Custom WordPress Blocks With AI: A Senior Dev’s Honest Take

I got a ticket from a client the other day. Good client, on a monthly retainer. They wanted a copyright notice in their footer that automatically updated the year. Simple enough. But they wanted to be able to edit the company name right there in the Site Editor. My first thought? Ugh.

This is one of those tiny jobs that becomes a total headache. The old way would be a shortcode, like [copyright]. But shortcodes are a pain in the block editor. They don’t preview, they feel clunky, and clients hate them. The “right” way is to build a custom WordPress block. But for a simple copyright line? Total overkill.

Spinning up a full React build environment, dealing with npm dependencies, just to output a single line of text… it’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It’s not billable time that feels good. I almost told them to just update the year manually every January. Almost.

Then I Remembered the AI Hype

I’d been seeing stuff about AI-powered WordPress blocks. Sounded like a toy, to be honest. But this seemed like the perfect low-stakes test. I found this tool, Telex, from Automattic and decided to give it a shot. I didn’t expect much, but I typed in a prompt, basically talking to it like a junior dev.

Create a WordPress block named "Copyright Year". It should display the copyright symbol (©), followed by the current year, followed by a company name. The company name must be an editable text field in the block's inspector controls. Default it to "My Awesome Company".

And here’s the kicker… it worked. On the first try. It generated a live preview right in the browser. I tweaked the prompt a bit to refine the output, and then it let me download a standard, installable plugin zip. No build process. No terminal window. Just a prompt and a zip file. Took me all of five minutes.

Now, my little copyright block is pretty boring. If you want to see the flashy stuff, the official WordPress.com blog has a whole showcase of wild examples made with this tech, from Minesweeper to personality quizzes. Fun, but not exactly a client request I get every day.

So, What’s the Real Use Case Here?

This isn’t going to put WordPress developers out of a job. Not by a long shot. But it is a seriously powerful tool for a few specific things:

• Rapid Prototyping: Building a quick, functional block to show a client an idea without spending half a day on setup is huge.
• Simple Utilities: Perfect for small, single-purpose blocks like my copyright example, a social share button, or a stylized callout box.
• Client Empowerment: For clients who are technically savvy but aren’t React developers, this could let them build their own simple layout tools.

For anything complex that needs to handle metadata, talk to third-party APIs, or have high-performance requirements? You still need a pro. But for the small stuff, this changes the game.

Look, this stuff gets complicated fast. If you’re tired of debugging someone else’s mess and just want your site to work, drop my team a line. We’ve probably seen it before.

It’s a new tool in the toolbox, and one I’ll definitely be using again. It saves time on the boring stuff so we can focus on the hard problems. And that’s a win.