This week’s AI contributor meeting focused on progress across the AI Plugin, Abilities API, PHP AI Client, MCP Adapter, Connectors, and documentation efforts ahead of the WordPress 7.1 Beta 1 milestoned for July 15th.
Abilities API
The team reviewed ongoing work around content management abilities and broader abilities development.
Discussion focused on the importance of testing new abilities within the AI Plugin before considering any future core integration. Contributors highlighted the need to validate API design, discoverability, usability, and long-term compatibility through real-world usage and feedback.
@ovidiu-galatan also shared work [1, 2] on a large-scale abilities testing environment designed to explore how abilities behave at significantly larger scales, including challenges around discoverability and context window limitations.
DECISION: New AI abilities should be developed and tested within the AI Plugin before consideration for WordPress core.
AI Plugin
The team reviewed upcoming work planned for the next AI Plugin release and reiterated the plugin’s role as an experimental environment for AI-related functionality.
Contributors aligned on the idea that new abilities should be developed and tested within the AI Plugin rather than targeting WordPress core directly. The plugin provides a safe environment for experimentation, iteration, and gathering community feedback before long-term decisions are made.
The team also clarified that the AI Plugin itself is not intended to become part of WordPress core. Instead, individual concepts or features may eventually mature and graduate into core when appropriate.
DECISION: The AI Plugin serves as an experimental incubator for AI-related functionality and is not itself intended to become part of WordPress core.
MCP Adapter
Discussion covered the relationship between abilities and the MCP Adapter.
Contributors clarified that the MCP Adapter serves primarily as a transport layer for abilities, while MCP-specific functionality remains within the adapter itself. Ongoing work is exploring opportunities to refine how MCP-specific capabilities are represented and exposed.
The team also noted that help is welcome as work continues toward polishing the MCP Adapter for a future WordPress.org plugin release.
PHP AI Client
A significant portion of the meeting focused on the PHP AI Client and WordPress AI Client.
To support WordPress 7.1 timelines, attention is shifting toward foundational capabilities needed by downstream projects, particularly embedding support. Work in this area is expected to enable future connector enhancements and model capability declarations.
The team also reviewed ongoing streaming support work. Contributors discussed API design considerations, implementation approaches, and alignment with PHP Standards Recommendations (PSRs), with additional review and feedback encouraged on the PR.
Connectors
The team discussed ongoing connector development work, including a proposed field registration capability for the connector UI.
Contributors agreed that Gutenberg remains the appropriate repository for connector-related pull requests while broader ownership and maintenance questions continue to be explored.
DECISION: Gutenberg remains the primary repository for connector-related pull requests.
Documentation
Documentation was a major topic of discussion this week.
Contributors discussed the need for clearer guidance around the lifecycle of experimental features and how projects move from experimentation toward broader adoption. As part of that effort, plans were discussed to expand existing documentation into handbook content that better explains the experimentation process.
The team also reviewed opportunities to improve discoverability of AI-related documentation by organizing content under a dedicated AI category and refining existing documentation resources.
Next Steps
- Continue review and testing of content management abilities.
- Prepare and ship the next AI Plugin release.
- Advance embedding support within the PHP AI Client and WordPress AI Client ahead of WordPress 7.1 Beta 1.
- Continue review of streaming support implementation and API design.
- Refine MCP Adapter functionality and prepare for a future WordPress.org release.
- Improve AI documentation organization and handbook coverage.
- Implement the new Slack workflow for weekly agenda collection and meeting preparation.
Upcoming Meetings
- Contributors are welcome to join every Wednesday at 1700 UTC via Google Meet. In-meeting notes are captured live in a Slack Canvas and paired with aggregate transcription data to generate this meeting summary post. All team meeting schedules are published directly to the WordPress Meeting Calendar.
- AI Team Office Hours (Slack): Thursday, 25 June 2026 << @jeffpaul @justlevine to co-lead, @webdevmattcrom to shadow on coordination.
- Weekly AI Contributor Call (Google Meet): Wednesday, 1 July 2026.
Props to @justlevine for pre-publish review.