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Transcript [00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, exploring AI’s impact in WordPress agencies. If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players. If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox and use the form there. So on the podcast today we have Matt Schwartz. Matt runs Inspry, an Atlanta WordPress and Woo Commerce agency. He started it back in 2011 and has been working with WordPress even longer than that. In addition to his agency work, he also has a product called CheckView focused on WordPress testing. He’s got years of experience in the WordPress agency world, and recently he’s turned much of his attention towards the growing impact of AI. If you’ve been hearing a lot about AI but a feeling fatigued by all the fragmented conversations, this episode might well offer a different perspective. Rather than focusing on how AI creates websites or content, Matt shares a different angle, how AI can be used inside a WordPress agency to enhance processes, improve workflows, and deliver more value to clients, with much of it happening behind the scenes. We start by talking about how Matt stumbled into web design and how that led him to running his own agency. We dig into agency life, and why so many freelancers and agency owners are constantly iterating on their processes. From there, we talk about the big shift that’s happening, not just in building sites, but in how agencies can use AI to streamline their SOPs, client communication, and internal operations. Matt explains the need for intention when adding AI to an agency. He introduces the idea of an AI vision document, that helps set guardrails and guidelines for where, and how, AI should factor into your business. He also shares real examples of ways AI can save time and stress in things like meetings, proposals, debugging, support, and even helping you expand your service offerings. We also touch on the risks, ethical considerations, and the importance of keeping a human in the loop during critical agency moments. If you’re running a WordPress agency, or are curious about how agencies are adapting to the rapid pace of change, brought by AI, this episode is for you. This is part one in a two-part series, so listen to this and tune in next week for part two. If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well. And so without further delay, I bring you Matt Schwartz. I am joined on the podcast by Matt Schwartz. Hello, Matt. [00:03:45] Matt Schwartz: Hey Nathan. Thank you so much for having me today. I’m excited. [00:03:48] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, you’re very welcome. We’re on the podcast today to have a chat about AI. Now, before you hit the stop button, dear listener, because AI is all the rage everywhere, we’ve talked about it a million different ways. I think there’s something a little bit different about the conversation that we’re going to have today, because it particularly plays into the WordPress agency, kind of the stuff that you are not doing with the website directly, but all of the bits and pieces that allow you to have an agency, and how AI may or may not be best placed to insert itself in those different scenarios. But before we begin that, Matt, do you mind just giving us your little bio? Maybe tell us a bit about your situation regarding WordPress agencies and whatnot. [00:04:31] Matt Schwartz: Definitely. Yeah, so I run an agency called In Inspry in Atlanta. We’ve been around since 2011. We’ve been using WordPress since 2013, and also have a product called CheckView, which does WordPress testing. But yeah, in the agency space specifically, you know, I’ve been talking to a lot of different agencies about AI. I’ve been pretty involved in it. And you’re totally right, Nathan, our goal today is not to make everyone just have to experience the verbal throw up of the word AI, AI, AI over and over again, which is, I feel like I’m sick of the word. But really going into how agencies can use it in, I think, really interesting ways, and also being candid about what AI is, and some of the pitfalls I think of it that, you know, aren’t always talked about, especially if you go on LinkedIn. [00:05:15] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, so we’ll get into that in a moment, but just before we do, there’s a couple of interesting bits that I want to throw at you. And this is something that I heard in the British press not that long ago. And it doesn’t in any way, shape or form reflect on WordPress, it was just more generally about AI, and the fatigue that the general population are experiencing around that term. And it feels like we have reached maximum capacity to just hear those words, and hear the overpromising and the potentially under delivery of AI. So I’ll throw that little bit in, but also, just to say that what we’re going to talk about today is not going to be how to get the pixels on the page, and how to use AI to turn the website out. This is much more going to be the background to the agency that you run and all of that kind of thing. So before we

