Exploring WordPress 7: Speed, Flexibility, and AI Features on the Horizon

Welcome back to Tech Brewed! In this episode, host Greg Doig dives into the upcoming WordPress 7 release, highlighting the platform’s focus on speed, flexibility, and a smoother user experience. You’ll hear about key changes from streamlined navigation and powerful upgrades to the Notes feature, to experimental AI tools designed to make site building and community management easier than ever. Plus, Greg Doig explains how you, the community, can play a hands-on role in shaping WordPress 7. If you’re passionate about web publishing, tune in to learn how your feedback could help define the next era of WordPress, with its anticipated launch in April 2026.

Transcript

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The next major update to WordPress is just around the corner, and I took a look at what's happening in WordPress 7. Welcome back, tech enthusiasts. I'm Greg Doig, your host, and the focus in WordPress 7 appears to be speed, flexibility, and a smoother user experience. The WordPress core

team's priorities for this major update include the following: 0:22

streamlining the editor and simplifying navigation, making the site building process cleaner and faster, more flexible navigation and responsive grid styles to give you greater design control, upgrades to the Notes feature, making that tool even more powerful, plus a general move towards smoother workflows that should make publishing just a little bit less fiddly. So here's where you come in. Some of the most exciting features are still experimental, specifically new AI-powered tools that need real-world feedback before they ship. The test team is calling for contributors to try out features like type-ahead suggestions to speed up your writing, comment moderation assistance to help manage your community, and AI request logging. And you don't have to be a developer to help. They're looking for answers to high-level questions, which is where the concern lies. They want to know if these features are useful or just confusing. So your hands-on testing could directly influence what actually makes it into WordPress 7.0, making this a critical moment for the community to get involved and shape the future of the platform. There's an expected release date sometime in April 2026. And once again, thanks for stopping by and listening, and we'll talk to you soon.