WP:26 — Event Replay
On 12 March 2026, WP:26 brought together some of the brightest minds in the WordPress ecosystem to explore the trends redefining the platform.
From AI-driven workflows and the agentic web to accessibility and the future of search, we unpacked what’s changing and what it means for building with WordPress.
Catch up below!
WP:26 catch-up
After our host Petya Raykovska kicked proceedings off, Noel set the tone with a talk firmly focused on the cutting edge of what’s possible with WordPress today and what teams will be looking to create in the months ahead. As well as demonstrating innovative ways that AI-enabled workflows are transforming what’s possible in WordPress, Noel explained why we believe WordPress offers the strongest potential for creating an AI ecosystem amongst CMSes today.
“Also interesting is that WordPress may actually have an edge on other CMSes here and not because it ships the most polished AI features out of the box. quite the opposite actually.
It’s because it ships some of the most comprehensive foundations out there. Open models, open abilities, open protocols.”
CGO, Human Made and Altis
Alex continued the future-focused theme, with a timely examination of the most recent evolution in the search landscape. Throwing off the shackles of buzzwords and new acronyms, Alex gave us a focused take on how the arrival of AI has impacted search, content discoverability and content strategy for all of us. Across an insight-packed 30-minutes, we heard where we’ve been, what’s happening now, what the future might look like, and – importantly – what we can do about it.
“If you’re one of those companies where if I go to the about page and read three sentences and I still don’t know what you do, that’s for the human. That’s not for the machine. Make sure that everything’s machine readable and make sure that everything’s concise, everything is structured well.”
Next up, we heard from accessibility expert Rian. In a wide-ranging discussion, we heard about how fundamental accessibility is in 2026. Rian also shared details regarding the awesome WP Accessibility Knowledge Base she has been working on, before venturing further into the future to look at how innovations like FSE, the evolving web, and AI could all impact and be impacted by accessibility in years to come.
“If you create only for perfect people, people who have perfect eyesight, are clear of mind, can move their hands, are web savvy. Well, then you say, okay, only those people are allowed in my web shop and the rest of the people I don’t give access to and the rest of the people is quite a lot of people. So you have to take in account that you build for everyone not only for perfect people.”
Web Accessibility Specialist
Chris unpacked how AI is rapidly reshaping the web, from how people discover information to how transactions happen online. Drawing on insights from Pantheon’s State of the Web report, he explored the rise of AI agents as active participants in the web, the pressure this creates for open source communities, and why human judgment still matters in an AI-driven world. The takeaway: the web is changing fast, but the open web still gives organisations the power to own their content, their data, and their future.
“Organizations that deploy AI as a cost exercise are going to find out what that judgment actually is worth after it’s gone. The ones that are doing it well aren’t asking how much can we save.
They need to be asking what they need to produce and is AI the right tool for producing it.”
Senior Developer Advocate, Pantheon
Panel discussion
Why we’re backing WordPress in 2026
Mary Hubbard, Executive Director, WordPress
Gabriel Koen, SVP, Technology, PMC
Umer Ehsan, Director of Technology – Content, News UK
Joachim Valdemar Yde, Web Manager, CERN
Steph Yiu, CEO, WordPress VIP
The final session of the day was a fascinating panel discussion, featuring – if we do say so ourselves – a truly amazing line up of speakers. We heard about how WordPress enables huge international publishing brands to meet the challenges faced by media companies in 2026, and how the birthplace of the world wide web, CERN, is embracing WordPress after its move from Drupal. We also gained an insight into how WordPress VIP is helping its clients prepare for what’s to come.
“WordPress does a great job of staying modern… the fact that we’ve been able to build on top of it for almost two decades and still see it as the platform for the next several years is pretty remarkable.”
SVP, Technology, PMC
Downloadable guide
Download the report
Discover just some of the key themes we covered in WP:26.
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