Meetups are the events the project needs to focus on to grow the community, and for that reason a significant effort will be made to improve documentation and better understand current needs.
Remember that you can listen to this program from Pocket Casts, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the feed directly.
Program transcript
Hello, Iâm Alicia Ireland, and youâre listening to WPpodcast, bringing the weekly news from the WordPress Community.
In this episode, youâll find the information from January 26 to February 1, 2026.
A new version of WordPress is about to be released. In this case, it will be the first minor release of the current branch, WordPress 6.9.1, which includes 23 core fixes and 25 editor fixes.
The Core AI team has full priority on moving AI Experiments and Abilities forward, and on preparing the groundwork so that the AI client and its components can land in WordPress 7.0 without being blocked by the release schedule.
Work is now focused on AI Experiments 0.3, with planned improvements such as refactoring the Abilities Explorer and better integration with editor tools.
Abilities remained a central topic, with progress on Settings and Core Post Management Abilities, aiming to clearly define compatibility and versioning. In parallel, work on the PHP AI Client is being accelerated, with a new version released and a clear list of next steps, all driven by the target date of WordPress 7.0 Beta 1 on February 19.
The Playground team has confirmed the early removal of support for PHP 7.2 and 7.3, aligning with what is planned for WordPress 7.0, and shared updates related to AI agents, including a new Agent Skill for testing WordPress applications in Playground and the release of an additional set by Automattic.
The Community team continues to align with WordPress goals for 2026 through a specification focused on Meetups. The main objective is to relaunch and strengthen these events as the primary entry point to WordPress, maintaining what already works while adding more active participation, with hands on sessions and meetups centered on solving real problems, and with clear steps for people to move from attending to contributing on Make teams.
To achieve this, immediate actions are proposed, such as reviewing and expanding handbook resources, reaching out to organizers to understand their needs, reactivating or closing inactive chapters, creating templates and guides for new formats, and measuring progress through metrics such as activity, attendance, and success stories.
On the other hand, the search for sponsors for a WordPress Campus Connect pilot scholarship is ongoing. It is aimed at enabling students who previously participated in Campus Connect and remained involved to attend WordCamp Asia 2026. Nominations will be made by organizers, a small committee will select candidates based on enthusiasm, continued community involvement, and the expected impact of attending, and the scholarship is expected to cover travel, accommodation, and a ticket, with the goal of supporting up to three students in its first year.
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!
Leave a Reply