WordPress 7.0 Plans, AI APIs, Education Growth & More | WP More - Issue 32
Big moves ahead: real-time collaboration, new blocks, AI infrastructure, and global learning programs take shape.
Hello WordPressers!
Welcome to this month’s WPMore newsletter issue 32, where you get curated news about WordPress and the WordPress community all in one.
WordPress is closing out 2025 with momentum. Planning for version 7.0 is underway with ambitious features like real-time collaboration and responsive editing. The project's new AI architecture shipped with 6.9, education programs are spreading globally, and long-time contributors are reflecting on what it takes to sustain open source at scale. Here's what's happening across the WordPress ecosystem.
In this Issue:
WordPress 7.0: Real-Time Collaboration and Responsive Editing on the Roadmap
WordCamp Bhopal Brings WordPress to Central India This Weekend
Jonathan Desrosiers Marks Seven Years as a WordPress Committer
WordPress Education Programs Expand Globally
State of the Word 2025: AI, Education, and a Year of Highs and Lows
WordPress 7.0: Real-Time Collaboration and Responsive Editing on the Roadmap
Planning is officially underway for WordPress 7.0, expected in March or April 2026. Core contributors recently shared their priorities, and the list is extensive. The biggest ticket items include real-time collaboration (think Google Docs-style editing with live cursors and conflict resolution), major upgrades to the Notes feature introduced in 6.9, and a responsive editing mode that lets you customize designs for different screen sizes.
New blocks are also in the pipeline: tabs, breadcrumbs, playlist, slider, dialog, and icon blocks are all in progress. The navigation block is getting a simpler editing flow, and the DataViews system (used for managing posts and pages) will become more extensible. Behind the scenes, work continues on the Abilities API, block bindings, and a new design system built on WordPress UI components.
Real-time collaboration depends on server infrastructure; WordPress will ship a baseline peer-to-peer version, with hosts and plugins able to extend it.
Responsive editing will let you hide blocks and adjust styles based on screen size, with customizable breakpoints.
Many items are still experimental; not everything listed will make the final release.
With 6.9 delivering only two major releases this year due to disruptions, the 7.0 roadmap signals renewed energy heading into 2026.
WordCamp Bhopal Brings WordPress to Central India This Weekend
WordCamp Bhopal is happening December 20–21, marking Central India’s first major WordPress conference. Over 400 developers, designers, and community members are expected to attend. The event kicks off with Contributor Day on December 20 at SFA Technologies, where attendees can work directly on the WordPress open-source project. The main conference follows on December 21 at the Courtyard by Marriott.
Sessions cover AI automation, remote work strategies, and SEO updates, with networking events including a “404: Adulting Not Found” games evening and an after-party. Platinum sponsors include Bluehost, WooCommerce, and Jetpack. Student discounts are available, and organizers are teasing a “Wapuu” mascot reveal. It’s a strong showing for the local tech community and a sign of WordPress’s continued reach across India.
This event adds to the 97 WordCamps held globally this year, attended by over 100,000 people.
Jonathan Desrosiers Marks Seven Years as a WordPress Committer
Jonathan Desrosiers recently celebrated his seventh anniversary as a WordPress Core Committer, a contributor with the ability to commit code to the main repository. Since 2018, he’s made 2,552 commits across all branches, placing him fifth on the all-time list behind Ryan Boren, Sergey Biryukov, Andrew Nacin, and Andrew Ozz.
In the past year, Desrosiers made 365 commits (up 42% from the previous year), gave props to 66 unique contributors, and worked across build tools, bundled themes, security, and external libraries. He’s also been traveling to conferences, mentoring contributors, and thinking deeply about decision-making in large open-source projects. His anniversary post reflects on what being a “great contributor” means to him, shaped by a year he describes as both productive and challenging for the WordPress community.
WordPress has had roughly 117 people with commit access since 2004; 111 have made at least one commit.
Desrosiers’ first commit happened on November 30, 2018—also Blue Beanie Day.
His work is a reminder of the steady, often invisible effort that keeps WordPress running.
WordPress Education Programs Expand Globally
WordPress’s education initiatives are growing fast. Campus Connect, which started as a grassroots program in India, has now held 14 events across 28 institutions, reaching 2,690 students. Recent events in Spain, Bangladesh, and the Philippines included hands-on workshops where students built their first WordPress sites. Five more events are scheduled, and 11 are in the planning stages.
The WordPress Credits internship program, launched this year with the University of Pisa, has expanded to universities in Costa Rica, Bolivia, Bangladesh, and Poland. Eighty-eight students are actively working on contribution projects, completing structured training and working with mentors. At WordCamp Pisa, students attended Contributor Day and presented their progress, with one student opening the event to discuss her project.
Learn WordPress served over 1.5 million users this year, with a 32% jump in engagement after WordCamp US. A new wordpress.org/education page and handbook have also launched to help organizers and mentors get involved.
Campus Connect focuses on meeting students where they are, with local leadership and mentorship.
Credits gives students a supported pathway into open source, lowering barriers to entry.
Read the full report on Make WordPress here.
These programs are building the next generation of WordPress contributors, not just users.
