Tag Archives: ai building blocks

James LePage 6:56 pm on 3 December 2025
Tags: ai building blocks   

Six Months of Core AI: From Building Blocks to Core Release

As CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. AI reaches its six-month anniversary, we also reach an important inflection point for AI in WordPress.

In the earlier “AI Building Blocks for WordPress” post, we outlined a set of foundational projects designed to make WordPress a first-class platform for AI-powered experiences. Six months later, all of those building blocks now exist in a usable, testable state, and several are on track to ship in WordPress 6.9.

This progress is entirely due to the enthusiasm and sustained contributions from people across the WordPress project. What started as a small working group has grown into a coordinated effort to ensure WordPress remains the most powerful CMS possible in the AI era.

A massive kudos to the Core AI team and contributors.

Let’s take a look at what’s been done:

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. in WordPress 6.9

The most visible milestone is the inclusion of the Abilities API in WordPress 6.9.

The Abilities API is a new core API for describing what an AI system can do inside WordPress. It provides:

  • A unified registry of “abilities” that can be used to power single-shot AI features (for example, “summarize this post” or “generate a title”).
  • A foundation for building more sophisticated agents and multi-step flows.
  • A shared vocabulary for capabilities that other systems (and even other APIs) can consume.

Over the past several months, the Abilities API has been adopted and battle-tested by large WordPress projects and plugins. That real-world feedback made it clear this was both important and stable enough to move into core.

  • The server implementation of the Abilities API is slated to ship with WordPress 6.9.
  • The client implementation will remain in the 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/ 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 initially, with the intent to include it in WordPress 7.0 once it has matured further.

This gives theme and plugin authors a stable contract to build on, while allowing the client-side experience to keep evolving rapidly in Gutenberg.

WP Client AI v0.1.0: A Unified 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/preface.php. AI SDK for WordPress

Another key building 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. is the WP Client AI API, a canonical PHP SDK for working with AI providers in WordPress.

What began as a general-purpose PHP AI client has now been wrapped, documented, and tailored for the WordPress ecosystem:

  • It offers a unified interface for interacting with multiple language model providers.
  • It is being adopted by both individual developers and larger plugin companies.
  • Several major hosts, including DreamHost and WordPress.comWordPress.com An online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/, have begun implementing providers for this shared interface so that sites can opt into AI safely and consistently.

The long-term goal is to ensure that when developers or hosts want to add AI to WordPress, they do not need to reinvent providerProvider An AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). integrations. They can use a shared, well-tested 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. that fits naturally into WordPress development patterns.

We’re expecting to merge WP Client AI into WordPress core (excluding providers) in v7.0, so that the platform itself can ship with a first-class way to talk to AI systems – without taking opinions on which providers to use.

MCP Adapter v0.3.0: Connecting WordPress to the AI Ecosystem

The MCP adapter is the bridge between WordPress and the broader Model Context Protocol (MCP) ecosystem. Over the last six months it has:

  • Shipped several major releases to track the latest MCP protocol changes.
  • Been deployedDeploy Launching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. in production across various projects, including:
    • MCP for the popular forms plugin WS Form.
    • WooCommerce MCP integrations.
    • MCP-backed functionality powering features on WordPress.com.

Today, the adapter makes any WordPress site an MCP serverMCP Server Exposes tools, resources, and prompts according to Model Context Protocol specification. WordPress can run multiple MCP servers with different configurations.: it exposes WordPress “abilities” as MCP tools that can be consumed by MCP-enabled clients such as Cursor, Claude, Claude Code, ChatGPT, and more.

The next phase of work focuses on making the adapter bidirectional:

  • WordPress will not only expose its own tools to MCP clients.
  • It will also be able to act as an MCP clientMCP Client AI agents, IDEs, or assistants that connect to MCP servers to access capabilities., consuming external MCP tools and making them available inside WordPress via the Abilities API and future workflow systems.

This unlocks a much richer integration story between WordPress and the wider AI ecosystem.

AI Experiments: A Canonical Plugin for Features and Patterns

As the building blocks matured, the team spent significant time defining what an official AI plugin for WordPress should look like. The result is the AI Experiments plugin.

