter updates continue, ensuring the API is stable and ready for 6.9.
- 4,000,000 WordPress sites affected by arbitrary file read vulnerability in Slider Revolution WordPress plugin: The vulnerability allowed an authenticated attacker, with contributor-level permissions or higher, to read arbitrary files on the server, which may contain sensitive information. Users are advised to update to the latest version immediately.
- AWS outage disrupts major platforms: A widespread disruption at Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday temporarily took down or slowed several major digital platforms, including Robinhood, Snapchat, Perplexity AI, and Amazon’s own services, according to outage tracker Downdetector. Matt Mullenweg highlighted that WordPress VIP and WordPress.com are natively real-time multidatacenter, and not on AWS, Azure, or GCP and was not impacted by this. A closer at look at Automattic’s data center operation was explained early on by Zander.
- Google redesigns how search ads are labeled: Text ads will now be grouped under a single “Sponsored results” label that stays visible as you scroll. In addition, a new “Hide sponsored results” option lets users collapse the entire ad block with one click.
- ChatGPT performs a search in 31% of prompts, new data reveals: ChatGPT performs a search in nearly one-third of prompts and averages more than two searches per query, each about 5.5 words long (roughly 60% longer than the typical Google search), according to a new study from marketing agency Nectiv.
👥 COMMUNITY NEWS
Updates and News from the WordPress Community
WordCamp Dhaka 2025, the largest WordPress gathering ever held in Bangladesh, successfully wrapped up after two inspiring days of learning, collaboration and community building. The two-day event, hosted at Sena Prangan Convention Center in Dhaka Cantonment, drew hundreds of WordPress enthusiasts, developers, designers, bloggers and business owners from across the country.
- WP Engine unveils Smart Search AI MCP: This is a new feature in its AI Toolkit that enables real-time, data-accurate AI interactions for WordPress sites. It connects external Large Language Models (like ChatGPT or Claude) directly to a site’s live content using the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
- Modular DS introduces Safe Updates and Update Copilot: Safe Updates creates restore points and visual comparisons, letting you verify changes and roll back instantly if needed. Update Copilot uses AI to score each plugin update for risk, analyzing factors like code changes, release type, site complexity, and reliability, helping users anticipate and avoid potential issues.
- WP Rocket 3.20 introduces Rocket Insight: A built-in performance monitoring tool that lets you track, troubleshoot, and optimize your top website pages without leaving WordPress. Powered by GTmetrix, it provides detailed reports, mobile insights, and a global performance score.
- Hostinger launches Generation AI: The Generation AI initiative, launched by Tesonet in partnership with Hostinger, provides 40,000 students and 500 teachers across 250+ Lithuanian schools with access to advanced AI tools, including nexos.ai and Hostinger Horizons, to enhance learning, foster creativity, and encourage entrepreneurship.
- WordPress Abilities API version 0.3.0 released: This update introduces the ability to add annotations, a new categories system, improved REST API control and more.
- FluentCRM turns five: FluentCRM celebrates its 5th anniversary with 70,000+ active users, highlighting years of growth, new features, and an expanding Fluent ecosystem, including FluentCommunity, FluentAffiliate, and FluentCart, while preparing for major 2026 enhancements like SMS marketing, AI integration, and a refreshed UI.
- Celebrating 3 years of Simple Cloudflare Turnstile: Elliot Sowersby recounts how the plugin has grown from a weekend project into a free WordPress plugin with over 100,000 active installs, top ratings, and significant community support.
- New host at WP Product Talk: Katie Keith announces a co-host change on WP Product Talk as Amber Hinds steps down after two years, and Ian Misner (co-founder of KestrelWP) joins the team.
- Devin Walker joins Automattic: Devin Walker, previously at Give and Stellar, has joined Automattic as the Artistic Director (Head of Jetpack).
- 2025 Internet Leadership Award Winners: The i2Coalition 2025 Internet Leadership Award winners are Mike Masnick, Founder & Editor of TechDirt (Internet Infrastructure Protection Award), Becky Burr, Partner at HWG LLP (Internet Community Leadership Award), Jesse Friedman, Head of WP Cloud (i2Coalition Impact Award), James Webb, COO of BigScoots (Internet Entrepreneur Award) and Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of ITU (Champion of the Internet Award).
- Nick Gernert is recruiting for his new venture: The former head of WordPress VIP at Automattic is now focused on a new startup, Tempo, with Nick Handel and Drew Holmen. They are now hiring a Founding Designer and four Founding Engineers.
- SEO is evolving into AI SEO: Leigh McKenzie argues that SEO is evolving into AI SEO, a broader approach that covers how AI systems find, cite, and recommend brands. It builds on traditional SEO principles while expanding to new signals like brand mentions and AI retrieval, giving the industry a shared language for the future of search.
- Wapuu concept album: Wapuu’s Big Adventure is a fun AI-driven music experiment by Troy Chaplin, where he used Suno to generate songs and lyrics about the WordPress mascot’s journey to WordCamp Canada, exploring multiple genres and creative play.
