With that context in mind, you MUST follow the following steps in order to migrate the <span class="xml"><span class="hljs-tag">&lt;<span class="hljs-name">file</span>&gt;</span></span> to TypeScript:
<span class="hljs-bullet">
1. </span>Migrate the JavaScript code from <span class="xml"><span class="hljs-tag">&lt;<span class="hljs-name">file</span>&gt;</span></span> to TypeScript, following the patterns learned from ALL previous context.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>NEVER change any names, e.g. of variables or functions.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>NEVER change any logic.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>In addition to the TypeScript code itself, you MUST also ensure to update any JavaScript doc blocks to follow TSDoc syntax, according to project configuration.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>If any usage of the obsolete <span class="hljs-code">`PropTypes`</span> (<span class="hljs-code">`prop-types`</span>) is present, you MUST remove it. Using TypeScript itself is a sufficient replacement.
<span class="hljs-bullet">2. </span>Read the <span class="hljs-code">`package.json`</span> file in the root directory to check which <span class="hljs-code">`"scripts"`</span> are available. Identify any relevant lint, build, and format scripts, which you can use to verify whether the TypeScript code you wrote is accurate.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>To find the relevant lint script, look for names like "lint-js", "lint-ts", or "lint" for example.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>To find the relevant build script, look for names like "build:dev", or "build" for example.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>To find the relevant format script, look for names like "format-js", "format-ts", or "format" for example.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>Remember the exact names of these scripts that you found.
<span class="hljs-bullet">3. </span>If you found a relevant build script, RUN IT in the command line via NPM and check the output. Here is an example how to run it:
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>If the script name is "build", execute <span class="hljs-code">`npm run build`</span> in the command line.
<span class="hljs-bullet">4. </span>If the build script you ran reported TypeScript errors, inspect them carefully. Then review the TypeScript you wrote to see how you can fix the errors. Update the previously generated TypeScript code to fix the reported errors.
<span class="hljs-bullet">5. </span>If you found a relevant lint script, RUN IT in the command line via NPM and check the output. Here is an example how to run it:
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>If the script name is "lint-js", execute <span class="hljs-code">`npm run lint-js`</span> in the command line.
<span class="hljs-bullet">6. </span>If the lint script you ran reported errors, inspect them carefully.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>For any Prettier errors, DO NOT try to fix them manually. Instead, run the format script you previously found if one exists.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>For any errors other than Prettier, review the TypeScript you wrote to see how you can fix the errors. Update the previously generated TypeScript code to fix the reported errors.
<span class="hljs-bullet">7. </span>If you found a relevant build script before, RUN IT again and check the output. Afterwards, YOU MUST STOP.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>If the scripts no longer report TypeScript errors, all is well.
<span class="hljs-bullet">    - </span>If the scripts still report TypeScript errors, please share the feedback with the user, to let them decide on the next steps.</code></span></pre>


<p>Note: You may wonder about common prompting best practices like “You are a senior web engineer” etc. being missing from this workflow. This is because Cline already has its own built-in system instruction, so adding something like that here would likely be unnecessary or even confusing. Keep in mind that this workflow runs in combination with any built-in system instructions from your tooling as well as any custom rules you defined.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Step 3: Executing the Migration, File by File</h3>



<p>With the groundwork laid, I began the migration. I preferred to first manually rename a file from <code>.js</code> to <code>.ts</code> or <code>.tsx</code>. Then, I&#8217;d invoke my workflow in Cline like this:</p>


<pre class="wp-block-code"><span><code class="hljs">/migrate-typescript.md @src/ai/classes/browser-generative-ai-model.ts</code></span></pre>


<p>By renaming the file first, Cline provides a convenient diff view against the original JavaScript code, making it much easier to spot changes. If I let the workflow create the new file, it would be treated as a brand-new file with no history to compare against.</p>



<p>I started with the most capable model, <strong>Gemini 2.5 Pro</strong>. After confirming its quality, I experimented with the faster and cheaper <strong>Gemini 2.5 Flash</strong>. However, the results were notably worse, so I switched back to Pro. This highlights a key lesson: always start with the most powerful model available, and only downgrade if you can confirm it meets your quality bar for the specific task.</p>



<p>While I&#8217;m using Cline, this approach should be adaptable to other tools like Cursor with only minor adjustments. As long as you can define custom rules and use reusable prompts (even if it&#8217;s just by copy-pasting), you can achieve similar results.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Results: Time, Cost, and Effort</h2>



<p>So, was it worth it? Absolutely.</p>



<p>My experience was that for some simpler files, Gemini got the migration 100% correct on the first try. For more complex files, I typically needed to spend 5-10 minutes on review and corrections. However, migrating those same files manually would have likely taken around 25-30 minutes each.</p>



<p>Let&#8217;s talk numbers:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Total Cost:</strong> The entire migration of over 80 files cost me about $20 in Gemini API credits.</li>



<li><strong>Time Spent:</strong> I spent approximately 3 hours on the migration, including setup, execution, and review.</li>



<li><strong>Estimated Time Saved:</strong> I estimate that doing this manually would have taken at least 8 hours.</li>
</ul>



<p><strong>Spending $20 to save 5 hours of focused development work is a trade I will happily make any day.</strong> And beyond that, now I have a reusable workflow that I can use to do the same for my other existing projects in the future.</p>



