Update all your websites immediately, WordPress 7.0.2 is an important security release. Also, new AI things in focus like CartPilot, Novamira Chat, EventIn AI, Operator Kit, Fluent Support MCP, and JetHost AI. Plus, check what all is must know for the upcoming WordPress 7.1 release.
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What’s Buzzing in WordPress 💖
- Mobile Apps + WordPress… James Grierson has used AI agents and WordPress to create EndyList – a full cross-platform app that you can install on iPhone or Android, with single sign-on, passkeys, end-to-end encryption, support for 7 languages, cross-device sync, and a public developer API. Under the hood, it’s not app, it is platform.
- Upcoming CrocoBuilder…. the team behind many popular plugins, Crocoblock is launching a brand new CrocoBuilder promising, “A developer-grade WordPress builder with atomic DOM output, unified CSS control, and AI-native components, built for complex WordPress projects”. Early access is open now and will launch soon.
- Website Bottleneck Finder… Matt Zeunert shared (LinkedIn) about the launch of a new free Website Bottleneck Finder tool that detects which resource requests hold back the FCP, LCP, and H1 rendering time. This makes it easy to identify what requests you need to optimize to make your website load faster.
- SleekTrack Analytics… Dennis from SleekWP has launched SleekTrack analytics plugin for WordPress. This privacy-first analytics plugin collects pageviews and events with no cookies, no consent banners, and no personal data – display it in one clean dashboard inside WordPress.
AI Things: CartPilot, Novamira Chat, & EventIn AI
CartPilot + AI for Woo… the team at WeDevs has launched CartPilot AI sales agent built for WooCommerce stores. It adds a conversational sales assistant directly to a store. Shoppers can ask questions in natural language or by voice, find and compare products from the live catalog, get answers based on product and store-policy information, and add, update, or remove the right product variants.
Novamira + AI Chat… a new AI agent that lives inside your WordPress in the form of Novamira Chat. Just type to describe changes you want to your WordPress website, and it does it for you. There is no subscription as it uses your AI API key.
Eventin + AI Matchmaking… events plugin, Eventin, now has an AI Matchmaking addon that connects attendees based on interests, goals, and preferences – for creating more meaningful event experiences. Pre-order it for $19 Lifetime.
More AI: Operator Kit, Fluent Support MCP, & JetHost AI
Operator Kit… Ross Morsali, creator of the Search and Filter plugin, has launched the Operator Kit AI project for AI Tools. He shared (Links X), “This is going to be my little hub of high quality tools to help us ‘Operators’ in our day to day. There are a couple of tools there already, and there are some bigger projects on the way”.
Fluent Support + MCP Server… 2.3.0v brings a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for your support tickets. This enables AI agents to connect directly to your helpdesk for multi-provider AI support across OpenAI, Gemini, and Anthropic. Also, introduces powerful commerce workflow conditions for FluentCart and EDD.
JetHost + AI Connector… the team at JetHost has introduced AI Connector, which enables you to connect JetHost with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, and other AI assistants you already use. You can deploy projects from Git and publish AI-generated websites to your hosting account. Also, ask about your services, domains, invoices, renewals, server logs, SSL, DNS records, and more.
New Plugins: Builder, Editor, Lightbox & Analytics
Instinctor Visual Builder… Sergei Tiden shared about the Instinctor plugin now available in the repository. It promises to be a visual builder that moves content through real 3D space, a complete store that owes nothing to WooCommerce, a chat that knows your products, prices, and stock, and self-running SEO.
Front End Editor… Jamie Marsland has released a free Jamie’s Front-End Editor for Content Teams plugin. It allows your team edit page and post content directly from the front end of your WordPress site without the need to open the Block Editor.
LMDM Lightbox Gallery Membership… Nic shared about the LMDM Lightbox Gallery Membership plugin that extends the existing core Image and Gallery blocks. It adds a ‘Join gallery’ selector to standalone Image blocks and only shows the selector when the native Lightbox-Effect is active.