Many WordPress site owners keep publishing content for months but still aren’t sure if their SEO is actually working. The tricky part is that the results are usually already there but they’re just not always easy to notice at first glance. Instead of appearing in one obvious place, SEO performance shows up across different areas of your site. You can spot it through clear signals like organic traffic, keyword rankings, indexed pages, click-through rates, and conversions. In this guide, I’ll show you how to check if your SEO is working and measure your SEO progress on your site using tools like MonsterInsights, AIOSEO, and Google Search Console. 💡 Quick 2-Minute Check to See If Your WordPress SEO Is Working If you just want a quick check-up of your SEO performance, you don’t need tools or deep reports yet. Start by answering these simple questions: Are you getting any organic traffic from search engines like Google Search? Are your pages indexed and appearing in search results? Are your keywords showing up in search results at all? If you can answer ‘yes’ to at least one of these, then your SEO is already working in some way. If not, it simply means you still need to focus on the basics, and the rest of this guide will help you fix that step by step. What Does ‘SEO Working’ Actually Mean? When people ask whether their SEO is working, they’re usually expecting a single clear answer. But in reality, SEO success shows up in a few different areas at the same time. I’ve found it’s less about one big result and more about steady progress across your content and visibility. Here are the main signs that your SEO is actually working: Your Organic Traffic is Slowly Increasing: You start getting more visitors from search engines over time. It may not jump overnight, but the trend moves upward. Your Pages are Appearing in Google Search Results: This means your content is getting indexed properly and showing up when people search for related topics. Your Keyword Rankings are Improving: Your posts begin to move higher in search results for the terms you’re targeting. Even moving from page 3 to page 2 is a positive signal. More People are Clicking Your Search Listings: This is your click-through rate (CTR). It tells you that your titles and meta descriptions are compelling enough to attract clicks. Visitors are Taking Action on Your Site: This could be signing up for your email list, filling out a contact form, or making a purchase. The main thing to remember is this: you don’t need to see all of these factors improving at the same time or in big numbers. If even a few of them are moving in the right direction, then your SEO is working and building momentum over time. 5 Easy Ways to Check If Your SEO Is Working Now that you know what ‘SEO working’ actually looks like, let’s get into the practical part: how to check it on your own website. The good news is that you don’t need to guess or rely on assumptions. You can actually see clear SEO signals using a few simple tools and reports. I have broken this down into 5 easy checks that give a pretty accurate picture of what’s happening behind the scenes. These are beginner-friendly, and you can do them even if you’re not very technical: Track Organic Traffic Growth Over Time See Your Organic Traffic With MonsterInsights How to Check Organic Traffic in Google Analytics Verify Your Pages Are Indexed in Google How to Check Indexing in Google Search Console Monitor Your Target Keyword Rankings Analyze Your Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR) How to Check CTR in Google Search Console What Does CTR Tell You? Measure SEO-Driven Conversions and Goals (Conversions) How to Track Conversions in Google Analytics 💡Simple Monthly SEO Checklist How Long Does SEO Take to Work? Frequently Asked Questions About Website SEO 1. Track Organic Traffic Growth Over Time Organic traffic is simply the visitors who land on your website from search engines like Google Search without you paying for ads. So if someone searches for a topic, clicks your post, and visits your site, that’s organic traffic. This is usually the first and most important SEO signal because it tells you one simple thing:Are people actually finding your site through search? To make this easier, here’s an idea of what healthy organic traffic can look like for different types of websites: If this number is going up over time, then it usually means your content is getting more visibility, and your SEO strategy is moving in the right direction. 💡 Expert Tip: Organic search is still the main source of traffic, but search is evolving. Some websites are also starting to get traffic from AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. This is part of a newer strategy called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), which focuses on making content easier for AI systems to understand and surface in answers. To prepare your site for visibility AI-generated answers, see our guide on Generative Engine Optimization. See Your Organic Traffic With MonsterInsights You can track your organic traffic using Google Analytics, which is one of the most popular and free tools for website analytics. Inside Google Analytics, you’ll need to explore reports and filter traffic sources to find your organic search data. While it’s very powerful, it can feel overwhelming for beginners because there are multiple menus, reports, and settings to navigate. That’s why I recommend MonsterInsights instead. We use MonsterInsights across WPBeginner because it is the best analytics solution for WordPress. It connects directly with Google Analytics but simplifies everything by showing your most important SEO and traffic data inside your WordPress dashboard. Once MonsterInsights is installed and connected to Google Analytics, go to Insights » Reports in your WordPress dashboard, where you will see an ‘Overview Report.’ This gives you a simple breakdown of your website traffic, including how much is coming from organic search. If