The initial release of AI Experiments:

  • Ships a small set of practical features, such as automatic title generation.
  • Serves as a reference implementation of how to use the Abilities API, WP Client AI, and MCP adapterMCP Adapter Translates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts. together.
  • Provides a place to trial new ideas and patterns before they are elevated into canonical functionality.

Over time, AI Experiments is expected to graduate into the canonical AI plugin for basic AI features in WordPress, balancing experimentation with a clear path to stability. Upcoming releases will introduce 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. generation, image generation, alt text generation, an Abilities Explorer, and an AI Playground for testing and debugging prompts.

People, Community, and Momentum

The technical progress is only half the story.

Core AI leadership shared this work at WordCamp US 2025, outlining the vision for these building blocks and how they fit into WordPress’s long-term roadmap for AI. At State of the Word 2025, the AI panel -featuring James LePage (Automattic), Felix Arntz (Google), and Jeff Paul (Fueled) – demonstrated the culmination of these efforts with a live release of WordPress 6.9, the first time a WordPress release has been shipped during a keynote.

Since the group formed in mid-2025:

  • Dozens of contributors have worked on Core AI-related projects across code, design, documentation, and testing.
  • The WordPress project has begun using AI in meaningful ways internally: plugin and theme review teams now leverage AI for code analysis and duplicate detection, reducing review issues by 41%. AI-assisted tooling helps with documentation, and Matt Mullenweg discussed plans for WordPress-specific AI benchmarks and evaluation suites to measure how well AI systems understand and execute WordPress tasks.
  • Many companies have pledged time through Five for the Future, contributing hundreds of hours toward AI-related issues and initiatives.

This combination of individual contributors, hosting providers, agencies, and product teams is what has allowed the Core AI effort to move so quickly.

Looking Toward WordPress 7.0 and Beyond

Beyond the imminent 6.9 release, several larger themes are already taking shape for WordPress 7.0 and the broader roadmap.

Abilities + Command Palette

The Abilities API is planned to power the command palette, becoming the primary way to register and present contextual commands to WordPress users. This makes abilities useful even in non-AI scenarios, while also giving AI features a first-class, discoverable home in the UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing..

WP Client AI in Core

WP AI Client will be going core in WordPress 7.0. When combined with the Abilities API, this will enable:

  • Core-level AI features where appropriate and desired by users.
  • A consistent foundation for plugin and theme authors to build upon, instead of many competing approaches.
  • A unified path for developers: build AI features once, and let users configure their preferred provider. Or, rely on host-supplied AI services, without additional complexity.

Workflows API and Visual Workflow Editor

Finally, Core AI recently introduced a sister API to Abilities: the Workflows API.

  • Where Abilities define what can be done, Workflows define how those abilities are chained together.
  • The vision surfaces in a canonical visual editor for workflows that allows users, developers, and site owners to build, run, and manage workflows entirely within WordPress.
  • Workflows will sit on top of the Abilities API, and optionally, the WP Client AI, and MCP adapter, making it possible to orchestrate complex, multi-step flows that span plugins, external tools, and AI systems.

A deeper dive into the Workflows API and editor will be published on the primary Make/Core blog, but it is an important part of the Core AI roadmap and ties together much of the work described here.

How to Get Involved

For AI to truly succeed in WordPress, it will require buy-in from two key groups: developers and hosts.

If you’re a developer, even if you barely know how AI works, now is the time to start building. The AI Experiments pluginAI Experiments Plugin WordPress's AI laboratory bringing all building blocks together. Serves as both a user tool and developer reference implementation. First release (v0.1.0) includes Title Generation experiment. serves as a reference implementation, the WP AI Client SDK is available via Composer, and the Abilities API gives you a stable contract to build features that will work across providers. Read the full guide: AI for WordPress Developers.

If you work for a hosting company, consider how you can provide AI as part of your platform. When hosts include AI providers, the features developers build simply work- no extra user steps, no API key management, just capabilities that feel like magic. This is a significant competitive advantage and a new dimension for differentiation. Read the full guide: AI for WordPress Hosts.

