Matthew Widdop
Matty is a Junior SEO Executive at Intelligency, helping our clients to improve their digital performance. Matty is currently studying for his Level 3 Multi-Channel Marketer apprenticeship and has completed a Sport Journalism Degree at the University of Huddersfield.
WordPress is forming an AI team to help with the development of AI products on the platform.
What is WordPress
WordPress is an open source content management system which allows users to create and manage websites including updating blogs, imagery, and customising UX. Users can use plug-ins which can be added to their site from WordPress extensive library which allow for enhanced customisation features and increased website functionality.
Why is WordPress forming an Open AI team
The open source nature of WordPress means that developers can create all manner of plug-ins and many have already begun to experiment with AI tools as current WordPress developers have published 660 different AI plug-ins for WordPress.
The AI team will consist of James LePage, head of AI at Automattic, Felix Arntz and Pascal Birchel from Google, and Jeff Paul, director of Open Source at 10up and their role will be to oversee the development of AI tools.
This is what WordPress Executive Director, Mary Hubbard, had to say in her latest blog post on why this matters, “Strategic focus: A unified team stewards AI development thoughtfully, avoids fragmentation, and ensures alignment with the long-term goals of WordPress.
Shared innovation: Contributors and companies are actively exploring AI across the ecosystem. This team provides a central place to collaborate, share ideas, and build together.
Rapid iteration: Like the Performance Team, we’ll take a plugin-first approach. Canonical plugins will allow us to move quickly, gather feedback, and deliver real value without waiting on the Core release cycle.”
Why is this important for SEOs
WordPress is the most popular CMS on the internet powering an estimated 43.4% of websites worldwide. Increased AI functionality within WordPress will be key for SEOs to enhance workflows and speed up functionality and processes of their site to increase workplace productivity.
