114. What’s Coming in WordPress 6.9

Now that the release candidate for WordPress 6.9 has been launched, we’re starting to learn in detail the features that will arrive in this new version.

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Program transcript

Hello, I’m Alicia Ireland, and you’re listening to WPpodcast, bringing the weekly news from the WordPress Community.

In this episode, you’ll find the information from November 10 to 16, 2025.

The first release candidate for WordPress 6.9 is now available for testing. It’s still a development version, so it’s not recommended for production sites. The final release remains scheduled for December 2, 2025.

What does Release Candidate 1 include? Some of the most notable features introduced in this version:

• Improvements to the Site Editor, including the ability to hide blocks on the frontend.
• A new collaboration system, Notes, which allows leaving comments directly on blocks.
• APIs such as the Abilities API, enhancements to DataViews and DataForms, as well as performance optimizations in scripts, styles, and queries.
• It also includes the new command palette accessible from anywhere in the admin, along with other interface and user experience improvements.

Users are encouraged to test this release candidate in staging environments and report bugs or incompatibilities with themes or plugins, as this phase is key to refining stability before the final release.

Reviewing the new features, there are many things worth highlighting.

WordPress 6.9 introduces the new Abilities API, a centralized system for core, themes, and plugins to register “abilities” with defined metadata, permissions, input, and output.

This API introduces three key components:

• A PHP API to register, review, and execute abilities.
• REST API endpoints under the wp-abilities namespace that allow listing ability categories, invoking them, and retrieving details.
• Hooks for custom integrations and filters on registration arguments.

The goal is to establish the foundation of the initiative known as AI Building Blocks for WordPress. By making WordPress functionality discoverable, executable, and secure, it paves the way for automated integrations, orchestrated workflows, and AI agents capable of querying and using these abilities in a standardized way.

And the big question… what is this actually for? The answer is that it’s the standard system to connect Artificial Intelligence to WordPress in a way that is consistent for plugins or any tool, and even allows core and third-party tools to use abilities from different providers. Some potential examples:

• AI assistants for content editing: rewriting text by tone or length, generating summaries or featured descriptions, suggesting structure for pages or posts, or optimizing content for SEO based on analysis of the post.
• Editorial automation: publishing, unpublishing, or scheduling content based on rules; reviewing pending posts and leaving automated comments using Notes; or detecting broken links and generating alerts or fixes automatically.
• Intelligent media management: automatically resizing, compressing, or converting image formats; generating descriptive alt text; or classifying media by tags or categories using AI.
• Site admin tools: performing automatic security or maintenance checks; generating reports on site health, performance, or roles/users; or scheduled cleanup of revisions, transients, and cache.
• Configuration assistants: setting up site options through prompts like “put the site in maintenance mode” or “create a basic contact form”, including enabling or disabling plugins or themes based on scenarios.
• WooCommerce workflow tools: generating product descriptions, updating prices or stock from external data, or creating custom reports on sales.
• Developer tools: generating block patterns and templates, creating plugin skeletons from a specification, or executing automated tests inside the site.
• Integrations with external services, such as syncing content with social networks automatically or connecting WordPress with CRM or mailing tools via specialized abilities.
• Support and contextual help systems that explain what a setting, block, or panel does, and even guide users through creating pages, menus, or templates.
• Orchestrating agents, such as a “WordPress Agent” capable of combining multiple abilities to carry out complex tasks like cloning a staging site to production or building a full landing page from a briefing.

Even though none of this will be fully visible in this version, most existing AI plugins will start updating to support this API, and we will begin to see results heading into WordPress 7.0.

Another major change, one of those “behind the scenes” ones, involves DataViews, DataForm, and the new Field API.

First, the Field API has been expanded with thirteen field types such as “color”, “password”, “telephone”, or “url”; rule-based validation, including asynchronous validations; and support for nested and derived data thanks to new methods. This enables developers to define complex fields without rewriting validation logic, and to prepare advanced forms more easily.

Second, DataViews introduces major improvements to the presentation and management of item lists: grouping by field, locked filters, column alignment in table mode, infinite scroll, and custom routing integration. The new views package manages view state (sorting, filters, pagination) and persists user configuration between sessions.

Third, DataForm now lets developers define forms with three new layouts: card, row, and improvements to panel. For example, the card layout groups other layouts within a card with a summary and toggle options; the row layout arranges fields horizontally using flexbox styling. Form validation has also been improved, working in combination with the Field API, and forms can now be controlled by their global validity state.

All of this aligns with the goal for WordPress 7.0 to prepare the entire admin dashboard for the new design, and these components help achieve that.

Improvements to the Block Bindings API in WordPress 6.9 allow connecting more editor blocks to dynamic data sources such as custom fields or external APIs.

Now, for example, the image block can link its caption directly to a metadata field; the date block supports binding to external data; and the editor UI for creating these connections has become more extensible, allowing developers to add custom “sources” in the bindings panel.