The key to making this all work is a snowball effect: as developers create AI-powered features, hosts will be enticed to provide AI as part of their platform. As hosts do this, the 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) of AI will broaden, further encouraging developers to create and innovate more. This symbiosis is what will truly make AI a fundamental part of WordPress.

Closing

It has been an intense and productive six months for Core AI. The building blocks outlined earlier this year are now real projects, with real releases, on their way into WordPress 6.9 and beyond.

There is still a great deal of work ahead, but the foundation is in place:

  • Abilities to describe what can be done.
  • A shared AI client to talk to providers.
  • A bridge to the MCP ecosystem.
  • A canonical plugin to trial and refine features.
  • And soon, workflows to tie it all together.

If you are interested in helping shape the future of AI in WordPress – whether through code, design, testing, or feedback – the Core AI team welcomes your contributions. Join the #core-ai channel on WordPress 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/., explore the AI Experiments GitHub repository, and help us build the next generation of AI tools for WordPress.

#ai-building-blocks

Pascal Birchler 9:00 am on 17 July 2025
Tags: ai building blocks   

MCP Adapter

This is part of the AI Building Blocks for WordPress initiative. The main projects are PHP AI Client SDKPHP AI Client SDK A platform-agnostic library providing unified access to LLMs and embedding models from any major AI provider. Developed collaboratively with the PHP community. The WordPress AI Client SDK is the WordPress-specific package that adds REST API endpoints, API key management, and integrations through `AI_Client::prompt()`., 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., MCP AdapterMCP Adapter Translates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts., and the AI Experiments PluginAI Experiments Plugin WordPress's AI laboratory bringing all building blocks together. Serves as both a user tool and developer reference implementation. First release (v0.1.0) includes Title Generation experiment..

Introduction

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open protocol that standardizes how applications provide context to LLMs. In WordPress, the MCP Adapter (GitHub) implements this open standard, exposing Abilities to AI assistants, while also connecting to other MCP servers.

MCP’s applications are transformative for various users. Content creators can manage their WordPress sites conversationally, while developers can automate complex workflows across systems. Agencies can build sophisticated integrations, from content migrationMigration Moving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. to performance optimization.

Consider a typical workflow: an AI assistant receives a request to publish a blog post. Through MCP, it can research topics using external tools, generate content, create images, optimize for SEO, and schedule publication. This entire process happens via natural conversation, respecting permissions and requiring approval when configured.

Two-Way Communication

WordPress can operate as both an MCP serverMCP Server Exposes tools, resources, and prompts according to Model Context Protocol specification. WordPress can run multiple MCP servers with different configurations. and client, exposing its functionality and connecting to other tools within the MCP ecosystem. This bidirectional functionality allows major AI applications and assistants to discover and directly execute actions on your WordPress site.

As an MCP server, WordPress makes its capabilities registered via the Abilities API available as MCP tools and resources. AI assistants can discover, understand, and execute actions like creating posts, managing media, and moderating comments, all through the standardized protocol.

As an MCP clientMCP Client AI agents, IDEs, or assistants that connect to MCP servers to access capabilities., WordPress can integrate with other MCP servers. Your site (though an embedded Agent, REST API, WP-CLI, 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/preface.php. functions…) could leverage AI writing tools for content, specialized services for data analysis, or project management systems, becoming an active participant in a network of interconnected capabilities.

To start, we will focus on building the server side of the MCP Adapter.

Flexible Transport and Security

As an MCP server, WordPress supports the Streamable HTTPHTTP HTTP is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. HTTP is the underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web and this protocol defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands. transport via the existing REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. as well as the stdio transport via WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/. This ensures compatibility with the wider MCP ecosystem and enables compatibility with local development.

For security, the MCP adapter will leverage the built-in application password mechanism for authentication and the capabilities system for granular authorization. When acting as a MCP Client, we plan for WordPress to implement common user approval controls.

