Besides the big launch of WordPress 7.0 version, many other launches this week like JetMessenger, TranslateXYZ, PressPrimer Assignment, ActiveLayer, and more. Also, new things like Vercel AI Gateway, Block MCP, and Jetpack with AI Answers.
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What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖
- JetMessenger… Crocoblock has released the JetMessenger plugin for WordPress Marketplaces and Booking Portals. It is a chat messaging system built natively into your WordPress to create private chats between users, with automatic email notifications, and full integration with WooCommerce, JetEngine, JetFormBuilder, and popular page builders like Elementor, Bricks, or Block Editor.
- TranslateXYZ Suite… Cool Plugins has launched TranslateXYZ, a new umbrella brand and website for its AI translation addons. These addons help users automate translations for Polylang, WPML, TranslatePress, and Loco Translate using AI providers like OpenAI, Gemini, Chrome AI, Google Translate, and more.
- PressPrimer Assignment… Ryan Moore, former co-founder of Uncanny Automator, has launched PressPrimer Assignment, which promises to take assignment workflow seriously as a part of an educational platform on your WordPress website. It features: inline annotation, in-browser grading, AI-assisted grading and proofreading, plagiarism and AI content detection, groups, comprehensive reporting, xAPI support, and more.
- New ActiveLayer… Syed Balkhi shared (Links X) about the new ActiveLayer launch, AI spam protection for forms and comments on your WordPress websites. He added, “No CAPTCHAs. No tracking scripts. No friction. It runs server-side in milliseconds and returns a verdict with a confidence score, so you can actually see why something was flagged”.
AI Things: Vercel AI, Block MCP, Jetpack AI Answers
Vercel AI Gateway for WP… the team at Vercel has released a dedicated Vercel AI Gateway plugin in the repository. This gives a WordPress website access to hundreds of models from 40+ providers through a single API key, including: Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, xAI, DeepSeek, MiniMax, Moonshot AI, and more.
Open Source Block MCP… Casey Burridge from GravityKit shared about the release of Block MCP as an open-source project. “It’s the WordPress MCP server we built to let AI agents edit our own posts and pages without breaking them”.
Jetpack with AI Answers… Robert Felty shared about the launch of AI Answers in Jetpack Search. This feature reads your website’s content and delivers a direct, cited response right at the top of search results – as a brief AI-generated summary.
Plugins Focus: Permalinks, IP Based Login, Query Loop
Custom Permalinks for Woo… the team at StackWC has released the Custom Permalinks for WooCommerce plugin for cleaner URLs of your store products. You can remove slug bases, set different URL for one or specific products, replace product slugs with SKUs for catalog-driven stores, and more.
IP Based Login… Brijesh Kothari shared the free IP Based Login plugin in the repository. This enables passwordless login based on authorized IP addresses or IP ranges. It is ideal for publishers, educational institutions, membership sites, intranets, and shared-access environments where users need seamless access without sharing credentials.
Ansar Elements + Post Query Loop… Imran Ansari has released a free Post Query Loop plugin for Elementor users in the plugins repository. You can build dynamic post displays with different layouts like Standard, Overlay, or List card layouts.
Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥
- Core AI Team Departures… James LePage, Head of AI at Automattic, has decided to leave for other things. “For my true day-to-day, I will transition out of WordPress to deeply focus on something new”. Also, Felix Arntz has stepped down as co-reps of the WordPress AI Team. He left Google in January to join Vercel, earlier Google was sponsoring his time till April 2025 and he has been volunteering for an year now.
- WordPress PHP Support… John Blackbourn published about the PHP support clarification that the use of the ‘beta’ label for PHP support has been retired and has been retroactively removed from all versions. WordPress 6.9 and 7.0 are now documented as fully supporting PHP 8.5, while WP 6.8 and later support PHP 8.4, and WP 6.4 and later support PHP 8.3.
- Post to Short Clips… Sarosh Aga from Automattic shared about (LinkedIn) the clips feature that turns any WordPress post into a short-form vertical video from right inside the editor. This experimental feature is live for WordPress .com Premium or higher plans, and coming soon to Jetpack AI.
- WooCommerce + In-person Payments… now there is no need to run two separate systems, one for in-person and one for online. In-person card payments with the WooCommerce app are now available in 13 new countries: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, and Spain.
- Gutenberg + Responsive… 23.2v brings responsive global block styles with states, allowing you to customize how individual blocks look on different screen sizes. Also, added motion design tokens, and modal renders as a bottom sheet on mobile.
- Media Editor Modal + Testing… free-form image cropper integration and other image editing in the Block Editor are being added. Call for testing and feedback is open for this Media Editor Modal, which replaces the existing inline cropping tool in the Block Editor.
- WordCamp Canada & WP Suomi… the call for speakers is now open for WordCamp Canada 2026, which is scheduled for November 5 – 6, 2026, in Vancouver, BC. Also, the call for sponsorship is open for WP Suomi 2026, a conference for Nordic WordPress enthusiasts, with all sponsorship packages being the same and costing €2000. It is scheduled for October 16, 2026, in Oulu, Finland.
