Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Kicking Off Twenty Twenty-Seven
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Kicking Off Twenty Twenty-Seven
Six months earlier than usual, work has begun on Twenty Twenty-Seven, a theme expected to be one of the most polished yet, launching alongside WordPress 7.2.
Remember that you can listen to this program from Pocket Casts, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the feed directly.
Program transcript
Hello, I’m Alicia Ireland, and you’re listening to WPpodcast, bringing the weekly news from the WordPress Community.
In this episode, you’ll find the information from March 9 to 15, 2026.
It was an intense week for WordPress releases. On Tuesday, March 10, WordPress 6.9.2 was published — a security release addressing ten vulnerabilities, including XSS flaws, a vulnerability in the external library getID3, an authorization bypass, and a path traversal issue in PclZip. As a security release, immediate updating was mandatory.
Just hours after 6.9.2 went live, some sites started showing a blank screen. The problem was caused by certain themes loading templates in a non-standard way. The security team moved fast and published WordPress 6.9.3 that same day to address it. But it didn’t end there: the following day, March 11, it was discovered that not all security patches from 6.9.2 had been applied correctly, which required publishing WordPress 6.9.4 with the remaining fixes. In short, three maintenance releases in under 48 hours — unusual, but a clear example of how WordPress’s security team handles rapid response.
Running in parallel, the WordPress 7.0 beta cycle continues on track. Beta 4 was published alongside 6.9.3 so testers could also have access to the security patches. And on March 12, Beta 5 shipped, bringing over 100 fixes since Beta 3, along with a notable new feature: a direct shortcut to the command palette from the admin bar, visible to logged-in users via the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+K or Command+K. The WordPress 7.0 release date remains April 9.
Work has already begun on the next default WordPress theme. The team has put out a call for volunteers to contribute to Twenty Twenty-Seven, the theme that will ship with WordPress 7.2, planned for early December 2026.
Lead design is being handled by designer Arin Ohm, and contributors are being sought for development and testing. The deadline to sign up is March 27. The fact that this call is going out this early — with nearly nine months to go — signals a deliberate effort to allow enough iteration time and arrive at launch with a solid result.
Gutenberg 22.7 was released on March 11, with updates pointing in several directions at once.
On the AI front, the most notable addition is the new Connectors screen, accessible from Settings, which lets users view and manage connections to AI providers. For now it shows example connectors for OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini, and exposes hooks so external plugins can register their own connectors. This screen remains experimental.
On real-time collaboration, the biggest change is that it is now enabled by default. It was previously opt-in; it is now the standard way to work in the editor when multiple users are editing simultaneously. This release also includes a significant number of bug fixes related to this feature.
On the editor side, three visual improvements are worth noting. Style variations in block transforms now show a preview before being applied. The Grid block visualizer responds faster and more accurately when changing the number of columns. And the Playlist block gains a waveform visualizer for audio, though the block itself remains experimental.
Real-time collaboration is one of the flagship features of WordPress 7.0, and this week both the developer dev note and the community testing call were published. It marks the close of Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project, which launched years ago with the goal of enabling multiple people to edit the same content simultaneously — much like Google Docs.
The feature uses the Yjs library to synchronize changes between users, and by default does so via HTTP polling. Plugin developers can replace that mechanism using a filter called sync.providers, which would allow using WebSockets or other protocols to reduce latency. One important caveat: if a post has classic meta boxes, real-time collaboration is automatically disabled to prevent data loss. The recommendation is to migrate those fields to the modern metadata system integrated with the block editor.
To get this feature into WordPress 7.0 in good shape, the Test team is asking for community help. The idea is to test it under real conditions: install the WordPress 7.0 beta on an accessible server, invite others to edit the same post simultaneously, and report any issues that come up — especially around plugins, performance, and accessibility.
WordPress.org has launched an experiment to give visibility to new, quality plugins that tend to go unnoticed in the directory. The problem is well known: with the current volume of available plugins, newcomers have a very hard time standing out against plugins that already have thousands of active installs.
The initiative selects eight plugins every two weeks from those that meet a basic set of requirements: fewer than 10,000 active installs, published in the directory within the last twelve months, compatible with the current version of WordPress, updated within the last six months, and with no open security vulnerabilities. From there, additional criteria are evaluated: code quality, genuine usefulness to users, lack of overlap with already established plugins, and whether the developer is active in the support forums.
No application is needed — all plugins meeting the requirements are automatically included in the candidate pool. For now the experiment is small and will be adjusted based on results.
The AI team has published version 0.5.0 of the AI Experiments plugin.