Building for Tomorrow

MCP is a rapidly evolving protocol. The WordPress MCP implementation is designed for adaptability, ensuring it can accommodate future changes and emerging standards. This is achieved through the underlying Abilities API, which represents WordPress functionality in a standard-agnostic way. The MCP adapter translates this functionality into MCP’s format, but other adapters could be developed for different protocols as they emerge.

This approach future-proofs WordPress for an AI-driven world. It allows for quick adaptation to new AI systems and protocols without requiring a restructuring of coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. functionality.

Getting Started

The MCP Adapter requires the Abilities API to expose WordPress functionality and works seamlessly with the PHP Client SDK and AI Experiments Plugin. Whether you’re connecting your site to AI assistants, building AI-powered applications, or contributing to development, join us in #core-ai on 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/. or explore the MCP adapter code.

The future of WordPress is one where sites and AI assistants work together as partners. The MCP Adapter is making that future possible today.

#ai-building-blocks

James LePage 9:00 am on 17 July 2025
Tags: ai building blocks   

Abilities API

This is part of the AI Building Blocks for WordPress initiative. The main projects are PHP AI Client SDKPHP AI Client SDK A platform-agnostic library providing unified access to LLMs and embedding models from any major AI provider. Developed collaboratively with the PHP community. The WordPress AI Client SDK is the WordPress-specific package that adds REST API endpoints, API key management, and integrations through `AI_Client::prompt()`., 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., MCP AdapterMCP Adapter Translates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts., and the AI Experiments PluginAI Experiments Plugin WordPress's AI laboratory bringing all building blocks together. Serves as both a user tool and developer reference implementation. First release (v0.1.0) includes Title Generation experiment..

Introduction

The power of WordPress, derived from its thousands of functions within coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., plugins, and themes, is often obscured by its reliance on developer-centric code. The Abilities API (GitHub) addresses this by establishing a shared language, enabling all WordPress components to express their capabilities in a unified manner, comprehensible to both humans and machines.

This 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. creates a centralized registry where all functionalities can be formally registered with well-defined schemas, comprehensive descriptions, and explicit permissions. By adopting this common language, plugins and themes will empower AI-driven solutions to seamlessly discover, interpret, utilize, and coordinate capabilities throughout the entire WordPress ecosystem.

The Challenge We’re Solving

A typical WordPress site might have dozens of plugins, each adding unique functionality. But there’s no standardized way for these components to express their capabilities. An AI assistant has no systematic way to discover that your backup 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 can create snapshots, your SEO plugin can analyze content, or your e-commerce solution can generate reports. This fragmentation limits what we can build.

The Abilities API establishes a common pattern the entire ecosystem can adopt. It may look something like this:

// Any plugin can register its abilities with the `init` hook.
wp_register_ability( 'my-seo-plugin/analyze-content-seo', [
    'label'       => __( 'Analyze Content SEO', 'my-seo-plugin' ),
    'description' => __( 'Analyzes post content for SEO improvements.', 
'my-seo-plugin' ),
    'thinking_message' => __('Reviewing your content now!'),
    'success_message' => __('Content reviewed successfully.'),
    'execute_callback'    => [ 'MySEOPlugin', 'analyze_content' ],
    'input_schema'  => [
        'type' => 'object',
        'properties' => [
            'post_id' => [ 'type' => 'integer', 'description' => __( 'The post identifier.', 'my-seo-plugin' ), 'required' => true ],
        ],
        'additional_properties' => false,
    ],
    'output_schema' => ]
        'type' => 'number',
        'description' => __( 'The score for the content in percentage.', 'my-seo-plugin' ),
        'required' => true,
    ],
    'permission_callback'  => 'edit_posts',
] );

When the ecosystem adopts this pattern, WordPress transforms from isolated functionalities into an interconnected system where capabilities can be discovered, composed, and automated. Abilities can be used for AI, but also for things like the Command Palette, Workflows tools, and integrating with UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. like toolbars, menus, etc.

When used for AI, developers can create impressive systems like automation tools and AI agents (leveraging other building blocks, like the PHP AI Client for a LLM-based orchestrator).