WordPress 7.0 Release & Buzz
WordPress 7.0 ‘Armstrong’ is now available for your WordPress websites. This marks the, “start of a new era, laying the foundation for AI across the WordPress experience. Greeting you with a modern, more intuitive dashboard, 7.0 introduces enhanced customization and development tools that inspire creativity and tap into endless potential”.
- Over 4,646,415+ WordPress 7.0 downloads and counting!
- WP 7.0 made possible with 875+ contributors, 200+ first time.
- The WordPress 7.0 Readiness Checklist, by Kevin Champlin.
- The call for volunteers is now open for WordPress 7.1 release.
- WP 7.0 on YouTube
- What’s in WordPress 7.0 in 7 Minutes, by Matt Medeiros.
- WordPress 7.0 new direction forward, video by Mike McAlister.
- Jake Pfohl shared 5 new updates in the WordPress 7.0 release.
Updates: Bit Form, FluentCommunity, Gato AI, Divi
Bit Form + Multisite… version 3 is a big update bringing WordPress multisite support, enabling multisite networks to manage forms more efficiently across individual subsites. Also, updated UI for visual overview with submission stats, collapsible sections for Form, Label, Input Field, Others, and Global toggle.
FluentCommunity + Lesson Lock… 2.5.0v has introduced the Sequential Lesson Lock feature, which keeps the next lessons locked until the current lesson is completed. Also, now you can hide the mobile header and footer on scroll.
Gato AI Translations for Polylang + Big Update… Leonardo Losoviz has released 18.0v of Gato AI Translations for Polylang, now with the ability to translate pretty much any block, element or widget. It supports ACF Blocks, PHP only Blocks, kadence Blocks, Greenshift Blocks, and more supported AI models.
Divi + 5 New Modules… the team at Elegant Themes has released 5 new modules for Divi 5 users. These include modules for: Timeline, Breadcrumbs, Table of Contents, SVG, and Instagram Feed.
Updates: Paymattic, Modular DS, Posts Table, & PPOM
Paymattic + GiveWP Migration… 4.6.22v has introduced a dedicated GiveWP to Paymattic Migrator to guide you with the migration process. The step-by-step flow handles everything from donation forms to recurring subscriptions, donor records, custom fields (FFM), email notifications, and currency switcher settings.
Modular DS + Big Update… 3.0v update promises to be a big update for its users with many new features. Like built-in security feature of Malware scanning with Imunify, broken links checker, and new global management screens for creating global configurations and applying them to multiple sites at once.
Posts Table Pro + Modern Tables… 4.0.0v update replaces jQuery datatables with modern table library. There will be a legacy mode to preserve the existing jQuery datatables, enabled by default for existing installations. Also, added multi-column sorting, multi-select filters, and the ability to display filters inline as a dropdown from the column headings.
PPOM Pro + Template Library… 27.0.0v update brings a curated template library with one-click presets for common use cases, like pizza ordering, t-shirt personalization, made-to-measure, and jewelry engraving. Also, added a live product page preview, cart edit support, and more.
Quick Bits 👍
- Inspiro Premium theme now with over 50 starter sites templates.
- Oxygen’s new official marketplace for extensions & templates.
- Varun Dubey shared (LinkedIn) new look Wbcom Designs website.
- AI for over 400+ WP Playground UI redesigns, by Adam Zieliński.
- Insights: What 8 years of Building Dynamic WP sites taught us!
- Marko Krstic has released free flat-file CMS called, FrontPress Studio.
- Let’s Learn
- Why edge caching alone doesn’t solve WP Performance, by Sarp Efe.
- Exploring WordPress Cover Block: Parallax Scroll, by Anne Katzeff.
- Insights & More
- Memory in WP Core, building on guidelines, by Grzegorz Ziółkowski.
- Ovidiu Maghetiu reasons on to – if you even need BEM anymore?
- WordPress & YouTube
- Quickest way to Connect Claude Cowork to WordPress, by Jamie.
- Build perfect Mobile Menu System in Bricks Builder, by Mark Crowell.
- Course: Complete WordPress Dashboard Training, TuhamWorld CC.
- People of WordPress
- Stefania Mattana’s 10 year anniversary (LinkedIn) at Automattic.
Report: The State of WordPress Security 2026
The team at GuardingWP has published its first report on The State of WordPress Security 2026. The report highlighted, 52.8% of WordPress sites are running at least one plugin with a known vulnerability at scan time.
55.9% leak their WordPress version through the generator meta tag. 93.2% are missing one or more modern security headers (HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options). Defaults from a 2015 web are still the default in 2026.
Hosting Buzz: GoDaddy & InMotion Hosting
GoDaddy Join Agentic AI Foundation… AAIF (The Agentic AI Foundation), the home where open standard agentic AI stack is being built, has added 4 new Gold Members, 27 new Silver Members, and 12 new Associate Members. GoDaddy has joined the AAIF as a Gold Member, along with F5, Stripe, and TRON.
InMotion Hosting + Agency Partners… the team at InMotion Hosting has launched a new Agency Partner Program for digital agencies. It promises to be different from standard affiliate programs, with qualifying partners also eligible for a free agency hosting account.
FluentCart combines performance, flexibility, and control in one powerful WordPress eCommerce plugin. Easily sell physical or digital products, hybrid product listings, subscriptions, memberships, and more.
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