🚀 NEW PROJECTS
- WP Ability Toolkit: A toolkit for WordPress plugin development, testing AI agent integrations, and WordPress Ability API creation.
- Button Icons: The plugin created by Maxime Pertici adds icon functionality to Gutenberg button blocks.
- WooPress License Hub: This lets WordPress developers host plugins and themes on GitHub while managing licenses, updates, and renewals from a centralized dashboard. It enables automatic updates, direct sales from your site, customizable license periods, and seamless GitHub integration.
- CRA Compliance Store & Scanner for WordPress: CRA Compliance Store & Scanner developed by Terry Arthur, helps WordPress developers prepare for EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) compliance. It offers guides, tools, and a scanner to check plugins, themes, and blocks for vulnerabilities, code issues, and compliance gaps, providing actionable insights to secure, fix, and future-proof WordPress projects for the European market.
- Introducing Fresh Rank: The plugin by Themeisle automatically finds underperforming articles, analyzes what’s outdated, and generates professional-grade draft updates that are ready for quick editor review.
- Hidden Gems WordPress Plugin: This plugin, created by Nick Hamze, uncovers quality WordPress plugins with high ratings but low installs in the repository. It lets users filter by ratings, install counts, and keywords, helping discover useful tools before they become popular.
- Panoramic Slider Block: The plugin allows users to add a block to WordPress posts and pages to display panoramic images as a lightly-configurable, content-width image with horizontal sliding controls.
- Exit Links Manager: The plugin developed by Christopher Ocen creates an intent page that notifies users when they try to visit a link to an external website.
- ProductGenie AI Shopping Assistant: The plugin by Mher adds an AI-powered shopping assistant to your eCommerce store.
- Viking Post Sync: This allows users to move posts, pages, or WooCommerce products from a development site to a live site, updating existing content without creating duplicates or requiring full backups. Those interested in trying out the plugin can contact Victor Misa.
- LLMs Generator: The plugin automatically creates and updates the llms.txt file in the root of your WordPress site.
- Fancoolo WP: The plugin allows users to create native Gutenberg blocks and build their own design system directly inside WordPress.
- FormRobin: A new tool for creating AI-generated, customizable forms for leads, surveys, or client onboarding. It offers unlimited responses, advanced fields, tracking, styling, and embedding options, with organizational workspaces.
- Vibe for WordPress: 10Web’s Vibe for WordPress is an AI-powered frontend builder fully integrated with WordPress, letting users create production-ready sites from prompts with full backend power and code ownership.
- Hosting Decoded course by The WP Minute: This course teaches how to choose the right WordPress web host for clients, covering hosting types, performance, security, and WordPress-specific features. It also provides guidance on managing client relationships and working with multiple hosting providers to ensure successful websites.
🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS
More posts and podcasts from the WordPress Community you don’t want to miss
- In conversation with Lesley Sim: Lesley Sim shares her journey from knowing she wanted to be a businessperson at 10 to building WordPress ventures like Newsletter Glue and Event Koi. From Seriously. Bud?
- From developer to educator: Jonathan Bossenger talks about WordPress DevRel: Jonathan Bossenger explains DevRel as a mix of technical expertise, community building, content creation, and product advocacy, emphasizing empathy, communication, and pedagogy. From WP Builds.
- How a major real estate publisher is thriving on WordPress: Steve Burge conversed with Than Taintor (Human Made) and Zeshan Ahmed (Green Street News) on revamping Green Street News’ decade-old WordPress site, addressing challenges like 100,000+ articles, membership management, and more. From PublishPress.
- How great storytelling builds brand loyalty and differentiates products: Rae Morey and Adam Weeks explore why storytelling is essential to standing out in the crowded WordPress space. They unpack how memorable stories go beyond lists of features to create emotional connections, sharing personal anecdotes and practical examples from both retail and WordPress brands. From OpenChannels.
- Weston Ruter on unlocking WordPress performance: Weston Ruter discusses why website speed is crucial, how WordPress performs out of the box, and what real user experience metrics like Core Web Vitals mean for optimization. From WP Tavern Jukebox.
- The essential WordPress stack for agencies: Kurt von Ahnen and Toby Cryns discuss their WordPress agency experiences. They focus on their tech stack, project delivery methods, and plugin preferences. They emphasize the importance of filtering plugins, effective team dynamics, and managing SaaS subscriptions. From The WP Minute.
- AI’s role in the future of WooCommerce: Matt Medeiros welcomes Brian Coords back to discuss his experiences at Automattic and WooCommerce. They explore the current state of WordPress, the importance of cohesion within the platform, and the role of community feedback in shaping its future. From The WP Minute.
- Jamie Marsland on how he vibe coded six apps in a week and what it would’ve cost a few years ago: He created six functional apps in under a week solo, showing how AI-assisted vibe coding and WordPress Playground have transformed projects that once required teams, months, and large budgets into quick, manageable, and fun experiments.