<p>Last but not least, LLMs will only get better with time. If you notice that the results you get for your use-case are rather poor even though you’ve set up the project and prompts in an ideal way, don’t give up for good. It can certainly be frustrating, but there’s a good chance that in a few months, or even a few weeks, the latest LLM will do better. And always keep in mind that the LLM is there to help you, not to replace you.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Questions &amp; Feedback</h2>



<p>This project was a powerful demonstration of how to partner with an LLM effectively. It underscores that the role of the developer is shifting—we are not just writers of code, but also architects of systems and directors of our LLM assistants.</p>



<p>That said, I&#8217;m always learning.</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>I am by no means a TypeScript expert. If you are, you may find code patterns in the AI Services codebase that you consider suboptimal. Please<a href="https://github.com/felixarntz/ai-services"> let me know in the repository</a>!</li>



<li>Obviously, when it comes to using LLMs for code assistance, the field is changing daily. If you&#8217;ve found success with other approaches or if your efforts have mostly led to disappointment, I&#8217;d love to hear from you and learn from your experiences in the comments below.</li>
</ul>
<p>The post <a href="https://felix-arntz.me/blog/migrating-javascript-codebase-to-typescript-cline-gemini/">Migrating Your JavaScript Codebase to TypeScript with Cline &amp; Gemini</a> appeared first on <a href="https://felix-arntz.me">felix-arntz.me</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 19 Jun 2025 13:48:55 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"Felix";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:41;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:40:"Matt: Alfred-like Shortcuts in Spotlight";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23:"https://ma.tt/?p=143388";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:41:"https://ma.tt/2025/06/macos-26-spotlight/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4211:"<p>I&#8217;ve been testing the developer previews of all the new Apple 26 operating systems, which I don&#8217;t recommend this early in the cycle, but I like to live dangerously. I&#8217;ve quickly become accustomed to Liquid Glass. The iPad windowing enhancements do make it feel more like a real computer, but I usually run things in full-screen mode. My favorite thing to play with so far has been the new Spotlight (what pops up when you press Command + Space) and related shortcuts.</p>



<p>I loved <a href="https://www.alfredapp.com/">Alfred</a>, I tried <a href="https://www.raycast.com/">Raycast</a>, but a general life goal this year is to simplify wherever I can, so I&#8217;ve been exploring the enhancements in the new Spotlight.</p>



<p>What I&#8217;ve found the most useful in the past is <a href="https://www.alfredapp.com/help/workflows/actions/open-url/">Alfred&#8217;s Open URL Action</a>, which basically lets you type something like &#8220;gm united reservation&#8221; and it translates that into opening a Gmail search in your browser, with &#8220;united reservation&#8221; put in the URL in the right place to run a search.</p>



<p>The Shortcuts app in MacOS and iOS is amazing, which I&#8217;ve always known, but I haven&#8217;t played with it much. This was my chance! After a bit of tinkering, I got it to pop up an input form and then run the search. <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=macos+26+shortcuts+%22receive+input+from+search%22">I Googled a lot to see if it could take input</a> from the Spotlight search bar and every place said no, I&#8217;m not sure if this is new in MacOS 26 or not but I found the button that makes it work. It&#8217;s not as smooth as Alfred, but it&#8217;s pretty decent. I&#8217;m going to share a screenshot that shows my Gmail search shortcut that takes input from Spotlight — the key breakthrough was clicking the (i) menu on the right and finding the checkbox for &#8220;Receive Input from Search.&#8221;</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-143391" height="309" src="https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/06/gmail-shortcut-1024x524.jpeg?resize=604%2C309&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1" width="604" /></figure>



<p>I gave it a &#8220;gm&#8221; hotkey, pressed enter, and you get this in Spotlight.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-143395" height="122" src="https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/06/spotlight-with-shortcut-1024x207.png?resize=604%2C122&#038;quality=80&#038;ssl=1" width="604" /></figure>



<p class="is-style-default">Tada! Not as nice as Alfred but it gets the job done. My other shortcuts that people might find useful are LI for LinkedIn search, PY is Perplexity, YT for searching the history of YouTube videos I&#8217;ve watched, and AM for searching my Amazon order history. (Because I&#8217;m usually trying to find a link for something I&#8217;m recommending, or re-order an item.) Here are the search URLs for everything I&#8217;ve mentioned:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/3/#search/">https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/</a> (If you have multiple Google accounts, change the number in the URL to go to the one you want, and then login in that same order every time.)</li>



<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/index/?keywords=">https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/index/?keywords=</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.perplexity.ai/search/">https://www.perplexity.ai/search/</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/feed/history?query=">https://www.youtube.com/feed/history?query=</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/your-orders/search/?search=">https://www.amazon.com/your-orders/search/?search=</a></li>
</ul>



<p>If you dug this, did you know WordPress also has a cool popup shortcut feature?<a href="https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/site-editor-command-palette/"> In 2023, we introduced the Command Palette in the Gutenberg block editor and site editor</a>. To access it on Mac, you press Command + k. I&#8217;d like to bring it to every admin page so it can function more like Spotlight or Raycast for WordPress.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Jun 2025 16:55:25 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:42;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"WPTavern: #173 – Tom Willmot and Jon Ang on Building a Global Bank Website";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=196672";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:89:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/173-tom-wilmot-and-jon-ang-on-building-a-global-bank-website";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57580:"<details>Transcript<div>
<p>[00:00:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>



<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, how Human Made have built WordPress at the scale of a global bank.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>