Beardo Multisite Analytics… Mike Biolsi shared about the Beardo Multisite Analytics for GA4 plugin that brings your Google Analytics 4 data directly into the WordPress admin, without touching your site’s tracking setup.
Extended WordPress Buzz 🔥
- WordPress Studio + Updates… Fredrik Rombach Ekelund shared about WordPress Studio now much faster out of the box. Also, the CLI is now dependency-free, and Studio Code now runs the Anthropic’s most agentic Sonnet model by default.
- WooCommerce Next Update… WooCommerce 11.0 Beta is now available, and the final release is scheduled for July 28, 2026. Brian Coords shared what is coming in this release for developers like performance improvements targeting larger stores, customer account and email improvements, better reporting, and analytics.
- Reddit for WooCommerce… setting up Reddit Ads should be simpler with the newly launched Reddit for WooCommerce extension. This handles account setup, automated pixel and Conversions API (CAPI) setup, automated product catalog sync, and provides the ability to launch campaigns from your dashboard.
- AM Acquires LedgerPort… Awesome Motive has acquired LedgerPort, which is a WooCommerce and Shopify to QuickBooks accounting sync tool – providing a simple interface promising to make e-commerce accounting easier.
- Fueled & Pantheon Partnership… Fueled has partnered with Pantheon to make ElasticPress .io available to the dashboard of Pantheon users. ElasticPress has expanded beyond WordPress and is a fit for Pantheon supports customers on WordPress, Drupal, and NextJS to deliver custom search integrations.
- WordCamp US Action… the full speakers line up has been announced for WordCamp US 2026, Phoenix, featuring familiar names like Miriam Schwab, Jamie Marsland, Robert Abela, Hans Skillrud, Michelle Hunt, Kathy Zant, Brian Coords, and more. While Nithin Sreeraj over at WP Content shared about the community discussion over low ticket sales of WordCamp US 2026 event.
Core WP Buzz: Update ASAP to WordPress 7.0.2
WordPress 7.0.2 is available, and it is recommended to update immediately to this version. The 7.0.2 security release addresses a facilitated SQL injection issue (Patchstack Explains) reported as a team by TF1T, dtro, and haongo. Also, a REST API batch-route confusion and SQL injection issue leading to Remote Code Execution reported by Adam Kues at Assetnote / Searchlight Cyber.
- WordPress 7.1 Beta 1 was made available on July 15, 2026.
- Contribute to help test WordPress 7.1, releasing on Aug 19.
- What’s new for developers, July 2026 edition for WP 7.1 cycle.
- Post Editor is going full iframe, what block devs need to know!
- Consistent navigation in WordPress 7.1 with persistent toolbar.
- More Buzz
- The plan to merge Knowledge Post Type, rejected by Matt.
- Brian Coords on Selectors use caution ahead of responsive styles.
- WordPress Community Team has launched Community Agents.
Updates: FluentCart, MetaBox, Beaver Builder, & Bricks
FluentCart + Bricks Blocks… the new FluentCart Bricks Blocks addon brings a full set of native Bricks elements, product grids and cards, add to cart and buy now buttons, checkout, mini cart, product search, related products, and the customer dashboard – for building all within Bricks Builder.
MetaBox + MB Relationships… MetaBox has introduced Has one relationship option in MB Relationships. Once you enable it on either side of a relationship, then each item on that side can connect to only one item on the other.
Beaver Builder + Maintenance Mode… 2.11v has introduced maintenance mode feature within the Beaver Builder builder. Jennifer Franklin shared the process of creating a page, selecting it in the maintenance mode settings, and other options.
Bricks + Upcoming… 2.4 Beta is now available, promising a big update with major improvements to automation, content management, and builder workflows. New AI Abilities, global import/export system, builder interface customiser & profiles.
Form Plugins: Gravity Forms, WSForm, & WPForms
Gravity Forms + AbuseIPDB… the team at Gravity Forms has released AbuseIPDB addon for spam protection. With this, every form submission is checked against AbuseIPDB’s global database of reported IP addresses, which catches the worst offenders and marked as spam before they ever reach your entries list.
