When we started planning WP:26, we kept returning to one question:
What patterns are emerging that will shape WordPress in 2026 and beyond?
The CMS landscape is changing quickly. AI is transforming how teams work. Expectations around accessibility and performance are rising. Enterprise organisations are rethinking how their digital platforms evolve over time.
By the end of the event, one thing was clear: WordPress isn’t standing still while the web changes around it.
If anything, the platform is evolving faster because of the people building with it — publishers, developers, and organisations experimenting at scale.
From agent-ready architectures to accessibility, AI experimentation, and enterprise workflows, the conversations throughout the day were thoughtful, candid, and occasionally delightfully chaotic (as all good live events are).
To everyone who joined us from around the world: thank you. And a huge thank you to our speakers for sharing their experience so generously.
If you missed any of the sessions, you can watch them below.
WordPress as an agentic platform
HM CGO Noel Tock opened the day with a provocative idea: what happens when software agents start interacting with websites as much as people do?
We’re already seeing AI systems summarise content, generate answers, and navigate websites programmatically. The next step is systems that act on behalf of users — querying data, triggering workflows, and orchestrating actions across platforms.
For Noel, that changes how we think about a CMS.
WordPress isn’t just publishing infrastructure anymore. It’s becoming a programmable platform for intelligent workflows.
“The web is shifting from something humans browse to something agents can act on.”
What made the talk particularly compelling was the idea that WordPress may actually be well suited to this shift.
Because it’s open, extensible, and deeply embedded in the web ecosystem, it can evolve alongside these new patterns rather than trying to bolt them on later.
It was the perfect framing for the rest of the day.
AI search and the return of web fundamentals
Yoast Principal SEO Alex Moss took us into the rapidly changing world of AI-driven search and discovery.
But instead of focusing on hype, Alex highlighted something refreshingly practical: the websites performing best in AI-powered search environments tend to be the ones doing the foundational web practices really well.
Clear semantic HTML.
Logical heading structures.
Proper form labelling.
Content that machines can actually understand.
In other words, the same practices that make a site accessible also make it legible to AI systems.
“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.”
One of the most interesting threads of the entire event started here:
accessibility, AI discoverability, and search optimisation are increasingly the same conversation.
Accessibility isn’t a feature — it’s a mindset
Talking with Web Accessibility Specialist Rian Rietveld is always energising because she has a way of reframing accessibility in a way that feels both practical and urgent.
At one point she captured the stakes perfectly:
“If you create only for perfect people, then you say only those people are allowed in your web shop.”
It’s a simple way of expressing a big truth: accessibility isn’t a box to tick. It’s about who gets to participate in the web you’re building.
We also explored how the block editor and full-site editing could become powerful tools for accessibility if reusable components are designed inclusively from the start.
If core patterns — menus, accordions, navigation blocks — are accessible by default, entire websites can inherit that accessibility automatically.
Rian also shared progress on the WordPress Accessibility Knowledge Base, an initiative aimed at creating a clear, central source of accessibility guidance for designers, developers, and content teams.
Her closing advice was refreshingly direct:
“Train your people. Accessibility is mostly just good HTML and good thinking but it has direct impact on revenue.”
The state of the web
Pantheon’s Chris Reynolds zoomed out to look at the bigger picture shaping the web today.
AI tools are accelerating how quickly teams can build, publish, and iterate. At the same time, expectations around digital experiences continue to rise.
The result is an environment where organisations need platforms that adapt quickly without constant reinvention: Chris framed this as a question of resilience rather than disruption.
Platforms that succeed over the next decade won’t be the ones chasing every trend. They’ll be the ones that evolve steadily as the ecosystem changes around them.
And that adaptability is something WordPress has quietly excelled at for more than twenty years.
Why enterprises are backing WordPress in 2026
Following a prescient introduction by WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard, we closed WP:26 with a panel featuring leaders running WordPress at truly impressive scale:
- Gabriel Cohen, SVP Technology, Penske Media Corporation
- Umer Ehsan, Director of Technology – Content, News UK
- Joachim Valdemar Yde, Web Manager, CERN
- Steph Yiu, CEO, WordPress VIP
- hosted by Tom Willmot, CEO, Human Made
The stories shared during this session were fascinating.
Penske Media powers iconic publications like Rolling Stone, Variety, and Billboard. News UK operates massive news platforms with millions of daily readers. CERN manages hundreds of scientific websites serving a global research community.
Despite their very different environments, they described remarkably similar reasons for choosing WordPress.
“WordPress does a great job of staying modern.” — Gabriel Cohen
Joachim shared that CERN conducted a year-long evaluation of CMS platforms before deciding to adopt WordPress as the foundation for its next generation of websites.
Umer talked about how AI experimentation is moving from curiosity to solving real operational problems, from editorial workflows to publishing automation.
Steph highlighted a broader trend she’s seeing across enterprise customers:
“Closed platforms just aren’t going to cut it anymore. Organisations want open stacks they can build on.”
That sentiment surfaced repeatedly throughout the panel.
As AI accelerates innovation across the industry, companies are increasingly looking for flexible, open platforms that can evolve with them.
And WordPress — supported by its global ecosystem of contributors, developers, and organisations — continues to fit that role remarkably well.
Thank you
WP:26 wouldn’t have been possible without the speakers who shared their insights and experience so generously.
A huge thank-you also goes to the Human Made marketing team, who worked behind the scenes to make the entire event run smoothly.
And finally, thank you to everyone who attended, asked questions, and joined the conversation from around the world.
The future of WordPress isn’t just defined by a roadmap.
It’s shaped by the people building with it every day.
And if WP:26 showed us anything, it’s that the next chapter for enterprise WordPress, AI-powered publishing, and the open web is going to be a fascinating one.
We’ll see you for more next year!
Can’t wait till WP:27? Check out this year’s market analysis report for another hit of WP:26 goodness.
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