- Matt Cromwell’s best advice for WordPress product businesses in 2026 and beyond: He argues that the future of WordPress products won’t be won by features or AI, but by great user experience. Products that help users feel confident and reach value quickly will thrive. He urges founders to focus on design, clarity, and empathy, not endless options or technical complexity.
- How much revenue could downtime cost you on Black Friday?: Joel Olawanle estimates the real cost of downtime during Black Friday week, understands what causes it, and what e-commerce businesses can do to stay fast, secure, and reliable when it matters most. From Kinsta.
- WordPress, accessibility, and community: In this episode of Kinsta Talks, Marcel Bootsman interviews Milana Cap, a prominent figure in the WordPress community. They discuss Milana’s new talk on accessibility, the significance of the HTML API, and the challenges of ensuring accessibility in custom code. From Kinsta.
- How Net Literacy secures its legacy with WordPress.com’s 100‑Year plan: Net Literacy is future-proofing its mission of digital and AI literacy by adopting WordPress.com’s 100‑Year Plan, ensuring its educational resources remain permanently accessible online for generations while securing operational stability and digital legacy. From WordPress.com
- Handling AJAX requests in WordPress: WP Rest API vs admin-ajax.php vs must-use plugin: Matt Shaw compares admin-ajax.php, the REST API, and custom must-use plugins, benchmarks their performance, and explores ways to speed up asynchronous request handling in WordPress. From Delicious Brains.
- The State of PHP 2025: The report shows PHP as a modern, evolving ecosystem. Most developers use PHP 8.x, with Laravel and WordPress leading frameworks. Tooling is improving, with PhpStorm dominating IDE use, modern testing frameworks like Pest gaining traction, and code quality tools like PHPStan rising. From JetBrains.
- From Treehouses to Tech: The lifelong friendship behind DocsBot: From childhood friends building treehouses to business partners building an AI company, Aaron Edwards and Joshua Dailey’s story is one of lifelong collaboration and their next chapter building DocsBot. From The Repository.
- Is ChatGPT’s buy it with Shopify a threat to WooCommerce?: ChatGPT’s Shopify integration enables in-chat purchases, raising expectations for fast, seamless checkouts, but WooCommerce remains essential for businesses seeking full control, customization, and flexibility, highlighting the need to adapt to omnichannel commerce. From Rocket.net.
🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE
Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle
- How to add custom blocks to navigation menus: From WordPress Developer Blog
- Overlapping columns with the media & text block: From Ask Design
- How to create the rating feature for a WordPress website: From Meta Box
- Claude Code and WordPress block theme development: From Elliot Richmond
📆 SAVE THE DATES
Do not miss a WordPress event ever again
- WordCamp Nepal 2026 on January 23-24: The early bird tickets are now available, and the call for speakers is now open.
- WordCamp Asia 2026 on April 9-11: The venue has been announced. The call for speakers is now open. The call for sponsors and media partners is also now open.
- SomeConf 2026 on April 22-23: The tickets are now available.
- Checkout Summit 2026 on April 23-24, 2026: The call for sponsors is now open. The early bird tickets are now available.
- WordCamp Europe 2026 on June 4-6: The event is in the early planning stages, and the venue will be the ICE Kraków Congress Centre Kraków, Poland.
🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK
Again, these are the best deals of the week, handpicked by yours!
EXCLUSIVE DEALS
- 4 Months free offer on hosting plans of WP Engine (Coupon Code- FREEDOMTOCREATE)
- 10% off on monthly & annual plans at SureTriggers (Coupon Code- WPCONTENT10)
- 15% off yearly plans at Videvo (Coupon Code – WPV15)
MORE DEALS
- 30% off for 4 months on Cloudways + 10 Free migrations ( Promo code- TREAT25).
- Up to 50% off on BookingPress plugin
- Up to 50% off on Paid Membership Pro plans.
- Up to $100 OFF Essential Blocks PRO plugin.
- 50% off 3 months on Liquid Web’s Bare Metal server hosting
- 20% off for Constellation plugin
- 50% off on Vecteezy monthly subscription till Oct 24, 2025.
- 7% off for the lifetime plan for the Modern Cart for WooCommerce plugin.
- 33% off for the Uncanny Automator plugin.
This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by awesome WordPress Companies 🦸♂️🙌
Last but not least, updates from WP-CONTENT.CO 👇
WordCamp Nepal 2026, scheduled to take place from January 23–24, 2026, in Butwal, has opened calls for speakers…
When developing a website, the areas of focus are the content, design, performance, and security to make sure…
Preparations for WordCamp Asia 2026 are underway, and the organizing team has officially announced the opening of volunteer…
The WordPress Hosting Team has opened nominations for its 2026 Team Reps, as announced by Lucas Radke on…
Team WP-CONTENT.CO
Issue #242 | October 22, 2025 | Reading time: 19 mins
This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by Kinsta, WP Shell and WP Job Openings
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