Ever wished you could double your traffic by reaching international audiences who don’t speak English? Imagine if you could click a few buttons to translate your entire WordPress site into 100+ languages without hiring a developer or professional translators.  Sadly, most website translation tools are either crazy expensive, painfully slow, or so poorly built that they damage your SEO the moment you activate them.  It simply shouldn’t be this hard to speak to your global audience in their own language. That’s why today, I’m excited to announce Universally, an AI-powered translation platform that turns your WordPress site into a fully-translated, SEO-ready, multilingual experience in minutes. Simply put, Universally is truly the “set-it-and-forget-it” translation engine you’ve always been waiting for. Background Story – Why Universally? For years, I’ve wanted to translate WPBeginner and my other eCommerce websites into multiple languages because we have users from around the world and many have even asked for it.  So, last year I decided to give it a try.  The journey of making a multilingual eCommerce website in WordPress is a lot bumpier than I would’ve hoped. And the problem extends to every mid to large content site as well. That’s because every well-known WordPress translation plugin inefficiently stores translations inside the WordPress database. I tried them all on WPBeginner, and every single one of them made our WordPress admin area so slow that the post editor was practically unusable.  When we tested them on our eCommerce sites (both Woo and EDD), we noticed that the performance impact was on our entire checkout process, and that’s not good for conversions & revenue.  Out of every WordPress translation plugin that I tried, only ONE worked, but it required converting the website into a WordPress multisite which comes with its own set of complexities and technical challenges. As I went through this process, I literally thought to myself why is this so hard? Clearly there has to be a better solution. So I looked into some well-known SaaS solutions that offered AI translations, and they worked very well. Unfortunately, the cost for us would be hundreds of thousands of dollars to use their platform for just WPBeginner alone. If I included my other brands like WPForms, AIOSEO, and others, our translation cost would likely go into 7 figures. In the age of AI, translation platforms shouldn’t be this expensive. The new AI models have gotten so much better that a small business owner who is not leveraging translations is just missing out. After going through this painful process personally over the last year, I asked our team to build an AI website translation platform that we can use for our own brands, and make it available to our community (YOU). Because in 2026, small businesses and eCommerce website owners need an easy & affordable way to translate their websites without having to compromise on website speed. That’s exactly what Universally offers. The best part is that it will work on all website platforms including WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Loveable, Replit, etc.  You simply connect your website with Universally, select the languages, and let our intelligent multilingual AI platform expand your global reach. We have already translated over 250 million words on the platform during our internal launch and private beta. Here’s a quick overview: What is Universally? Universally is an AI-powered website translation platform built for WordPress site owners, WooCommerce stores, SaaS companies, and agencies that need to go multilingual without the usual translation headaches. Once installed, it automatically detects every translatable element on your site, including blog content, button text, menu items, form labels, image alt tags, schema.org data, even your product descriptions in WooCommerce, and more.  Universally translates them into 100+ languages within minutes. Unlike traditional plugins, Universally doesn’t store anything extra in your WordPress database. No duplicate posts, bloated tables, or slowdowns. Translations live on Universally’s cloud and content is delivered from edge (cloud servers closest to the user). This means your international visitors will likely see a faster version of your website, never slower. Here’s what makes it special: Full Website Translation in Minutes, Not Months If you’ve ever worked with a translator, you know how tedious the process is… You export strings to a spreadsheet and send it to a translator. You get the translated content 2 weeks later, only to realize that the context is wrong. So, you’ll have to repeat the same process… and for every language you want to translate. Universally skips that entire back and forth. You pick your target languages once, and within minutes your entire site is live in every language you selected, including content you forgot you had (old blog posts, archived product pages, buried checkout strings). And it doesn’t stop there. Every time you publish or edit a post in your source language, Universally automatically catches the change and pushes the updated translation across every language version. You never have to remember to “also translate this” again. For quality, Universally targets 90-95% AI accuracy out of the box, with optional professional human translation available for critical pages like your pricing page, checkout flow, or legal terms. Multilingual SEO That Actually Works (Without a Developer) Multilingual SEO is where most translation tools quietly fall apart. Google has very specific rules for multilingual sites. You need hreflang tags on every page. You also need translated meta titles and descriptions, properly structured URLs, and multilingual XML sitemaps.  