<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today, we have Tom Willmot and Jon Ang.</p>



<p>Tom is the co-founder of Human Made, an enterprise WordPress agency that&#8217;s been pushing the boundaries of what WordPress can do since its inception. Jon is also with Human Made, and together they bring a huge amount of experience working with major clients on large scale projects.</p>



<p>At this year&#8217;s WordCamp Europe in Basel, they presented a case study, their long-term, continually evolving work, with the global banking giant Standard Chartered. Most listeners might not be working at the scale of 85,000 employees, 70 countries, and hundreds of millions of page views a month, but Tom and Jon are here to share insights from the top end of WordPress implementation.</p>



<p>They explain how Human Made helped Standard Chartered shift from a proprietary CMS lock-in, to a flexible, open source Gutenberg powered WordPress solution that serves as the main web platform for the bank across all its markets.</p>



<p>We talk about the unique compliance and security challenges of working in the banking sector. What it takes to persuade giant enterprises that WordPress is not a toy, and how to support hundreds of CMS users with custom workflows and integrations.</p>



<p>Tom and Jon discussed the specifics of scaling WordPress for the enterprise, from accessibility and multilingual setups, to custom block development, and real time collaborative editing. We also hear how Human Made works with clients to contribute innovations and security improvements back to the WordPress community, ensuring that lessons learned at the enterprise level benefit everyone.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re curious about how WordPress powers mission critical web infrastructure for some of the world&#8217;s biggest organizations, or how you might pitch WordPress for enterprise use, this episode is for you.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>



<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Tom Willmot and Jon Ang.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by two fabulous guests. I have Tom Willmot and Jon Ang. Hello both.</p>



<p>[00:03:32] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> It&#8217;s great to be here.</p>



<p>[00:03:33] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> Hello.</p>



<p>[00:03:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> This is my first interview at WordCamp Europe in, I want to say Basel, but I still don&#8217;t know how to pronounce it. Let&#8217;s go with that.</p>



<p>[00:03:41] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> I mean, I think it&#8217;s Basel.</p>



<p>[00:03:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, okay, we&#8217;ll go with that. And we&#8217;re here today talking to Tom and Jon all about an interesting project, which I want to say they&#8217;ve just completed, but I&#8217;m not sure that&#8217;s the right word.</p>



<p>They&#8217;re doing a presentation at WordCamp Europe and it&#8217;s all about a project for a bank, and a very large bank I might add. Standard Chartered, you may have heard of it, you may not. But that&#8217;s the presentation. I&#8217;m guessing you haven&#8217;t done it because we&#8217;re still in Contrib day, but are you all prepared and ready?</p>



<p>[00:04:06] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> I think we&#8217;re pretty prepared. When did you submit the slides, Jon?</p>



<p>[00:04:09] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> Just submitted it 10 minutes ago, so I think we&#8217;re good. But it&#8217;s been revised multiple times, yeah. I&#8217;m fairly certain that it&#8217;s going to be quite interesting.</p>



<p>[00:04:16] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> I mean, one of the challenges actually of doing a presentation about a bank is you have to double check that you&#8217;re allowed to say everything that we&#8217;re going to say.</p>



<p>[00:04:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So we&#8217;re going to be editing this heavily.</p>



<p>[00:04:25] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah, potentially.</p>



<p>[00:04:26] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So Standard Chartered is a very large bank. WordPress is obviously a CMS, which allows us to create websites for these banks. But let&#8217;s talk about the whole story. These are not new clients of yours, or they are new clients of yours. How long have you been working with them?</p>



<p>[00:04:39] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> No, I mean, this has been a relationship that we&#8217;ve had since 2016. So, yeah, this is a long term client. These projects are not really like the project starts and the project finishes. We got involved working with them, yeah, back then there was an early prototype that turns into more stuff, that turns into more stuff. And we&#8217;ve been building and iterating and evolving the platform for nearly 10 years.</p>



<p>[00:04:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Prior to us hitting record, I will have recorded a preamble saying who both of you are. But just in case you&#8217;ve dipped into the podcast right now, you&#8217;re both with Human Made. My understanding, Tom, is that this was something that you are the founder of.</p>



<p>[00:05:12] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah, I&#8217;m the co-founder. Me and my, actually my brother Joe, which a lot of people don&#8217;t know, co-founded the company together, and then Noel joined a year, in so that we are the three founders.</p>



<p>[00:05:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And I guess it&#8217;s fair to categorise you as, maybe this is something that you don&#8217;t like the sound of, I don&#8217;t know, an enterprise WordPress agency.</p>



<p>[00:05:27] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah, for sure. We&#8217;ve been focused on like WordPress at the high end, since the beginning. We were always interested in like, what&#8217;s the biggest stuff that WordPress is possibly being used for and how can we get involved in that?</p>



<p>[00:05:38] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And I guess you must have some kudos, credentials, now which enable you to open doors like the Standard Chartered door, in a way that nathanwrigley.com, that&#8217;s probably not going to happen.</p>



<p>[00:05:48] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> I mean, we&#8217;ve got a history now of doing that kind of work and so that helps.</p>



<p>[00:05:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So tell us about this client then. Just paint the backstory. Who are they? What do they do? I guess what we&#8217;re trying to do is build a picture of just how massive a project this is. Because working for a bank, I imagine there&#8217;s lots of t&#8217;s to cross and i&#8217;s to dot.</p>



