For everyone who builds on WordPress
The case for WordPress.
“WordPress is dying,” they say. The biggest ecosystem on the open web is the one most ready for AI agents.
What this is
A video for the people who keep WordPress running.
Every few months someone declares WordPress dead, and someone else moves a site to whatever is new. The people who build on WordPress rarely answer. They are busy shipping.
This video answers for them: 23 years of open source, the plugins and the businesses behind them, and why that makes WordPress the platform most ready for AI agents. I made it for agencies, plugin developers, page builders, theme makers and hosts to share as their own. There is no product in it. If it says something you have been meaning to say, pass it on.
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Post the video itself. A video uploaded to the network reaches more people than a link. Free to download, post and cut up.
The shift
AI can write a website in seconds. Running one is the hard part.
When code costs nothing, what counts is everything code alone cannot give you. WordPress has spent 23 years building exactly that.
- A structure agents can read. Posts, pages, users, roles and revisions work the same way on 39.3% of all websites, so an agent does not start from scratch on each one.
- Abilities, in core. Since WordPress 6.9 a site can tell an AI agent what it can do, and plugins can register their own abilities. The official MCP Adapter connects them to Claude, ChatGPT and the rest.
- An ecosystem that already did the work. Search, shops, forms, bookings, memberships, languages: 78,000+ free plugins, built and maintained by people, instead of a fresh pile of generated code on every site.
- People who stand behind it. Agencies, plugin developers, page builders, theme makers and hosts who answer when something breaks, and who keep shipping because their business depends on it.
The hard facts
Each number links to where it comes from. Read there on 10 November 2026.
39.3%
of all websites run WordPress, and 58.1% of the sites whose CMS is known.
78,000+
free plugins in the WordPress.org directory, each one made by somebody.
23 years
of open source. The first release went out on 27 May 2003.
900+
people credited for a single release, WordPress 6.9, in December 2025.
Since 2020
XML sitemaps are built into core (WordPress 5.5). Search engines find a new site with nothing installed.
In core
The Abilities API, since WordPress 6.9: a standard way for AI agents to see what a site can do. Built by Core AI, the WordPress AI team, in the open.
70,000+
sites run the official MCP Adapter, published by WordPress.org, that lets AI agents use those abilities.
11,334
vulnerabilities disclosed in public in 2025, 91% of them in plugins, and 46% with no fix yet at disclosure. Found, numbered and published by people who go looking, which is how they get fixed. Keep things updated.
If you do WordPress work with AI
Seven lines for builders who still put their name on the work.
The manifesto is a short promise for people who build WordPress sites with AI: faster is fine, worse is not. Builders sign it with their name.
- I build for humans who visit, not algorithms that rank.
- I review before I ship, and I refuse first drafts.
- I use AI to build faster, not to build worse.
- I duplicate before I touch, so the gate is always there.
- I sign my work, because a human stood behind it.
- I know when not to build, because not everything that can ship should.
- I listen to the site before I change it.
Supporters
The businesses behind the case.
The first invitations go out this week, to plugin developers, page builders, theme makers, hosts and agencies. If you build on WordPress, add the badge to your site and tell me. Your logo goes here.
Get the badge
For a README. The open source convention: a shields.io badge in Markdown, for GitHub, GitLab and WordPress.org readmes.
The HTML loads the badge from respira.press, so there is nothing to upload: paste it into a Custom HTML block or your footer. WordPress blocks SVG uploads by default, so if you would rather host the file yourself, use the PNG. The badges are CC0: use them, change them, no credit needed.
A migration moves your pages. It doesn’t move the people around them.
- The developer who answers your ticket.
- The agency down the road.
- The plugin someone has maintained for twelve years.
- The editor your client already knows.
- The meetup.
Behind every plugin, theme, page builder and agency there are people: salaries, rent, school shoes. For 23 years these businesses have kept shipping, because people depend on them. That is not legacy. That is infrastructure.
Made by Respira for WordPress, one WordPress business among thousands. Everyone in the video was made with AI, the bread too. The people it is about are real.
This page is WordPress: a fresh install, Twenty Twenty-Five, core blocks and three small blocks of its own for sharing.