For Arabic and Hebrew translation, you need RTL (right to left) support to ensure those languages are properly displayed. Miss any of those rules and Google either ignores your translated pages entirely or flags them as duplicate content. Universally handles all of it automatically. It provides: Automatic hreflang tags on every language version Translated title tags, meta descriptions, Open Graph, and Twitter Card tags Schema.org / JSON-LD structured data translation Automatic lang attribute and dir=”rtl” for right-to-left languages Multilingual XML sitemaps generated automatically Internal link rewriting (your /about link becomes /fr/about on French pages… without you lifting a finger) Subdirectory,

WordCamp US 2026 will take place August 16–19 in Phoenix, Arizona, and applications are now open for sponsors, speakers, and volunteers. WordCamp US is the flagship gathering for the WordPress community in North America, where contributors, builders, and users come together to share ideas and help shape what comes next for the open web. Full details are available on the WordCamp US 2026 site. Sponsor Sponsorships keep WordCamp US accessible. They fund the production and programming that make a flagship WordCamp possible while keeping ticket prices low for attendees, and, in return, sponsors gain direct visibility within one of the most engaged technology ecosystems. Packages support both in-person and digital participation, with opportunities to connect with agencies, developers, and enterprise teams that build on WordPress every day. Apply to Be a Sponsor Speak The organizing team is looking for strong ideas with practical takeaways from across the community, whether that means a personal story, a lesson learned in production, or a perspective on where publishing, AI, and the open web are heading. Sessions can take the form of traditional talks, workshops, or more interactive formats, and new or underrepresented voices are especially encouraged to apply. Prior speaking experience is not required. Apply to Be a Speaker Speaker applications due by May 29, 2026. Volunteer Volunteers are essential to the experience of the event. They welcome attendees and support sessions throughout the week, helping create the inclusive environment that defines a flagship WordCamp. Volunteering is also one of the best ways to meet people from across the global community and see firsthand how an event of this scale comes together. No prior experience is needed, and volunteers receive a free ticket. Apply to Be a Volunteer Volunteer applications due by June 15, 2026. Attend It’s the people. It’s the friendships and the stories. Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Cofounder WordCamp US continues a long tradition of in-person gatherings where contributors meet face-to-face to openly discuss the project’s direction. Whether you participate as a sponsor, take the stage, join the volunteer team, or help organize the event, your involvement shapes what the event becomes. To stay informed as ticket sales open and the schedule takes shape, subscribe to WordCamp US 2026 updates.

Since the early days of WordPress, Contact Form 7 has been helping website owners add simple forms to their sites. If you’ve trusted it on your own site, then you made a perfectly reasonable choice that millions of other site owners have made, too. But things have officially changed. At WordCamp Asia 2026, Contact Form 7 creator Takayuki Miyoshi confirmed on stage that the plugin will no longer receive new feature updates after version 6.2. Miyoshi’s focus is shifting to a separate project called Contactable.io, which is currently targeted for 2028. Your existing forms aren’t going to break overnight, but a plugin in ‘feature freeze’ is a plugin that will slowly fall behind. That makes today the perfect time to migrate to a new form builder plugin before your forms get more complex and migration gets harder.  The good news is that you don’t need to start from scratch. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll know exactly what the WordCamp announcement means for your site and how to migrate all your Contact Form 7 forms to a modern form builder using a simple import tool.  What the Contact Form 7 Feature Freeze Actually Means The ‘Contact Form 7 abandoned’ headlines sound dramatic, so let’s explore what exactly this means in more detail. Firstly, the plugin isn’t going to disappear overnight. Instead, it’s entering what developers call a “feature freeze,” which still has very real implications for the future of your website. Here’s everything Contact Form 7 user needs to understand before deciding what to do next: Version 6.2 is the Final Major Release: Takayuki Miyoshi announced at WordCamp Asia 2026 that version 6.2 will be the last version to add new functionality. After this, Contact Form 7 moves into maintenance mode. Security Patches Will Continue: This is the reassuring part. Critical security holes and bugs will still be patched, so your forms won’t suddenly become a security risk. However, don’t expect any attention beyond these basic fixes. No Modern Tools or Integrations: Increasingly, site owners need features like AI form generation, conditional logic, and seamless payment fields. None of these are planned for Contact Form 7. If