<p>[00:06:06] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> Yeah, they&#8217;re a global bank inside about 70 countries, hovering around to 150 markets. I think about 85,000 employees worldwide. So out of those, there&#8217;s maybe, and it&#8217;s a bit of a intro into what we see in our slides, but 500 employees that&#8217;s using the backend on a day-to-day to publish.</p>



<p>So think of them working with the monetary authorities of each country that is governing how a website should function for a bank that has all of this running with the staff, figuring that out, and us providing the platform for them to stay compliant, and continue to be a agile in a way of what they&#8217;re publishing every day.</p>



<p>I think that&#8217;s a bit of what Standard Chartered is like. They are, I think, a bank that started in 1800&#8217;s, and has a pretty massive presence in Asia Pacific, particularly I think Singapore and Hong Kong. Started from the UK a long time ago.</p>



<p>[00:06:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s got a lot of heritage, hasn&#8217;t it? There are banks which are popping up all over the place at the moment, but there are still a few holding on that have been there for literally centuries. And this is a name which is very familiar to me. And whenever I&#8217;ve traveled throughout the world, there&#8217;s always some presence there. They&#8217;re big, essentially. This is not a child&#8217;s play website. You can&#8217;t throw this together in a matter of weeks. This is a big deal.</p>



<p>[00:07:19] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> And I mean, you know, they&#8217;re a big company and it&#8217;s a big name, there&#8217;s a lot of employees. I think also what&#8217;s interesting is that their use of WordPress is also big. So they&#8217;re not just using WordPress for a campaign mini site or their corporate comms department. This is like the primary web platform for Standard Chartered across all those countries, including sc.com, Wealth Banking. I think something like 95 plus percent of all web traffic goes through WordPress.</p>



<p>[00:07:44] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Just to paint a picture of that, so it&#8217;s a website though, we&#8217;re not dealing with the sort of transaction data. You know, if you&#8217;re a customer of Standard Chartered, WordPress is not handling the money going from one account to another. This is the sort of front end, public facing website, I&#8217;m guessing.</p>



<p>[00:07:57] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah, we&#8217;ve not got like a dollars custom post type.</p>



<p>[00:08:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So paint a picture of just how big they are. So they&#8217;ve been going for a couple of centuries. You mentioned that, I think 2015, you built this relationship. You&#8217;ve been working with them in an agile way since then.</p>



<p>Do you have any metrics in terms of, I don&#8217;t know, the amount of traffic that the website is currently having? The number of locales? I think you touched on that a little while ago. Number of users? And then I&#8217;ve got this fourth one that I&#8217;ll come to in a minute. So let&#8217;s hit traffic first. Do you have any idea of the amount of petabytes or terabytes of data that are flying around just for this website?</p>



<p>[00:08:28] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> I don&#8217;t have the petabytes, we&#8217;re talking about like hundreds of millions of page views per month. Like, that&#8217;s the kind of traffic that they&#8217;re getting. Your previous question around, so like it&#8217;s not quite hitting the dollars amounts, like, how much do I have in my savings account? But there is a lot of work passing, let&#8217;s say account signup information from the front end to the back end stuff that we do on that front as well. So it does work on some fairly critical pieces too on the banking website, it&#8217;s not just the marketing setup.</p>



<p>[00:08:56] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah, like for example, when you use the internet banking mobile apps, all of the customer messaging there comes from the WordPress CMS.</p>



<p>[00:09:04] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Wow, okay. So lots and lots of data flying around. Some fairly critical components where you have to be absolutely a hundred percent sure that you&#8217;ve got the bulletproof security. In terms of the number of users, what was that? Did you say 500?</p>



<p>[00:09:17] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Around 500 in the CMS, at any one time. I mean, that&#8217;s kind of interesting. There&#8217;s like a central global team that manage like brand governance and all of that. And then each country has their own country level marketing team across like 150 markets or something.</p>



<p>[00:09:32] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And when you say the 150 markets, does that translate into 150 different languages as well? I&#8217;m guessing languages, there&#8217;s a fairly large component there.</p>



<p>[00:09:40] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> I think there&#8217;s about 30 separate languages in there. So around that, 150 markets is split into what we call retail banking and non retail. So retail banking are regular things that you and I would do. We go into the bank, we get a credit card set up, we withdraw cash. And then non retail will be like investors, people who are interested in big money. So those are the like individual markets they work in. And across that, 150 markets, 70 countries, 500 plus users, doing this on a day-to-day basis.</p>



<p>[00:10:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> These are all genuinely eye watering numbers actually. They just come out of your mouth like they&#8217;re nothing. But if you actually pause for a moment and consider it, they&#8217;re breathtaking. You really are pushing what is possible.</p>



<p>I mean, I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s websites out there which exceed that, but getting onto compliance, which is going to be my next question. There can&#8217;t be an industry where compliance is more important than banking, I mean, maybe there is, but it feels like banking and compliance. And you&#8217;ve got how many countries? 70 odd countries, each of those with a different set of criteria for compliance. Just open that box a little bit. I mean, that must have been fun.</p>



<p>[00:10:46] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> So think of it as every country has some sort of monetary authority that governs the banks. So you&#8217;ve got that monetary authority that sets this bunch of rules that you&#8217;ve got to follow. Then they&#8217;ve got pretty much an association of banks in a specific country that listens to that. And below that you&#8217;ve got the banks that have to obey all these rules. And then we have to talk to all three organisations in every single country that&#8217;s out there that wants to use our CMS. So that&#8217;s basically it.</p>