WSForm + WPBakery… WS Form has added a native integration with WPBakery, which makes it easy to add any WS Form to a page or post built with WPBakery. The integration is registered automatically whenever both WS Form and WPBakery Page Builder are active.
WPForms + Analytics… 2.0v has introduced Analytics feature promising a complete form performance tracking suite inside your WordPress dashboard. It tracks every step like sees a form, starts typing, runs into an error, or leaves before submitting.
Customer Info: WPSubscription, AB SplitTest, ProspectWP
WPSubscription + Cancellation Survey… WPSubscription has added a new Cancellation Survey feature for you to discover why customers leave, and then take decisions to reduce churn. When a customer cancels, they now answer a quick one-click question about why. This gives store owners real answers instead of guesses.
AB Split Test + Custom Audiences… 2.6.5v has introduced the Custom Audiences feature, which lets you save visitor segments once, then reuse them across tests. It enables you to easily see how different traffic sources behave inside the same experiment.
Prospect WP + Tone & Language… the latest update to Prospect WP brings Report Language and Tone feature (FB Video Preview) for every scan. You choose the language your automated report is written in, so it reads naturally for you and for the lead or client you’re sharing it with. Also, you select Tone of Voice like professional for a confident, business-appropriate report, and more.
Quick Bits 👍
- Fun Time: Super Beaver World game by Robby & Beaver Builder AI.
- Optiontics plugin now with lifetime option, besides annual plans.
- Points & rewards plugin for Woo, Pointics preorder is open now.
- Paolo shared (Links X) AIOSEO install other Awesome Motive plugins.
- Automattic has released WordPress TV as a native Apple TV app.
- dev/ai/nyc with Khyati Trehan, an Automattic event on July 22, 2026.
- Let’s Learn
- Guide to local development for WordPress, by Michael Bertram.
- Create on-brand maintenance mode for WordPress Block Themes.
- WordPress HTTP API Explained, a practical guide by Araib Butt.
- Insights
- Why most plugins struggle to grow beyond the initial launch.
- WordPress lost market share & got stronger, by Curt Noble.
- Market Share: WooCommerce leads web & Shopify leads top tier.
Most installed Plugin, not a Page Builder!
Aurelio Volle analyzed plugin data (LinkedIn) from 80,000 WordPress sites managed by agencies on WP Umbrella. Surprisingly, the most installed plugin wasn’t a page builder. The top plugins were: Yoast: 46%, Elementor: 40% (Pro: 35%), Wordfence: 30%, Advanced Custom Fields PRO: 28%, and Redirection: 25%.
Also, almost 1 in 4 agency-managed sites still run Classic Editor, 8 years after Gutenberg. Nobody adopted Secure Custom Fields, and everybody stuck to ACF Pro. Paid beats free wherever there’s a real decision. Gravity Forms edges out Contact Form, and 7. 87% of Elementor installs are Pro.
Hosting Buzz: Softaculous, AdminBolt, & GoDaddy
Softaculous + Code with AI… 6.3.7v update enhances the Code with AI experience with over 30 new features and improvements. This release introduces conversation branching, reasoning controls, session management, task tracking, shell mode, notifications, keyboard shortcuts, and other enhancements to make AI-assisted coding faster.
AdminBolt + BlueHost… AdminBolt hosting panel is now available directly on Bluehost Self-Managed VPS servers. New VPS users can select the AdmiBolt option, while existing users will have an option switch to AdminBolt by reimaging the server from the Bluehost portal.
GoDaddy + Developer Platform… Hemanth Guntupalli shared about the launch of a beta Developer Platform, starting with domains. With modern Domain APIs that allow you to search, register, configure, and manage domains programmatically.
Melapress builds professional-grade WordPress security & management plugins: WP Activity Log, Melapress Login Security, Melapress Role Editor, & WP 2FA.
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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