you want to keep up with your competitors, then you’ll need to switch to an alternative form builder. The Replacement Project is Years Away: The successor project, Contactable.io, isn’t expected to release until at least 2028. That is a long time to wait for a tool that hasn’t even launched yet, especially when proven alternatives already exist. The truth is that as your website grows, your forms will often need to become more complex. You’ll start adding more fields, setting up custom email routing, or trying to integrate your forms with a customer relationship management (CRM) system. What takes just a few minutes to migrate today could easily turn into a frustrating, weekend-long project in the future. The smart move is to migrate to a Contact Form 7 alternative now, while your Contact Form 7 forms are still stable and up-to-date. The Best Way to Replace Contact Form 7 in WordPress We’ve tried out dozens of contact form plugins, but we always find ourselves coming back to WPForms. The reason is simple: WPForms strikes the perfect balance between being incredibly easy for beginners to use, while still offering the advanced features you’ll need as your website grows. In our opinion, this is exactly what Contact Form 7 users need.  📝 If you’d like a deeper side-by-side comparison, our Contact Form 7 vs WPForms breakdown covers every key difference in detail. Alternatively, you can see our detailed WPForms review.  If you’re looking for more power, then the premium version of WPForms comes with over 2,100 ready-made form templates, smart conditional logic, and seamless payment integrations. You can even create multi-page forms to improve your form conversion rates. However, the free WPForms Lite plugin actually has everything a former Contact Form 7 user needs. This includes a drag-and-drop builder that lets you create professional forms in minutes without touching a single line of code. Even better, WPForms comes with a built-in Contact Form 7 import tool. This means you can migrate all your existing forms to WPForms with just a few clicks. Behind the scenes, WPForms reads your old forms and recreates them inside its modern, user-friendly interface. It even imports your field labels and notification settings so you don’t lose any data. This is a must-have feature for Contact Form 7 users who want to switch to a modern, secure form builder that’s constantly evolving – without having to start from scratch. Now, let’s look at how you can easily migrate from Contact Form 7 to WPForms today.  Step 1: Install and Activate WPForms The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WPForms plugin on your website. As we mentioned earlier, you can download the Lite version of WPForms for free directly from WordPress.org. For this guide, I’ll be using the Lite version so you can migrate away from Contact Form 7 today, regardless of your budget. However, at some point you might need more advanced features, such as the ability to accept online payments, create conversational forms, or connect to email marketing services like Mailchimp. In that case, you can easily upgrade to the premium plugin at any time.  If you’ve never installed a plugin before, don’t worry! You can follow our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. Once the plugin is activated, you’re ready to start the migration process. Step 2: Run the WPForms Setup Wizard Upon activation, WPForms will automatically launch a quick setup wizard. This tool is designed to walk you through the entire setup experience in just a few minutes. The wizard helps you get up and running quickly, so we highly recommend completing the entire process rather than skipping it. If you’ve upgraded to the premium version of WPForms, you’ll also need to enter your license key. You can find this key by logging into your account on the

Hi there, May is an action-packed month for the WordPress community, packed with tons of local WordCamps and Campus Connect events. After so long without seeing each other, it’s awesome to get together in person — sharing ideas, storytelling, and just making real connections. In this digital age, those genuine face-to-face moments remind us how much it really matters to show up in person. Enjoy the people around you, friends and family. Speaking of which my next two weeks are all about that. We are on the road to a family reunion and the following weeks we get a visit from our long -time Canadian friends. I also will take another break on the weekend edition, though. Number 366 is scheduled to come out on May 23, 2026, the 77th Anniversary of the German Constitution. Have a wonderful weekend. Yours, Birgit Developing Gutenberg and WordPress Amy Kamala, co-release coordinator for WordPress 7.0, published an Urgent: Testing request to Web hosts for collaborative editing by May 4th. The results will inform core architectural decisions before release. The test suite needs only bash, cURL, WP-CLI, and patch — and the Core team wants data from your actual customer environments, not clean installs. Results are aggregated and kept anonymous. The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #130 – WordPress 7.0, Gutenberg 22.9 and 23.0, WordCamp Europe, Block Themes and More with Tammie Lister, Chief Product Officer at Convesio Hamza Kwehangana, co-organizer of WordCamp Vienna, walks you through everything new in WordPress 7.0, the release that kicks off Phase 3: Collaboration. You’ll see real-time multi-user editing in action, native AI Connectors for plugging in providers like OpenAI or Anthropic, a refreshed admin with Data Views, and a new Notes and Comments system for editorial teams. Block-level additions include heading variations, fit text, responsive editing mode, a native Icons block, and Visual Revisions. Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners The WooCommerce team is actively exploring a DataViews-powered Product Catalog Management experience that could improve how merchants handle large product sets. Led by Luigi Teschio, you can already test a working prototype via WordPress Playground. The shared blueprint installs WooCommerce nightly, Gutenberg, and sample products in one click. Smoother filtering, price filtering, inline variation handling, and improved bulk edit workflows are all on the table. WPMet, plugin developers of GutenKit, introduced TableKit, a native Gutenberg table builder aimed at replacing the block editor’s limited default table with a more sophisticated approach. You get four table types — standard tables, WooCommerce product tables with live stock and direct add-to-cart, data tables that import from CSV, Google Sheets, or JSON with auto-sync, and WordPress post tables. Standout features include conditional formatting, freeze columns, column sorting, search and filtering, and export to PDF, CSV, or Excel, all without shortcodes or leaving your editor. Mike McAlister has been busy shipping for Ollie Pro. He posted a demo on X showing new responsive controls in the block editor — device-specific settings for typography, padding, margin, spacing, and text alignment at specific breakpoints, no custom CSS or extra plugins required. Alongside that, he introduced a completely redesigned Ollie Pattern Library with a unified design language across hundreds of patterns, a faster Browse tab with live search and one-click actions, and a brand-new Discover tab powered by Ollie AI, letting you describe a layout in plain language, use pre-made prompts, or hit “Inspire Me” to instantly assemble a full page. Maxime Bernard-Jacquet announces that Modern Fields 1.0 is now out of beta — a custom fields plugin built for the block editor era and positioned as an ACF alternative. The 1.0 release adds JSON import/export, automatic field sync with the theme, a no-code UI for creating custom post types and taxonomies, and WP-CLI commands. A live in-browser demo requires no installation. A Pro version is in the works, with repeater and relational fields, conditional logic, options pages, query loop filters, and custom block creation planned. Core contributors Nik Tsekouras and Marin Atanasov started an Experiment: Content types tracking issue, developer might want to keep an eye out. The idea is to bring management of majority of the cases to core and leave complex use cases in plugin territory. Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks Jamie Marsland shares a neat design-system-to-WordPress workflow that lets you spin up a styled site in minutes — no local install, no hosting, no deploy. Head to claude.ai/design, grab a DESIGN.md from the awesome-design-md repo (Vercel, Linear, or Stripe are solid picks), upload it to Claude, and ask it to build a homepage, about page, and blog with sample posts inside WordPress Playground. One tip you shouldn’t skip: make sure Playground uses storage=browser so your work persists between reloads.  “Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2026” A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly.  The previous years are also available: 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. Taylor Drayson‘s WP Wireframe is a PHP library that you can include in your plugin to create complete WordPress admin settings pages using one configuration array—no JS build step required. It offers over 20 field types (like text, color, file picker, and more), an API for accessing settings, options for conditional visibility, validation, support for multiple pages, and a helper to adjust settings. Install it with Composer, point it to a settings.php file, and your settings page is ready to go. Or so Drayson promises. AI and WordPress Automattic’s Alexa Peduzzi introduces Studio Code, now in public beta — a WordPress-native agentic CLI tool built on top of Claude Code. Install Studio CLI and run studio code to get started. Unlike general-purpose coding agents, it’s purpose-built for WordPress: you can describe a site in natural language and it builds a complete block theme — layout, typography, fonts,

WPVibe launched on WordPress.org, and with it, something genuinely new: the ability to manage your entire WordPress site through a simple conversation with AI. No dashboard, no switching tabs. Just tell Claude or ChatGPT what you want done, and it happens. That’s the headline, but there’s plenty more to cover. AIOSEO, Charitable, PushEngage, OptinMonster, and others all shipped significant updates. WordCamp Asia brought the global community together in Mumbai. And Contact Form 7 — one of WordPress’s oldest and most-used plugins — officially closed the door on new features. It’s been a busy month. Let’s get into it. WPBeginner Spotlight is your monthly digest of essential WordPress news and community milestones. Do you have an announcement? From product debuts to major updates or upcoming events, submit your details via our contact form for a chance to be featured in our upcoming issue! WPVibe Launches on WordPress.org: Manage Your Entire Site Through a Conversational AI Imagine opening Claude or ChatGPT and simply saying: “Create a new blog post about our spring sale, add a