Headline & Intro
WordPress.com didn’t just add a handy AI toy – it quietly moved the goalposts for who controls the next generation of the web. By baking an AI assistant directly into the site editor, Automattic is turning WordPress.com into something closer to Squarespace, Framer or Wix – but with AI as the primary interface, not menus and templates.
In this piece we’ll look at what was actually launched, why it matters for creators, agencies and developers, how it fits into the wider AI‑website race, and what it means specifically for European users living under GDPR and the upcoming EU AI Act.
The news in brief
According to TechCrunch, WordPress.com has introduced a built‑in AI assistant that understands a site’s content and layout and can make changes via natural‑language commands. It works inside the block‑based editor (not classic themes) and can adjust layouts, styling and patterns – for example, adding pages or sections, or changing colors and typography based on broad descriptions.
The assistant can also edit and generate text: rewriting content in a different tone, translating sections to other languages, suggesting headlines, checking grammar and doing basic fact‑checking. This is integrated into the collaborative “block notes” editor via an @ai mention.
For visuals, WordPress.com hooks into Google’s Gemini‑based image models: users can click a new “Generate Image” button in the Media Library, define style and aspect ratio, and either create new images or modify existing ones.
The feature is opt‑in. Site owners must enable it in Settings under an “AI tools” section, while customers who buy a site via the AI website builder will have it switched on by default.
Why this matters
On the surface, this is another AI feature launch in a very crowded year. Underneath, it’s a strategic answer to a problem that has haunted WordPress.com for a decade: too much power user flexibility, not enough mainstream usability.
Who wins first?
- Solo creators and small businesses who can’t afford a designer suddenly get something close to a junior designer and junior copy‑editor baked into their CMS. “Make this more modern” is a much lower barrier than navigating theme options.
- Automattic gets a way to defend WordPress.com against AI‑heavy rivals like Wix, Squarespace and Framer, which already push “describe your site, we’ll build it” experiences.
Who loses – or at least feels pressure?
- Freelance designers and small agencies that sold low‑complexity brochure sites will feel margin pressure. A hotel, café or local NGO that just needs “a decent site” will be tempted to let the AI handle 80% of the work.
- Classic theme users and more conservative WordPress professionals see further confirmation that the Gutenberg block future is where innovation happens – and that the old theme ecosystem will get steadily sidelined.
The deeper issue is control of the interface. Until now, power in WordPress was in knowing where everything lives: settings, theme options, plugins. With natural‑language controls, the knowledge advantage shrinks. The question becomes: who controls the AI layer? On WordPress.com, that answer is Automattic – not agencies, not plugin authors, not even the broader open‑source community.
The bigger picture
WordPress.com’s move lands in the middle of a broader AI‑CMS arms race.
- Wix and Squarespace already ship AI site generators where you describe your business and get a starter site.
- Framer has leaned heavily into AI‑assisted layout and copy for landing pages.
- Shopify has its “Magic” features for product descriptions and content.
Automattic experimented early with AI (for example via Jetpack AI for self‑hosted sites), but much of that lived in the plugin world. This launch is different: it’s core to the WordPress.com experience, not an optional extra for power users.
Historically, we’ve seen similar turning points when CMS platforms embedded features that were once the domain of agencies and plugins:
- Built‑in responsive layouts reduced the need for custom mobile themes.
- Theme customizers with live preview reduced low‑level CSS tinkering.
- Page builders changed who could build complex layouts.
AI assistants are the next step in that commoditisation curve. What used to require a designer’s intuition (“make this feel more open”, “this looks dated”) is being approximated by models trained on countless design patterns.
Compared to competitors, the interesting nuance is WordPress.com’s open‑source gravitational pull. While WordPress.com is a hosted, closed environment, it lives in the same ecosystem as self‑hosted WordPress.org. Every time Automattic adds something compelling to .com, it raises expectations for what “WordPress” means everywhere. Plugin authors and independent hosts will now face pressure to offer their own AI editing experiences – or risk looking archaic.
This is also another data point that the future web editing interface will increasingly be chat‑ or command‑driven. Menus won’t disappear, but they may become a fallback for when natural language fails.
The European / regional angle
For European users and organisations, this launch immediately triggers two questions: data protection and regulatory exposure.
The assistant touches content, user data embedded in that content, and now images via Google’s Gemini‑based models. That means:
- Under GDPR, site owners remain controllers for any personal data they feed into the AI. They must understand where processing happens, on what legal basis and with which subprocessors. WordPress.com will need very clear documentation here – especially once regulators start scrutinising AI features more closely.
- The upcoming EU AI Act will likely classify many content‑generation tools as “limited‑risk” systems, but they still face transparency duties. Expect pressure on Automattic to explain when content was generated or heavily altered by AI, and what safeguards exist around hallucinations and bias.
From a market perspective, this is significant in a region where WordPress power‑users, agencies and hosting providers are a major part of the digital economy. Many German agencies, Slovenian and Croatian SMEs, Spanish and Italian tourism providers, and Central‑European e‑commerce shops run on WordPress. If the easiest, most polished AI tools live on WordPress.com (and not on local hosts), some of that value could migrate to Automattic’s infrastructure.
At the same time, Europe’s strong multilingual reality – and the weakness of many small organisations in content production – means AI‑aided translation and copy‑editing are extremely attractive. For a small NGO in Ljubljana or a clinic in Munich, being able to ask “translate this page to Slovene and German and make it sound more formal” directly inside the editor is a very tangible productivity boost.
Looking ahead
Over the next 12–24 months, expect three main fronts of development.
Deeper integration into workflows
Today’s assistant edits content, layout and images. The logical next step is tying this into analytics and conversion data: “rewrite this landing page to improve sign‑ups”, “A/B test two AI‑generated hero sections”. Whether and how Automattic moves in that direction will determine how threatening this becomes to marketing agencies.Tension with the plugin and agency ecosystem
If users get “good enough” AI editing in core, they may question paying for specialised design or copy plugins. Some plugin developers will adapt by building niche AI tools (for example, AI‑assisted SEO for specific languages or sectors); others will see churn.Regulatory and trust questions
European regulators are still catching up with AI functionality embedded in productivity tools. Once high‑profile mistakes happen (for instance, AI‑generated content with factual errors on a government or health site), watchdogs will look at platforms like WordPress.com and ask what guardrails are in place. That may push Automattic toward more explicit labelling of AI‑generated content, stronger opt‑out controls and possibly regional hosting or processing options.
For readers, the key thing to watch is how much of your workflow quietly shifts from manual to AI‑mediated. When you spend more time instructing the assistant than directly editing, the platform effectively becomes your co‑author and co‑designer – with all the dependency and lock‑in that implies.
The bottom line
WordPress.com’s AI assistant is less about convenience and more about strategic control: whoever owns the AI layer of web publishing will own a disproportionate share of the value in the next decade. For creators and small organisations, the gains in speed and accessibility are real – but so are the risks of over‑reliance on a single hosted platform and opaque models. The challenge now is to exploit these new capabilities without surrendering too much control over your content, your design and ultimately your relationship with your audience.