Enabling AI Integration

The Abilities API also allows AI systems such as Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and other assistants to discover WordPress capabilities through adapters like the MCP Adapter. Once registered, flagged abilities become accessible to any AI system that supports the relevant protocols.

The API manages registration and permissions, while protocol Adapters translate these into formats external AI systems understand. This establishes a robust connection between WordPress functionality and AI assistants, with the first-party API serving as the definitive source for exposed logic.

Developer Adoption and Distribution

While available as a plugin for experimentation, the Abilities API is designed as a Composer package that developers can include in their plugins today. This serves as the official adoption path before potential WordPress core inclusion. Developers can require the package now, ship plugins with standardized capability declarations, and seamlessly transition when the Abilities API becomes part of WordPress itself.

Getting Involved

The Abilities API needs input from across the WordPress ecosystem. Whether you’re a plugin developer exposing functionality, a theme author registering visual capabilities, or building AI solutions for WordPress, your perspective is crucial.

Join the discussion in #core-ai on 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/., explore the early implementation, or share your vision for how WordPress Abilties should work in our future with AI.

#ai-building-blocks

Felix Arntz 9:00 am on 17 July 2025
Tags: ai building blocks   

PHP AI Client

This is part of the AI Building Blocks for WordPress initiative. The main projects are PHP AI Client SDKPHP AI Client SDK A platform-agnostic library providing unified access to LLMs and embedding models from any major AI provider. Developed collaboratively with the PHP community. The WordPress AI Client SDK is the WordPress-specific package that adds REST API endpoints, API key management, and integrations through `AI_Client::prompt()`., 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., MCP AdapterMCP Adapter Translates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts., and the AI Experiments PluginAI Experiments Plugin WordPress's AI laboratory bringing all building blocks together. Serves as both a user tool and developer reference implementation. First release (v0.1.0) includes Title Generation experiment..

Introduction

The PHP AI Client SDK (GitHub) provides shared infrastructure that lets WordPress plugins and other 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/preface.php. projects integrate AI capabilities rapidly and flexibly. Similar to projects like the Vercel AI SDK, it offers a unified interface that works across all AI providers – from simple text generation to complex multimodal operations, streaming responses, and long-running tasks.

Developers specify what AI capabilities they need, and users manage their providerProvider An AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). credentials in one place. Those credentials then work automatically across all compatible plugins on their site.

The SDK addresses both user needs and developer needs:

  • A provider-agnosticProvider-Agnostic Software design that works with multiple service providers without being tied to one. Recommended for WordPress AI integrations. approach puts the user first. The WordPress site administrator(s) choose which provider and/or model they want to configure and use, and they can provide 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. credentials in a single place. Any plugins with AI features just work. No more vendor lock-in.
  • Developers can focus on building AI features, not AI infrastructure. Instead of trying to find an unofficial SDK for a single provider or having to even build it yourself, the SDK gives developers the central infrastructure to get started quickly and focus on the user benefits rather than their own 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’s technical plumbing. No more reinventing the wheel.

How It Works

The API adapts to different developer needs. Some plugin solutions may require specific models, while others just need any text completion capability. The PHP AI Client SDK handles all the complexity behind the scenes. Different authentication methods, API formats, streaming protocols, and provider quirks all work through the same clean interface.

Here is a simple tentative code example for generating text using a specific model:

$text = AiClient::prompt('Write a 2-verse poem about PHP.')
    ->usingModel(Google::model('gemini-2.5-flash'))
    ->generateText();

And the same example, but written in a model and provider agnostic way:

$text = AiClient::prompt('Write a 2-verse poem about PHP.')
    ->generateText();

The Problem It Solves

Today, every WordPress plugin with AI features rebuilds the same infrastructure: provider integrations, API key management, response normalization, error handling. Users enter the same credentials multiple times and deal with inconsistent experiences. When providers change their APIs, every plugin breaks separately.

It is worth highlighting that these problems not only exist in WordPress, but in more or less every PHP project that aims to use AI in a provider agnostic way. The only truly provider agnostic SDKs that exist to date are for other tech stacks that are not interoperable with general PHP projects – either different server-side languages (e.g. the Vercel AI SDK for NodeJS) or specific platforms (Drupal’s AI module).