featured image from Unsplash, and schedule it for Friday.” No logging into your dashboard. No switching tabs. Just a conversation and it’s done. That’s exactly what WPVibe makes possible, and it just landed on WordPress.org as a free plugin. WPVibe is a WordPress MCP (Model Context Protocol) server built by the team at SeedProd , which is the same team behind the popular WordPress landing page builder trusted by over 1 million websites. MCP is the new standard that allows AI assistants to connect directly to external tools, and WPVibe is the best solution that brings this power to your WordPress site. Once you install the free Vibe AI plugin and connect it to your AI assistant of choice — whether that’s Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor — you can manage virtually every aspect of your site through natural conversation. We’re talking about creating and editing posts and pages, managing media, browsing and editing theme files, running health checks, checking which plugins are active, searching Unsplash for stock photos, and even executing safe WP-CLI commands. All this without ever opening wp-admin. This is an incredibly powerful tool for WordPress users who are already using AI assistants in their daily workflow. The setup takes about 60 seconds. Just install the Vibe AI plugin from WordPress.org, activate it, and click ‘Connect to WPVibe’ inside your WordPress admin. After that, copy and paste the MCP server URL into your AI client’s settings. You’ll find instructions for different AI platforms on your screen. Once connected, you can simply tell your AI platform: ‘Connect to my website at example.com’ The SeedProd team has also built in safety guardrails so you never have to worry about accidentally breaking something: New posts default to draft status Deleted content goes to the trash (not permanently removed) Theme edits happen in a sandboxed draft environment you review before publishing. Everything runs over encrypted HTTPS using your existing WordPress application passwords — no third-party servers store your credentials. WPVibe is completely free — no credit card, no subscription. Charitable Launches Recurring Donations 2.0 and New Visual Fundraising Tools Charitable, the popular WordPress fundraising plugin, has released a series of big updates headlined by Recurring Donations 2.0. With this new update you can run Recurring Only campaign mode, which allows organizations to create campaigns where one-time donations are disabled. To address the issue of lost revenue, Charitable now includes an Automatic Failed Payment Recovery system. The plugin immediately sends a customizable email to donors if a transaction fails due to expired cards or insufficient funds. The update also prioritizes donor trust by adding a self-service cancellation button directly within the donor dashboard. Data tracking has also seen a significant upgrade with a new real-time Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) dashboard. Plus, Charitable has introduced Featured Images for campaigns to boost visual storytelling. Site owners can now set prominent thumbnails for their donation pages, which are optimized for social media sharing and grid layouts to encourage higher engagement and click-through rates. Charitable has also introduced a new Mini Donation Widget, which allows users to embed a functional giving experience anywhere on their site. This widget supports preset donation amounts with impact statements, such as “feeds a family for a month”. This helps donors understand the tangible result of their gift. FunnelKit Team Launches Sublium: A New WooCommerce Subscription Plugin for Recurring Revenue The team behind FunnelKit has launched Sublium, a WooCommerce subscription plugin that handles recurring revenue across multiple use cases: Subscribe-and-save deliveries for physical products Automated billing for digital memberships and courses Installment plans for high-ticket items. All three support flexible billing cycles, free trials, sign-up fees, and recurring discounts, with no coding required. Subscribers get a self-service dashboard where they can pause, skip, swap products, or update their payment method without contacting support. And store owners get built-in analytics tracking MRR, ARR, churn, and retention. Sublium also includes automated payment recovery that retries failed charges and sends follow-up emails to save at-risk subscriptions. It works with Stripe, PayPal, Square, and all major card networks out of the box. Showcase Customer Reviews With Eye-Catching Popups Using Smash Balloon Smash Balloon has released Reviews Feed Pro v2.5.0, introducing a new Review Alerts feature. This update allows website owners to display animated review notification popups using their existing review data instead of using expensive third-party social proof tools. Users can choose between “Recent Reviews” to cycle through individual testimonials or “Aggregate Review” to show an overall star rating. The system also includes advanced filtering, which enables site owners to show only 5-star reviews or testimonials containing specific keywords to address customer objections. The feature is specifically optimized for WooCommerce by automatically detecting product review feeds to boost sales directly on store pages. With four pre-built themes and custom accent colors, these popups can be styled to match any brand identity without technical hassle. To ensure a positive user experience, the popups also include “Compact Mode” to avoid blocking content and flexible