For theme or plugin developers, this means they can reuse standard blocks to display dynamic content without building entirely new blocks. They can register new data sources, new binding attributes, and simplify development of dynamic content experiences using WordPress 6.9’s existing infrastructure.

WordPress 6.9 introduces important improvements to the Interactivity API, focused on client-side navigation and resource loading:

• A new client navigation algorithm that replaces not only the page HTML but also the CSS and JavaScript modules needed when switching views.
• Support for submitting forms without reloading the page, improving interactions like comments or dynamic filters.
• Conditional loading of styles and scripts based on the blocks present, reducing page weight and improving performance.

Work has also begun to allow the post editor to run inside an iframe, providing better isolation between admin styles and the editor canvas. This means admin styles will no longer affect the editing surface, and viewport units and media queries will behave more naturally.

To ease the transition, WordPress 6.9 includes compatibility measures: a browser warning appears if a block is registered using API version 2 or lower, alerting developers to update to version 3. Also, the block.json schema now accepts only version 3 blocks.

Although many of these changes are technical and not highly visible for editors, there are several new “toys” for everyday WordPress users.

The Notes feature allows leaving block-level comments directly inside the WordPress editor. Selecting a block lets you add a note that team members can see, reply to, or mark as resolved. These notes are visible only in the editor and do not affect public content.

This feature includes a notes panel accessible from the editor toolbar, showing all notes created on the post or page. The goal is to improve collaboration among authors, editors, and designers without needing external tools for reviews.

For content teams, this offers a smoother way to handle feedback, correct drafts, and coordinate publications. Suggestions and questions are attached to the exact block they refer to, reducing confusion and speeding up internal workflows.

Planned improvements for Notes in WordPress 7.0 focus on two elements.

The first will be fragment notes, allowing annotations not just on whole blocks but also on specific text fragments, even if they span multiple blocks. This will be paired with @mentions to notify other users directly, along with an improved notification system allowing configurable frequency, such as daily digests.

A compact mode is also planned, where notes appear as small icons with avatars next to blocks, expanding only when clicked; plus a new floating layout for large screens, positioning notes between the editor canvas and the sidebar. Notes will also extend to more areas of the editor, including templates, and support real-time collaboration, showing notes as they appear and update while multiple users edit simultaneously.

And the final list of new blocks is:

• Math block: allows adding formulas written in LaTeX syntax directly into posts and pages. It also supports inline LaTeX, accessible from the editor toolbar, to integrate math expressions within paragraphs.
• Reading time block: displays the estimated reading time of a post or, if preferred, just the word count. It can also show a range, such as “12 to 15 minutes,” instead of a fixed number.
• The Accordion block.
• Other blocks such as taxonomy query, taxonomy template, and counter, plus comment link and its counter.

And some blocks originally expected for this release now appear to be delayed until WordPress 7.0:

• The Breadcrumbs block: already available for testing by enabling experimental blocks in Gutenberg. It allows choosing whether to show the Home link, whether to include the last hierarchy item, and selecting the separator character. It also supports all styling options common to text blocks, such as color, typography, spacing, and borders.

The Playground team has updated WordPress Playground CLI with three major improvements: support for ImageMagick, the PHP SOAP extension, and the AVIF image format.

Now Playground environments can manipulate images in formats like JPG, PNG, GIF, or WEBP directly using ImageMagick.

The SOAP extension is enabled in all builds, allowing integration of SOAP web services without fatal errors.

And the GD extension in Playground now supports AVIF with PHP 8.1, including functions to convert images to the new format.

The Community team has reported that it is monitoring the situation in Bangladesh after receiving several reports about local dynamics. WordCamp Central is in contact with organizers to ensure a healthy and welcoming environment.

They remind everyone that the community code of conduct must be followed, and that individual cases will not be discussed publicly to protect privacy. Anyone with information or concerns can contact the team through the incident response form or official channels.

The Global Partner Program 2026 has been announced by the WordPress Community team with the goal of consolidating global sponsorships into a single framework for 2026. Interested organizations will gain access to a direct Slack channel, monthly event updates, global visibility, and more stable support for the WordPress ecosystem.

There are three sponsorship levels: “Global Leader” at 180,000 USD per year, “Regional Powerhouse” at 110,000 USD, and “Community Builder” at 60,000 USD. Each level includes benefits ranging from global event presence to free tickets, brand visibility, and placement in printed and digital materials.

Funds from the program will go toward activities such as local WordPress events (venue rental, catering, audiovisual equipment), Meetup licensing fees for over 670 active groups, and administrative costs such as insurance and annual audits to ensure transparency and sustainability.

The State of the Word, the annual keynote by Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, returns to celebrate what has been achieved in the project and to share the roadmap for what’s coming next. This year, the 2025 edition will take place on December 2, 2025, at 19:00 UTC (yes, the same day as the WordPress 6.9 release), from San Francisco, and will be available via streaming.

And finally, this podcast is distributed under a Creative Commons license as a derivative version of the podcast in Spanish; you can find all the links for more information, and the podcast in other languages, at WPpodcast .org.

Thanks for listening, and until the next episode!