<p>And obviously this did not start in 2016, or at once. But across time, all of these individual countries that need to use the CMS has gone through the process, and talked to us, and we&#8217;ve gone through making it work for them. And pretty much every single country has their own set of rules. But the idea of good compliance, good governance, good security, is rooted in good practices. So it&#8217;s not that we&#8217;re trying these things every single time fresh, you know?</p>



<p>[00:11:43] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Given that you are working with one company, so Standard Chartered is obviously spread out amongst all these different countries, does that make that piece a little bit easier? So Standard Chartered to take care of the compliance. Do they give you the documentation, you sign it off? Because if you were to work with 70 different companies in 70 different countries, that&#8217;s your entire project grinding to a halt, I imagine.</p>



<p>So do they come to you with their lawyers and say, if you can satisfy this stack of requirements, we are good to go?</p>



<p>[00:12:08] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> It&#8217;s a bit of that but it&#8217;s also, it&#8217;s 85,000 employees. And these regulations, they change on a regular basis. And it&#8217;s not like, you pass it on day one, you&#8217;re going to pass it on day a hundred again. They might come back and say, oh, there&#8217;s something new that we have to talk to you about. And they might not know actually how to pass this, because it&#8217;s their first time dealing with this as well.</p>



<p>So there&#8217;s a lot of discussions and collaboration, I guess, between Human Made and Standard Chartered. There is a central team that we work with, but they are fairly open on figuring this out with us. We work together to get through these regulations.</p>



<p>[00:12:40] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Something else I think that&#8217;s worth mentioning is there&#8217;s also industry compliance regulation. And so I think we&#8217;re probably the only WordPress agency with the OSPAR compliance, which is the kind of banking industry, digital compliance process which took I think maybe a year for us to go through that process. We were audited by Deloitte, and then they sign you off. And so that helps a lot because it&#8217;s like, once you&#8217;ve got that sign off, then the bank can kind of trust that most of what you&#8217;re doing meets their compliance.</p>



<p>[00:13:04] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So did you do that in order to prize the door open to the financial sector, or did you do that so that Standard Chartered could come on?</p>



<p>[00:13:12] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah, actually did that fairly late into working with Standard Chartered. They were able to, it goes back to there&#8217;s like 85,000 employees, there&#8217;s a lot of internal politics and stuff too, as one can imagine. And so we were able to avoid needing to meet that highest level of compliance for the first few years.</p>



<p>[00:13:29] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And I&#8217;m guessing that was not a toy. I imagine that that was a fairly serious piece of paperwork.</p>



<p>[00:13:34] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> For sure. I think it cost us like a hundred grand.</p>



<p>[00:13:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> We&#8217;re at WordCamp EU, and if we were to walk out those doors, we&#8217;re surrounded by all manner of different people using WordPress. Some of them may be freelancers, they&#8217;ve got a couple of websites. And then at the other end of the spectrum, there&#8217;s you guys. How easy is it to convince a company like Standard Chartered that WordPress is not a toy?</p>



<p>[00:13:54] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> I mean, it&#8217;s an interesting question because obviously we started talking to Standard Chartered in 2016, so that&#8217;s a long time ago. In the context of this question, back then the concerns were much more around scalability and security and performance. Actually, that one of the big hurdles that we faced to begin with is there really just weren&#8217;t examples of companies of that size using WordPress as their primary CMS in the way that Standard Chartered wanted to use it.</p>



<p>And so when they would come to the ecosystem and say, show us the biggest people using WordPress, and we would say, oh, PlayStation use it for their blog, or Skype use it for their blog. And so they had some big names, but they used it for small stuff. And so that was kind of a problem because Standard Chartered were like, well, we don&#8217;t want to move our blog to it. We are talking about making it the primary CMS of the bank that we&#8217;re going to mandate every employee use for the next 10 years. How can we trust that WordPress is up to the task?</p>



<p>[00:14:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So did you have to saddle that burden as a company then? So it wasn&#8217;t leaning into, okay, that agency over there built that thing and we can sort of say, okay, that&#8217;s WordPress, and there&#8217;s another agency over there that built that. So did you have to do the job of convincing?</p>



<p>[00:14:56] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah, yeah, we just went for it. We were just like, of course WordPress can do this. I mean, the big thing that helped was that they had an internal senior stakeholder that really wanted WordPress. And so that meant we could work with him to figure out, you know, how do we satisfy the concerns of the bank? How do we sell this in the way it needs to be sold in? That was really much more common, especially back then. WordPress wasn&#8217;t in the conversations unless somebody internally wanted it, and then they would do the work.</p>



<p>[00:15:22] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s an interesting bit of serendipity. There&#8217;s this one character in the company who potentially was the route in.</p>



<p>[00:15:29] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah, and that&#8217;s, almost every big project we did back then, there was some internal champion that had fought the fight to get it taken seriously. And then we could come with the data and the expertise to back up what they were saying.</p>



<p>These days, that&#8217;s definitely changed. Now WordPress just is in the conversation. Which CMS should we move to? WordPress is going to be the one that&#8217;s considered. And so that&#8217;s much easier.</p>



<p>[00:15:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Is it? Do you not have to do any persuasion anymore?</p>