State of the Word 2025: AI, Education, and a Year of Highs and Lows
Matt Mullenweg delivered his annual State of the Word address from San Francisco, marking the release of WordPress 6.9 live during the keynote, a first for the event. He described 2025 as a “rollercoaster” year shaped by legal disputes, governance tensions, and internal challenges, but also by progress in AI and education.
WordPress still powers 43% of the web, with 56% of sites now non-English. Japan remains a standout market, with 58.5% of all Japanese websites using WordPress. The plugin directory surpassed 60,000 plugins, up 68% from 2024, and block theme adoption increased 40%. WordPress 6.8 was downloaded 79.5 million times by the time 6.9 shipped.
AI was a major focus. The WordPress AI Team, formed in May, delivered all four of its planned “Building Blocks” with 6.9, including the Abilities API. The team’s roadmap for 7.0 includes a Workflows API for chaining AI actions and deeper integration with collaborative editing. Mullenweg emphasized that WordPress isn’t adding “sparkle buttons everywhere” but building infrastructure the ecosystem can extend.
Automated AI checks now support plugin reviews, translation, theme validation, and security scanning.
A new 24-hour delay for auto-updates gives developers time to catch issues before they roll out to millions of sites.
Executive Director Mary Hubbard highlighted the education initiatives detailed above, framing them as a shift toward actively nurturing the next generation rather than waiting for them to arrive. The keynote also featured a livestream crossover with the TBPN podcast, bringing WordPress to a wider tech audience.
Read the full report on The Repository here.
Other reports from The Repository you might like to read:
Proposed 2026 Release Schedule Ties Major WordPress Versions to Flagship Events
Court Dismisses WP Engine Customer Class Action Against Automattic, Allows Amended Complaint
The SEO Framework Creator Launches Troy as Alternative to WordPress.org Plugin Distribution
State of Enterprise 2025: WordPress Usage Deepens as Long-Term Commitment Jumps to 95%
Real-Time Collaboration Shows Promise in Early WordPress VIP Testing
Don’t forget to subscribe & support them, they do some amazing, hard-hitting WordPress journalism.
WordPress Must Read
→ WordPress Gives A Hand: Connecting, collaborating and creating for good (wpbakery.com)
→ The Cloudflare Radar 2025 Year in Review (radar.cloudflare.com)
→ We All Lose With Ad Hominem Arguments (remkusdevries.com)
→ Once A Year, I Get To Be Scrooge (pootlepress.com)
→ Don’t Let WordPress Ruin Your Christmas (davidallsop.com)
→ Product Shops: Want to Win in 2026? Learn How to Go to Market (wpproducttalk.com)
On other WordPress News
→ Call for Volunteers: Support Our Education Programs (make.wordpress.org)
→ WordPress Credits Mentor Huddles – Notes and Next Steps (make.wordpress.org)
→ Stephen Wolfram has joined as a special advisor to Automattic (ma.tt)
→ Ability to Hide Blocks in WordPress 6.9 (make.wordpress.org)
→ State of the Word 2025: Innovation Shaped by Community (wordpress.org)
→ WordPress 6.9 Hotfixes (make.wordpress.org)
→ What’s new for developers? (December 2025) (developer.wordpress.org)
→ Training Team Meeting Recap – 25th November 2025 (make.wordpress.org)
→ Proposal to change the user documentation workflow (make.wordpress.org)
→ Community Team Rep Nominations for 2026 (make.wordpress.org)
→ 2026 Global Partner Program Announcement (wordpress.org)
→ When Typepad Shut Down, WordPress.com Helped 3,684 Blogs Find a New Home (wordpress.com)
From WordPress Community
→ Remembering Harshad Mane (bombaypirate.com)
→ SOTW 2025:The Year WordPress Became AI-Native (j.cv)
→ ClassicPress Version 2.6.0 is Out! (classicpress.net)
→ Top 10 WordPress Products Bought During Black Friday 2025 (webtng.com)
→ Enqueue Shows Why Australia Needed a Developer-Focused WordPress Event (therepository.email)
→ DHH & Open Source (ma.tt)
→ ‘Source available’ is not open source (and that’s okay) (dri.es)
Conclusion
2025 wasn’t easy for WordPress, but the project kept moving. Version 7.0 is coming soon with features that could reshape how people build and collaborate on sites. Education programs are spreading, AI infrastructure is maturing, and contributors are staying committed. If you’re building with WordPress, now’s a good time to pay attention.
What are you most excited about for 7.0? Hit reply and let me know. And if you found this useful, forward it to someone who’d appreciate the update.
— Nishat, WPMore
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This article comes at the perfect time, what's your take on real-time collaboration's scaling chalenges for WordPress, your perspectives are always so insightful.
Real-time collaboration has been the missing piece for WordPress as a true content platform competitor. The peer-to-peer baseline with host extensibility is smart because it avoids forcing infra requirements on shared hosting setups while letting managed hosts differentiate. I'm curious how conflict resolution will handle edge cases like simultaneous block deletions or nested content edits—Google Docs took years to get that right. The 24-hour auto-update delay is quietly huge for developers trying to avoid the "oh crap" moment when a bad release hits milions of sites overnight. Also good to see responsive editing finally getting proper tooling instead of relying on CSS hacks and guesswork.