WordPress 6.9 is finally bringing the first tangible pieces of the WordPress Core AI initiative into the software we use every day. After six months of watching the working group refine these “building blocks,” we’ve reached a point where the architecture is stable enough for us to stop experimenting and start implementing. If you’ve been hacking together custom OpenAI integrations or juggling half a dozen different SDKs, this update is the signal to start refactoring.
I’ve seen plenty of “core features” drop with a lot of fanfare only to languish in the plugin repository, but the Abilities API feels different. It’s a functional core designed to describe exactly what an AI system can do within your site’s environment. Instead of every plugin reinventing the wheel to “summarize a post,” we now have a unified registry.
The Abilities API: The Functional Core of WordPress Core AI
Slated for WordPress 6.9, the Abilities API is the most significant milestone so far. Think of it as a schema for AI-powered actions. It provides a shared vocabulary that allows internal WordPress systems—and external agents—to understand the capabilities of a site. This isn’t just about prompt engineering; it’s about providing a stable contract for single-shot features like title generation or post summarization.
If you’re building a plugin, you’ll want to register your specific AI features as “abilities.” This makes them discoverable and usable by the upcoming Command Palette and other workflow systems. Here is a conceptual look at how we’ll likely be interfacing with this API to handle a specific task, like generating WooCommerce meta data.
/**
* Registering a custom AI ability for product metadata.
* Note: This is based on the current Core AI implementation patterns.
*/
function bbioon_register_meta_ability() {
if ( ! function_exists( 'wp_ai_register_ability' ) ) {
return;
}
wp_ai_register_ability(
'bbioon/generate-product-meta',
array(
'description' => __( 'Generates optimized SEO meta descriptions for products.', 'bbioon' ),
'parameters' => array(
'product_id' => array(
'type' => 'integer',
'required' => true,
),
),
'callback' => 'bbioon_handle_meta_generation',
)
);
}
add_action( 'init', 'bbioon_register_meta_ability' );
function bbioon_handle_meta_generation( $params ) {
// Implementation logic for fetching product data and calling the AI client
return array( 'meta_description' => 'Optimized description text...' );
}WP Client AI: Standardizing the Provider Interface
One of the biggest bottlenecks I’ve encountered in WordPress Core AI development is provider lock-in. Switching from OpenAI to Anthropic often meant rewriting the entire communication layer. The new WP Client AI API (v0.1.0) solves this by offering a canonical PHP SDK. It acts as an abstraction layer between WordPress and the LLM providers.
Major hosts like DreamHost and WordPress.com are already implementing providers for this interface. This means that as a developer, you can write your feature once, and it will “just work” regardless of whether the user is on a host providing their own AI or using their own API key. You can read more about how this integrates into the long-term roadmap for Core 7.0.
MCP Adapter: Connecting to the External Ecosystem
The MCP Adapter (v0.3.0) is perhaps the most “meta” part of this update. By using the Model Context Protocol, any WordPress site effectively becomes an MCP server. This allows AI clients like Cursor or Claude Code to “talk” to WordPress directly. It exposes those registered abilities as tools that the AI can execute.
The real shift happens when the adapter becomes bidirectional in the next phase. WordPress won’t just be a target for AI agents; it will be an MCP client itself, consuming external tools and bringing that functionality into the admin dashboard via the Abilities API. This creates a bridge between our sites and the broader AI ecosystem that didn’t exist six months ago.
Look, if this WordPress Core AI stuff is eating up your dev hours, let me handle it. I’ve been wrestling with WordPress since the 4.x days, and I’ve seen these shifts before. Integrating these APIs correctly now will save you from a massive refactoring headache when WordPress 7.0 drops.
Takeaway: Start Building on the Standards
The WordPress Core AI roadmap is clear: 6.9 brings the server-side Abilities API, and 7.0 will likely merge the client implementation and the full WP Client AI SDK. Consequently, the days of proprietary, siloed AI implementations in plugins are numbered. The community is moving toward a world where AI is a first-class citizen of the CMS. If you’re a developer or an agency owner, now is the time to dive into the AI Experiment plugin and start aligning your projects with these core standards. Don’t wait for 7.0 to realize your architecture is legacy.