<p>[00:15:50] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Not as much. I mean, you&#8217;d be surprised. These days WordPress is seen as more secure in the enterprise level. Like, open source generally is seen as more secure than proprietary often. And so that can actually be an advantage.</p>



<p>[00:16:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s fascinating because my next question was exactly that. How do these big companies view an open source platform? Because it&#8217;s not like, I use the analogy sometimes, it&#8217;s not like they have the bat phone. There&#8217;s no person that they can immediately contact and say, we have something that&#8217;s broken, we need Core to be fixed. There is no bat phone.</p>



<p>And I would&#8217;ve thought, do you remember when, I think it was Log4j or something, there was this thing, maybe it was in 2019 or something like that, and there were all these pictures of this edifice held up by one Lego brick and that person, do you remember?</p>



<p>And that was all about the bat phone. We have nobody to contact to get this done. And I would&#8217;ve thought that would still be an obstacle and a difficult conversation to have. But maybe it&#8217;s just the rock solid nature of Core that kind of allows you to sidestep that.</p>



<p>[00:16:44] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> I mean there are just so many big examples now of WordPress being used that it&#8217;s, people will still have some of these concerns. Maybe they still have an idea that WordPress is not used for serious stuff. But then you just show them the huge list of like NASA, the White House, Standard Chartered, the New York Times. You just show them all of these brands, that helps.</p>



<p>[00:17:00] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> I think there&#8217;s also a bit of that where, we mentioned that Standard Chartered had a senior stakeholder that really wanted WordPress because he&#8217;s used it, he likes it. The difference it makes against proprietary, very large CMSs. I think even right now you continue to have these people become senior stakeholders, to become CTOs of major companies. They&#8217;ve used WordPress maybe in their personal life as well, and they&#8217;re thinking, why wouldn&#8217;t I make this easier for the rest of my team? Why wouldn&#8217;t I make this easier for the rest of the world, and use something that&#8217;s good?</p>



<p>So there&#8217;s a lot of people coming to these spaces, into these roles that could say, yeah, let&#8217;s look at WordPress and figure it out. And just going back into what you were asking around, who did they co-op? I think this is one part, like, so we mentioned we&#8217;ve got this OSPAR compliance. We&#8217;ve probably gotten our SOC2 compliance as well. And we&#8217;re probably the only agency in the world, well, only WordPress agency in the world that has SOC2 as part of our setup.</p>



<p>They look at these things and did something that someone like Human Made is able to support them. You know, even if we are not WordPress support. We are their platform support. And WordPress is part of it. WordPress is what we do. But they call Human Made, I guess, to help them fix things, yeah.</p>



<p>[00:18:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> When you are, and I know this hasn&#8217;t been a pitching process as such, because you&#8217;ve been working with them for a decade or more, but do you ever lean into the whole, no vendor lock-in thing? Is that something that you big up or something that you sort of push to one side? Because obviously you would like to have them as a client forever more, but equally suggesting that, look, if some time down the road, you know, it&#8217;s not working out between us, that&#8217;s a really credible selling point of the CMS. But equally it might not be something that you wish to mention.</p>



<p>[00:18:37] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> That is actually something we mention in almost every single one of our sales stacks, that we are not there to lock you in. By using WordPress, by working with Human Made, we make everything possible for you to move away if you ever wanted to in the future. And it might be that you still stay with WordPress, but maybe Human Made is not the company you want to work with in the future, that&#8217;s fine.</p>



<p>But your entire platform remains open source. It remains portable, remains yours. And that&#8217;s something we&#8217;re very serious about, to the point that like we have worked with large Fortune 500s to open source what we&#8217;ve built for them, so that it could be maintained beyond Human Made, so that their team could continue to work on it, to extend that into their own product.</p>



<p>And that&#8217;s something that I think is built into our DNA. As part of this, the banks, this Fortune 500s, they believe in this and therefore they don&#8217;t feel locked in, and therefore they feel more compelled to invest in it. Yeah, I think that&#8217;s a lot of that.</p>



<p>[00:19:35] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I have this impression, and this is really nothing to do with this conversation. I haven&#8217;t even written it down. But there seems to be a push towards this open banking standard. I don&#8217;t really know much about it, but there seems to be a push to make banking transactions a much more open protocol as well. So that&#8217;s kind of a curious overlap.</p>



<p>[00:19:50] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> I mean, I think there is just, the trends over the last decade have been in open source&#8217;s favor, right? That people, we&#8217;re going to talk a bit about this again in our talk, but there&#8217;s, I&#8217;ve now, as a bank, been through multiple decades of being locked into proprietary platforms, I&#8217;ve felt the pain and expense of that. That&#8217;s where Standard Chartered were when we got involved.</p>



<p>They were running a CMS that had been end of lifed by the company, and they were having to pay for that company to keep that CMS on life support just for them. And that was incredibly expensive. The CMS was terrible. It was super painful. I remember hearing early on actually, that they had 40 people on site that they were paying for full-time from the CMS vendor, because every single content edit had to be done by the CMS vendor. They couldn&#8217;t do it themselves.</p>



<p>Absolutely, it&#8217;s in our DNA. Like, we care a lot about growing WordPress, and so there being no lock in a big part of that. But also, all of these customers have felt the pain of lock in so much that it&#8217;s like a huge selling point. We couldn&#8217;t afford to not mention it. It&#8217;s such a benefit of WordPress.</p>