The PHP AI Client SDK centralizes this complexity for the PHP ecosystem, and in WordPress specifically. One integration point handles all providers. One credential system serves all plugins. When providers update or new ones emerge, the changes happen once and benefit everyone. The architecture is designed with latest trends like multimodal-first in mind and even anticipates future shifts like client-side or browser-based AI.

Built Together

The PHP AI Client SDK technically consists of two Composer packages:

  • The underlying PHP package provides the unified AI interface, and it is WordPress agnostic. It is a collaborative effort with the wider PHP community.
  • This is complemented by another WordPress specific package that adds features technically tied to WordPress, such as the shared settings page for AI API credentials, connection to the Abilities API, and the REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. endpoints to use AI capabilities in JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. as well.

This modular approach means when any community adds a provider or improves performance, everyone benefits while each platform maintains its unique experience.

For WordPress developers, this architecture offers flexibility. Use the WordPress package for the full experience with admin UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing., or the underlying PHP package for lower-level projects such as a WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ integration. While also available as a plugin for testing, these Composer packages are the official adoption path – require them today, ship plugins with AI capabilities, and seamlessly transition if these become part of WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.. Multiple plugins can use the same packages without conflicts, with Composer handling dependencies.

Moving Forward

As AI becomes essential to WordPress, this SDK provides the sustainable foundation. It’s designed to grow with emerging capabilities – new modalities, advanced features, novel deployment models. The focus now is expanding provider support and refining the developer experience based on real-world usage.

Please join the discussion in #core-ai on 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/. or explore the implementation.

#ai-building-blocks

Jeffrey Paul 9:00 am on 17 July 2025
Tags: ai building blocks   

AI Experiments Plugin

This is part of the AI Building Blocks for WordPress initiative. The main projects are PHP AI Client SDKPHP AI Client SDK A platform-agnostic library providing unified access to LLMs and embedding models from any major AI provider. Developed collaboratively with the PHP community. The WordPress AI Client SDK is the WordPress-specific package that adds REST API endpoints, API key management, and integrations through `AI_Client::prompt()`., 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., MCP AdapterMCP Adapter Translates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts., and the AI Experiments PluginAI Experiments Plugin WordPress's AI laboratory bringing all building blocks together. Serves as both a user tool and developer reference implementation. First release (v0.1.0) includes Title Generation experiment..

Introduction

The AI Experiments Plugin (GitHub) is where all AI Building Blocks come together into something tangible and real.  While the APIs and bridges provide infrastructure, the AI Experiments Plugin demonstrates what’s actually possible when these technologies work in harmony.  It combines the PHP AI Client SDK 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., Abilities API, and MCP Adapter into a meaningful presentation that delivers helpful AI features today while exploring tomorrow’s capabilities.

Bringing It All Together

The power of the AI Building Blocks lies not in any single component but in how they work together. The AI Experiments Plugin demonstrates this synergy through practical implementations that users can experiment with immediately.

Through the PHP AI Client, the 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 offers a choice where users can connect their preferred AI providerProvider An AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). and switch between them seamlessly.  Through the Abilities API, the plugin understands WordPress capabilities and makes them accessible to AI.  Through the MCP Adapter, the plugin connects to external MCP Servers and Clients that can help manage WordPress sites.  Each building 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. contributes essential functionality, creating experiences that would be impossible with any component alone.

The near term roadmap focuses on exploration and discovery.  Users can experiment with different AI models, test how AI can enhance their WordPress workflows, and understand the potential of AI-powered content creation.  It’s a playground where the future of WordPress AI takes shape through real-world usage and feedback.

Why We’re Building This

We’re building the AI Experiments plugin to demonstrate how developers and agencies can use the new AI APIs from the WordPress AI team, deliver essential AI features directly in the WordPress admin and editor experiences, and provide a possible path to future coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. inclusion.  We’re committed to building the plugin transparently and with broad community feedback.