The most significant change in this release is that the plugin no longer bundles its own AI client dependencies and instead uses the AI client already integrated into WordPress 7.0 core. This eliminates duplication, reduces footprint, and ensures the experiments stay aligned with the project’s official direction. As a result, the minimum required version is now WordPress 7.0, meaning users still on 6.9 will need to wait for the final release before updating the plugin. Additionally, AI provider credentials that were previously managed in the plugin’s own screen are now migrated to the new Connectors screen.
There are also two notable developments on the near-term horizon. The team is evaluating whether the plugin should be renamed, since the mix of in-progress experiments and already-stable features makes the current name AI Experiments increasingly inaccurate. Options being considered include WordPress AI, AI, and AI Labs. Separately, work is underway on a global toggle to disable all AI features in WordPress core, giving site administrators who don’t want to use these features the ability to turn them all off with a single switch.
The Plugins review team is looking for new volunteers, and the numbers make it clear why. In 2024, between 100 and 150 new plugins were being submitted each week for review. In 2025 that figure started exceeding 200 and ended the year above 300. In March 2026, submissions are already surpassing 500 per week — meaning as many plugins arrive in two days as used to arrive in an entire week two years ago.
The team reviews every plugin before it enters the official directory, checking for quality, security, and compliance with guidelines. To handle this volume, they are seeking two types of contributors. First, volunteers who can commit time on a consistent basis to reviewing plugins, responding to authors, and improving processes — the training period is approximately two months. Second, organizations willing to sponsor those volunteers.
WordPress has introduced myWordPress, a full WordPress installation that runs directly in the browser — no account required, no hosting, no setup. Built on WordPress Playground technology, and unlike the temporary test environments that already existed, this installation is persistent: data is saved in the browser itself and survives across sessions.
The pitch is straightforward. WordPress stops being a service you have to contract and configure and becomes a personal workspace, private by default and not accessible from the internet. It works for writing, taking notes, learning, experimenting with plugins and themes, or simply having your own environment without depending on any external provider.
To illustrate the possibilities, myWordPress ships with a catalog of preconfigured apps that install with a single click, including a personal contact manager, an RSS reader based on the Friends plugin, and an AI workspace that can modify the installation, create plugins, or work with stored content. A few limitations to keep in mind: storage starts at around 100 MB, the first load takes a bit longer while the environment initializes, and each device has its own independent installation.
And finally, this podcast is distributed under a Creative Commons license as a derivative version of the podcast in Spanish; you can find all the links for more information, and the podcast in other languages, at WPpodcast .org.
Thanks for listening, and until the next episode!
View all episodes
By WPpodcast TeamSix months earlier than usual, work has begun on Twenty Twenty-Seven, a theme expected to be one of the most polished yet, launching alongside WordPress 7.2.
Remember that you can listen to this program from Pocket Casts, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the feed directly.
Program transcript
Hello, I’m Alicia Ireland, and you’re listening to WPpodcast, bringing the weekly news from the WordPress Community.
In this episode, you’ll find the information from March 9 to 15, 2026.
It was an intense week for WordPress releases. On Tuesday, March 10, WordPress 6.9.2 was published — a security release addressing ten vulnerabilities, including XSS flaws, a vulnerability in the external library getID3, an authorization bypass, and a path traversal issue in PclZip. As a security release, immediate updating was mandatory.
Just hours after 6.9.2 went live, some sites started showing a blank screen. The problem was caused by certain themes loading templates in a non-standard way. The security team moved fast and published WordPress 6.9.3 that same day to address it. But it didn’t end there: the following day, March 11, it was discovered that not all security patches from 6.9.2 had been applied correctly, which required publishing WordPress 6.9.4 with the remaining fixes. In short, three maintenance releases in under 48 hours — unusual, but a clear example of how WordPress’s security team handles rapid response.
Running in parallel, the WordPress 7.0 beta cycle continues on track. Beta 4 was published alongside 6.9.3 so testers could also have access to the security patches. And on March 12, Beta 5 shipped, bringing over 100 fixes since Beta 3, along with a notable new feature: a direct shortcut to the command palette from the admin bar, visible to logged-in users via the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+K or Command+K. The WordPress 7.0 release date remains April 9.
Work has already begun on the next default WordPress theme. The team has put out a call for volunteers to contribute to Twenty Twenty-Seven, the theme that will ship with WordPress 7.2, planned for early December 2026.
Lead design is being handled by designer Arin Ohm, and contributors are being sought for development and testing. The deadline to sign up is March 27. The fact that this call is going out this early — with nearly nine months to go — signals a deliberate effort to allow enough iteration time and arrive at launch with a solid result.
Gutenberg 22.7 was released on March 11, with updates pointing in several directions at once.
On the AI front, the most notable addition is the new Connectors screen, accessible from Settings, which lets users view and manage connections to AI providers. For now it shows example connectors for OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini, and exposes hooks so external plugins can register their own connectors. This screen remains experimental.