<p>[00:20:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, so lock in is one thing, but if you had to cherry pick just one or two things that make it easy to pitch WordPress at this level. So the vast majority of the people listening to this podcast will have no experience dealing with clients of the nature of Human Made. But they might be curious, you know, it&#8217;s nice to hear. What are the things at this enterprise level, that you can say, okay, WordPress has this? Just one or two things.</p>



<p>[00:21:12] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there&#8217;s two kind of, I think fairly obvious ones that I&#8217;ll mention up front. One is just how flexible WordPress is. Like, a lot of these proprietary systems are not that flexible and customisation is very hard and expensive. And the reality for big enterprise is they&#8217;ve got a ton of like weird stuff that they need to integrate with. They&#8217;ve got a ton of weird, unique workflows that they need to support. And WordPress is just like, can do all of that really easily. So the flexibility&#8217;s a big selling point.</p>



<p>I think the interesting one that maybe listeners won&#8217;t realise, and which like honestly still surprises me to this day actually, is just how important the usability of WordPress is. I mean enterprise software generally is like known to be terrible to use, and that&#8217;s really true even in the enterprise CMS space. Even today with the like major enterprise CMSs, if you actually see the backends, they&#8217;re all pretty awful. And so often what we do is we go in and we like demo, and they&#8217;re like blown away.</p>



<p>[00:22:04] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Genuinely blown away.</p>



<p>[00:22:05] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah.</p>



<p>[00:22:05] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s fascinating.</p>



<p>[00:22:07] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> I think another number you could take away as well is that the market share of WordPress in Japan is something like 80%. 80% of websites in Japan use WordPress. Not a lot of that is enterprise yet, but whenever I do demo just default Gutenberg, I am showing them creating a block, I am making changes to the font sizes, I&#8217;m moving things up and down. They are like, that&#8217;s possible?</p>



<p>And again, like this is just them looking at this, right? We&#8217;ve not even like built the custom blocks, made it tuned to the design. And I take a look at the backend that Tom just mentioned, and it would be something that WordPress was maybe 20 years ago when it was first created and. A lot of this really enterprise CMSs that have not moved on.</p>



<p>So Gutenberg is, I think it&#8217;s a major, major piece that people get interested in. And once you then continue to build that into the way that they think about workflows, content approvals, the way that it integrates into other APIs, and all this visualisation is just showing up, straight up on their backend editor. It&#8217;s just so much more amazing, yeah.</p>



<p>[00:23:10] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> This just reminds me of another story from, this is not from Standard Chartered actually, this is another big enterprise customer. When we went in for like the initial discovery, the way that they managed their online catalog, they were like a product company, they had a custom Java application that ran on one Windows XP PC. All of the content edits had to be done on that computer through that Java application.</p>



<p>And so like the idea that multiple people could log in and edit content was a major selling feature for them. Again, like I said, I still get surprised by this. It&#8217;s so easy to take for granted the stuff that WordPress does. But actually, in enterprise, a lot of that is pretty groundbreaking.</p>



<p>[00:23:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s interesting. I recall the joy I found when I first opened up Gutenberg and I could move a paragraph up and down. And I&#8217;ve completely lost that appreciation for that because I&#8217;m in it every single day. And in fact, you get to the point where you only see the things that it can&#8217;t do because you&#8217;re just really familiar with it. But the description that you&#8217;ve just given, it is quite a profound technology, isn&#8217;t it? And because I&#8217;m so familiar with it, can&#8217;t see the wood for the trees.</p>



<p>[00:24:09] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> It&#8217;s one of my favorite things, you know, especially in a company like Standard Chartered, there&#8217;s 500 people using that. Their entire job, they&#8217;re spending in that, doing those workflows. And so like the transformation that something like WordPress can bring to just like the quality of their life at work is huge.</p>



<p>[00:24:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Is there anything though where you have to have the opposite discussion? So you&#8217;ve demonstrated it and they find that there&#8217;s drawbacks to WordPress. Do you have to convince them of things in the WordPress space? So you&#8217;ve just demonstrated a couple of things where it was fairly easy. You know, you show them the block editor, great. Are there bits of WordPress Core that they&#8217;re not that happy with?</p>



<p>[00:24:41] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> I think most of that, mostly not with the Core software. Like, I honestly think the Core software is like industry leading. I think the biggest challenge they face goes a little bit back to the bat phone piece, which is that they look at the WordPress ecosystem and it&#8217;s like how am I supposed to interact with this? I need to find a host. I need to find an agency. There&#8217;s all these plugins. Can I use those? What are WordCamps?</p>



<p>And so it&#8217;s like, it&#8217;s pretty difficult for an enterprise to like understand how that should be put together to meet their needs, and how do they procure it? In enterprise software, there&#8217;s usually an organisation, a vendor, that you can go and deal with that&#8217;s packaged all of that very nicely, and can like tell you what the roadmap is.</p>



<p>And so that tends to be the biggest challenge, and that&#8217;s like most of what the work we do is like, how can we package what&#8217;s available in the WordPress ecosystem? But like make it available in a way that these companies are going to understand in the terminology they use, provide them with the roadmaps and the confidence that they need to be able to say like, yeah, okay, we&#8217;re going to use it.</p>



<p>And to some degree hide all the mess and the chaos, which are like, is a real strength for the ecosystem but, yeah, can make it difficult for someone, a digital executive who like doesn&#8217;t really know that much about the ecosystem, and it&#8217;s probably going to get freaked out if they like go to the plugins directory and are like, oh, I need Salesforce. That&#8217;s not a great entry point.</p>