A Foundation for the Future

While today’s AI Experiments Plugin will demonstrate the current capabilities of the AI Building Blocks, it’s designed to evolve into something much more significant.  As outlined in the Phase 3: Collaboration roadmap, AI will become integral to how people interact with WordPress.

Through this plugin, we plan to explore how AI can interact with portions of the new Site Admin interface – for example, an AI agentAI Agent An AI system that autonomously performs tasks and interacts with systems through available tools and resources. can help users manage their sites through natural conversation.  In the 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/ editor, we should explore how AI can participate in real-time collaboration, working alongside humans to create content.  Through the Async Commenting system, users could assign tasks to AI, which could then create suggestions and proposed 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..  In the Media Library, AI can help with creation, editing, auto-captioning, and intelligent organization.

There’s a lot to explore and experiment with when it comes to AI and WordPress.  By starting with a Experiments plugin that demonstrates possibilities, we can learn what works, gather feedback, and ensure that AI enhances rather than complicates the WordPress experience. As these experiments mature and solidify, we may publish a Canonical AI Features Plugin and/or explore merging indvidual AI feature to WordPress core.

Getting Involved

The AI Experiments Plugin is where ideas become reality and experiments shape the future.  Whether you’re curious about AI in WordPress, have ideas for new features, or want to contribute to the design and development, your involvement matters.  We’re eager for feedback from designers, 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) experts, content creators, and developers on the planned 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. flows, accessibility considerations, and feature approaches.  We plan to share wireframes and early design explorations soon, and your input will help shape the direction before we move into development.  As work evolves, we’ll post to Make/AI with progress updates and calls-for-testing posts as an entry point for broader contributor involvement.

Join us in #core-ai on 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/., explore the development work, or simply experiment with the plugin and share your feedback.  Together, we’re not just building a plugin, we’re defining how millions of people will work with AI in WordPress.

#ai-building-blocks

James LePage 8:59 am on 17 July 2025
Tags: ai building blocks, core   

AI Building Blocks for WordPress

As the open web evolves in the era of AI, WordPress must keep pace. To ensure our CMS remains the leading solution to democratize publishing, we are creating and maintaining a collection of projects that form technical Building Blocks for AI within the WordPress project.

These Building Blocks will allow users and developers alike to create powerful AI implementations within WordPress – pushing the CMS to serve more needs and be even more flexible than it already is. We have three immediate focuses and four deliverables. When used together, each contributes the required functionality to create anything from AI features, to workflows, to agents, both inside and outside of the software.

Each Building 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. is listed below with a short description and a more detailed overview article linked for further reading.

PHP AI Client SDK

The PHP AI Client SDKPHP AI Client SDK A platform-agnostic library providing unified access to LLMs and embedding models from any major AI provider. Developed collaboratively with the PHP community. The WordPress AI Client SDK is the WordPress-specific package that adds REST API endpoints, API key management, and integrations through `AI_Client::prompt()`. is an abstraction to interact with LLMs and embedding models from any major providerProvider An AI service offering models for generation, embeddings, or other capabilities (e.g., Anthropic, Google, OpenAI). in a unified way. This allows developers to implement AI-powered features rapidly while giving users the freedom to choose their preferred AI provider and/or model.

We’re building this as two distinct Composer packages: a platform-agnostic PHP AI Client SDK developed collaboratively with the wider 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/preface.php. community, and a WordPress-specific package that adds REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. endpoints, 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 management, and other foundational WordPress integrations. This approach ensures broad PHP ecosystem compatibility while providing seamless WordPress experiences.

Abilities API

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. transforms WordPress from a collection of isolated functions into a unified, discoverable system. By creating a central registry of capabilities, it allows AI agents, automation tools, and developers to understand and interact with everything WordPress can do – from CLICLI Command Line Interface. Terminal (Bash) in Mac, Command Prompt in Windows, or WP-CLI for WordPress. commands and REST API endpoints to custom logic and 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 functions.