On real-time collaboration, the biggest change is that it is now enabled by default. It was previously opt-in; it is now the standard way to work in the editor when multiple users are editing simultaneously. This release also includes a significant number of bug fixes related to this feature.
On the editor side, three visual improvements are worth noting. Style variations in block transforms now show a preview before being applied. The Grid block visualizer responds faster and more accurately when changing the number of columns. And the Playlist block gains a waveform visualizer for audio, though the block itself remains experimental.
Real-time collaboration is one of the flagship features of WordPress 7.0, and this week both the developer dev note and the community testing call were published. It marks the close of Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project, which launched years ago with the goal of enabling multiple people to edit the same content simultaneously — much like Google Docs.
The feature uses the Yjs library to synchronize changes between users, and by default does so via HTTP polling. Plugin developers can replace that mechanism using a filter called sync.providers, which would allow using WebSockets or other protocols to reduce latency. One important caveat: if a post has classic meta boxes, real-time collaboration is automatically disabled to prevent data loss. The recommendation is to migrate those fields to the modern metadata system integrated with the block editor.
To get this feature into WordPress 7.0 in good shape, the Test team is asking for community help. The idea is to test it under real conditions: install the WordPress 7.0 beta on an accessible server, invite others to edit the same post simultaneously, and report any issues that come up — especially around plugins, performance, and accessibility.
WordPress.org has launched an experiment to give visibility to new, quality plugins that tend to go unnoticed in the directory. The problem is well known: with the current volume of available plugins, newcomers have a very hard time standing out against plugins that already have thousands of active installs.
The initiative selects eight plugins every two weeks from those that meet a basic set of requirements: fewer than 10,000 active installs, published in the directory within the last twelve months, compatible with the current version of WordPress, updated within the last six months, and with no open security vulnerabilities. From there, additional criteria are evaluated: code quality, genuine usefulness to users, lack of overlap with already established plugins, and whether the developer is active in the support forums.
No application is needed — all plugins meeting the requirements are automatically included in the candidate pool. For now the experiment is small and will be adjusted based on results.
The AI team has published version 0.5.0 of the AI Experiments plugin.
The most significant change in this release is that the plugin no longer bundles its own AI client dependencies and instead uses the AI client already integrated into WordPress 7.0 core. This eliminates duplication, reduces footprint, and ensures the experiments stay aligned with the project’s official direction. As a result, the minimum required version is now WordPress 7.0, meaning users still on 6.9 will need to wait for the final release before updating the plugin. Additionally, AI provider credentials that were previously managed in the plugin’s own screen are now migrated to the new Connectors screen.
There are also two notable developments on the near-term horizon. The team is evaluating whether the plugin should be renamed, since the mix of in-progress experiments and already-stable features makes the current name AI Experiments increasingly inaccurate. Options being considered include WordPress AI, AI, and AI Labs. Separately, work is underway on a global toggle to disable all AI features in WordPress core, giving site administrators who don’t want to use these features the ability to turn them all off with a single switch.
The Plugins review team is looking for new volunteers, and the numbers make it clear why. In 2024, between 100 and 150 new plugins were being submitted each week for review. In 2025 that figure started exceeding 200 and ended the year above 300. In March 2026, submissions are already surpassing 500 per week — meaning as many plugins arrive in two days as used to arrive in an entire week two years ago.
The team reviews every plugin before it enters the official directory, checking for quality, security, and compliance with guidelines. To handle this volume, they are seeking two types of contributors. First, volunteers who can commit time on a consistent basis to reviewing plugins, responding to authors, and improving processes — the training period is approximately two months. Second, organizations willing to sponsor those volunteers.
WordPress has introduced myWordPress, a full WordPress installation that runs directly in the browser — no account required, no hosting, no setup. Built on WordPress Playground technology, and unlike the temporary test environments that already existed, this installation is persistent: data is saved in the browser itself and survives across sessions.
The pitch is straightforward. WordPress stops being a service you have to contract and configure and becomes a personal workspace, private by default and not accessible from the internet. It works for writing, taking notes, learning, experimenting with plugins and themes, or simply having your own environment without depending on any external provider.
To illustrate the possibilities, myWordPress ships with a catalog of preconfigured apps that install with a single click, including a personal contact manager, an RSS reader based on the Friends plugin, and an AI workspace that can modify the installation, create plugins, or work with stored content. A few limitations to keep in mind: storage starts at around 100 MB, the first load takes a bit longer while the environment initializes, and each device has its own independent installation.
And finally, this podcast is distributed under a Creative Commons license as a derivative version of the podcast in Spanish; you can find all the links for more information, and the podcast in other languages, at WPpodcast .org.
Thanks for listening, and until the next episode!