It’s been 23 years since May 27, 2003, when version 0.70 of new software known as WordPress was released.
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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 May 25 to 31, 2026.
WordPress celebrated its 23rd birthday on May 27, and Matt Mullenweg marked it with a post on the official blog reflecting on a year he describes as the strongest and most precarious in the project’s history.
On the positive side, he highlights the launch of WordPress 7.0: within just seven days, 46% of all installations worldwide had already updated automatically and without incident.
On the darker side, Matt spends much of the post on the legal conflict with WP Engine and its parent company Silver Lake, which he says is consuming time and energy from key project people and has reached the point of attempting to dissolve the WordPress Foundation. Matt publicly calls on Silver Lake to end the litigation, and closes the post on a very personal note, acknowledging the human cost it’s taking on him and those around him.
The Core team has announced that WordPress 7.1 will upgrade React: moving from version 18 to 19, a change that will arrive first in the Gutenberg plugin in version 23.3 and will be integrated into Core with WordPress 7.1.
WordPress 7.0.1 is being planned for mid to late June. The most urgent bug found after the 7.0 launch affects the classic editor publish screen when there are additional action buttons added by plugins or custom post types, causing the interface to appear visually cluttered. The temporary fix is available from the Classic Editor plugin in version 1.7.0.
As for the AI plugin, the team announces a cadence change: instead of releasing every two weeks, they’re moving to monthly releases, with 1.1 planned for late June and 1.2 for late July.
On API key encryption, there is an experimental PR under review that introduces programmatic encryption of stored keys — something the community has been asking for since they currently save as plain text in the database. The decision is to merge it to gather real feedback before the code freeze for 7.1, with the possibility of reverting if necessary.
Two other topics merit mention. The first is the Connectors API: exploring how to let providers register custom configuration fields — like those needed for local installations with Llama-type models — declaratively from PHP without requiring complex React components. The second is the MCP adapter, which is raising its minimum requirement to WordPress 6.9 so it can rely on the native Abilities API and eliminate old dependencies.
The Test team has published a call for testing on an update that directly affects WordPress.org profiles: the integration of job functionality directly into the project’s infrastructure. Jobs.wordpress.net has existed for years as the WordPress ecosystem job board, but it’s now being integrated with profiles in a much tighter way.
Profiles gain new sections to add work history, notable accomplishments, and a toggle to indicate you’re open to work opportunities, with the option to also display the “Open to work” badge on your Gravatar. Profiles marked as available appear directly in the candidates section of jobs.wordpress.net, turning the WordPress.org profile into something like a lightweight candidate page within the ecosystem.
The Accessibility team has published a detailed summary of all the improvements WordPress 7.0 brings in this area, with 24 fixes and improvements in Core and 16 in the editor.
In Core, the most relevant changes affect the media library: it’s now possible to use it with voice recognition software, and alt text embedded in an image’s IPTC metadata is automatically imported and assigned on upload — something photographers and agencies already tagging their files will appreciate.
The new “Modern” admin color scheme also resolves several contrast issues that the previous one violated according to WCAG standards, and password reset now pre-fills the username — a WCAG 2.2 requirement that had been pending for some time.
In the editor, the most notable updates are keyboard navigation support in DataViews grid views, improvements to the Gallery block so the block list works correctly, and the fact that new interfaces arriving in 7.0 — like Visual Revisions, the gallery lightbox, and the Connectors screen — have all gone through accessibility review before release. The team points to this as part of their commitment to meeting WCAG 2.2 Level AA on all new code.
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!
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