MCP Adapter

The MCP (Model Context Protocol) Adapter allows WordPress to connect to AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT. It builds on the Abilities API to translate selected WordPress server-side abilities into a MCP serverMCP Server Exposes tools, resources, and prompts according to Model Context Protocol specification. WordPress can run multiple MCP servers with different configurations. that exposes them as tools and resources.

Rather than hard-coding support for specific standards, we create Adapters, like this one, that translate between the Abilities API and external protocols. The MCP adapterMCP Adapter Translates WordPress abilities into Model Context Protocol format, allowing AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to discover and invoke WordPress capabilities as tools, resources, and prompts. is our first and most important implementation, positioning WordPress at the forefront of AI integration while maintaining the flexibility to support future standards.

AI Experiments Plugin

The AI Experiments PluginAI Experiments Plugin WordPress's AI laboratory bringing all building blocks together. Serves as both a user tool and developer reference implementation. First release (v0.1.0) includes Title Generation experiment. brings together all the AI Building Blocks into a unified experience. It serves as both a powerful tool for users and a reference implementation for developers, demonstrating how the PHP AI Client SDK, Abilities API, and MCP Adapter work together in practice.

Starting as WordPress’s AI laboratory for experimentation, the plugin may evolve into a full-fledged AI Feature PluginFeature Plugin A plugin that was created with the intention of eventually being proposed for inclusion in WordPress Core. See Features as Plugins.. It can provide an AI playground, WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ integration, intelligent agents, and visual workflow builders – everything needed to explore and implement AI capabilities in WordPress.

To avoid early lock-in and maintain flexibility as AI technology rapidly evolves, we will use Canonical and Feature Plugins as a way to distribute these features to end consumers, while encapsulating the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. functionality and logic of the API projects in Composer packages. This makes it easy for plugin developers to use these official Building Blocks even before they are considered for WordPress Core. It is extremely important that developers can and do use these projects in production, and the approach of using Composer packages is our answer to this – aligning with our “canonical first, Core when ready” philosophy.

This work directly overlaps with some of the largest components of the Phase 3: Collaboration roadmap. It unlocks unique, futuristic capabilities that can be added through plugins. Here are some examples:

Site Admin

We must plan for these building blocks to be surfaced to end users in this new Site Admin interface. We hope to make it easy for developers to create AI Agents, chatbots, workflow automations and more, using the AI Building Blocks, and surfacing functionality through the new Site Admin UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing..

Real-Time and Asynchronous Collaboration

A logical and non-disruptive implementation of AI is within the Post Editor, specifically surfacing through Real-Time Collaboration and Commenting. Instead of working with human counterparts, comments could be assigned to AI, which would work to resolve them, creating a suggestion or proposed revision. Instead of collaborating in real time with people, why not collaborate with AI?

Media Library

Using AI to create and edit media is becoming increasingly popular. Additionally, there are many smaller implementations that AI could help with: auto alt text and captioning, intelligent grouping, multimodal search capabilities, and more.

It’s our intention to craft our projects with the end implementations in mind. By WordPress version 7.0, any WordPress user – enterprise or blogger, developer or designer – should be able to access, use, and build powerful AI features to aid in furthering their digital presence on the open web. Before that, product owners and plugin developers will have a robust toolkit to build AI features into their own offerings, which will work seamlessly with whatever core additions we may make in the future.

How this is made available to Core is still an open question, as is much with such fundamental releases on the horizon. Over the next several months, we’ll explore which building blocks and features should be merged to Core or remain canonical. Questions like “should AI providers and content generation be included in Core,” “do we add an AI AgentAI Agent An AI system that autonomously performs tasks and interacts with systems through available tools and resources. as a canonical plugin,” and “which protocols should we support” will surface and be addressed in Hallway Hangouts, Make proposals, and #core-ai discussions.

We invite you to join in on the work and discussions. This journey will shape how millions publish and share ideas on the open web, and we can’t do it alone. Join the #core-ai channel on WordPress 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/., open 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/ Issues, or begin contributing to the projects to help us build the next generation of AI tools for WordPress.

Resources and Repositories

Repositories

Reference Implementations

– The WordPress AI Team: Jeff, Felix, Pascal, James

#ai-building-blocks, #core