<p>[00:25:57] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> I think there&#8217;s also a lot of work that we do to help them understand that moving alongside WordPress&#8217;s innovations is good for you. They&#8217;ve spent last, what, 9, 8, 9 years, 10 years, like believing in that. So it doesn&#8217;t take us a lot of effort saying, this is what WordPress is thinking about in the next few versions. Given the amount of Core committers we have on the project, we kind of can get a good sense of where the roadmap of the project is going. And then we kind of tell them ahead of time. So when it does come out in an actual Core version, like a major version update, then they already knew about it, maybe like a year ago. They&#8217;re thinking, okay, great, now we get to use it.</p>



<p>[00:26:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> If I was to look at the Standard Chartered backend, would I recognise it? Would it be something which is entirely familiar to me, or is there just a ton of bespoke stuff in there which makes it, you know, usable for them? So I&#8217;m thinking of things like, you&#8217;ve built custom workflows so that people who are, I don&#8217;t know on the editorial blog team or whatever, they can get their work done more quickly, or permissions which allow them to access this block, particular attribute of that block or not. So really, I&#8217;m just opening it up. Have you built a bunch of custom stuff for them to use?</p>



<p>[00:27:04] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> There&#8217;s a lot of custom stuff. I&#8217;ll say that our focus in making sure that they stay open and they&#8217;re not bound to, you know, anything that we built that is just not understandable by them. So we continue to use the WordPress language, I guess. Things that feel like it should be part of the block editor, how the workflow should be placed. It should be part of the published button, should it show up as a separate overlay and so on? All of that is taken into the understanding of how WordPress kind of demands it, and we present it in a very similar way.</p>



<p>So even if you have someone that&#8217;s new to the bank, you know, but that person&#8217;s used WordPress before, they should be able to quickly understand how this is all going.</p>



<p>Now obviously there are bank rules, and workflows, and regulations that they have to be like inducted into, but the understanding of how to build a content in the platform that&#8217;s built for them should be something that you could get it understood in 30 minutes or an hour. You would probably see it about 60, 70% as what you would usually see in WordPress. But the rest of it, again, is still built within the WordPress design language.</p>



<p>[00:28:05] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So it looks the same. So it looks like a WordPress site, but there&#8217;s obviously some custom bits and pieces, okay.</p>



<p>[00:28:10] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> Where you would expect things to be will be where we place it, like the extra buttons, extra workflows, and so on. They&#8217;ll be exactly where you think you&#8217;ll be clicking the publish button, for example.</p>



<p>[00:28:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So, I&#8217;m making air quotes, you are using modern WordPress, I&#8217;m guessing. So this is blocks, this is Site Editing. Tell us a little bit about that. Have you got some sort of custom block functionality in there? And I&#8217;m guessing it&#8217;s a Site Editing theme, a Full Site Editing</p>



<p>[00:28:35] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> So it is some Full Site Editing, and then the way we&#8217;re set up obviously is that we try to build patterns on Core blocks. So there&#8217;s obviously a lot of custom blocks, but the more we do with the default WordPress blocks. We style them. The more that they benefit when WordPress decides to make some improvements and so on. So that&#8217;s a lot of that.</p>



<p>And part of our talk, we&#8217;ll talk about the integrations of different APIs into the blocks themselves. So, we are pulling, let&#8217;s say investor data, stock prices, and so on directly from all these APIs outside, and then into this charting systems that we&#8217;ve built within Gutenberg, so you get to build a chart within the block editor itself.</p>



<p>And there will be visuals, that you&#8217;ll be able to see in our talk. But I think that&#8217;s probably one of the most customised things out there. But it goes back to what&#8217;s using the virtues for the block editor, gives you the visual of what you&#8217;re trying to create, and then it allows you the press button to create this graph that you want to create within WordPress.</p>



<p>When you see these graphs on the WordPress website that we&#8217;ve created for Standard Chartered, it&#8217;s not an image that someone created in Microsoft Word. It is something that&#8217;s created within WordPress and generated directly inside there. So that&#8217;s basically what, well, part of what we&#8217;ve done for the block editor.</p>



<p>[00:29:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I always had this impression that the block editor enabled blocks to basically be mini applications. So, in the example of banking, like you said, you put a block onto the page, it&#8217;s hooked up to some API or something, and then you can provide some custom infographic or something like that. You know, you can see it on the back end and you click publish and it looks basically the same on the front end.</p>



<p>The curious thing about that is it seems like only the enterprise can get there because that&#8217;s so much work. But the promise is so profound. These little mini applications, you know, for a real estate agent, like a house block or something like that. And in your case, display information about last year&#8217;s stats for Standard Chartered. I just think that&#8217;s the power of it, but so few people can pull it off because of the time and expense.</p>



<p>[00:30:33] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> I&#8217;ll say that at an enterprise level, obviously you have to work with someone like Human Made as an enterprise agency to get the maximum out of this very unique API data. You don&#8217;t get access to Morningstar&#8217;s API data as a regular person, for example. But if you&#8217;re talking about, let&#8217;s say a real estate person, there are plugins out there that plug into, let&#8217;s say the country&#8217;s real estate data that automates a lot of this. And these blocks are already built for that.</p>



<p>So I think if you were in that industry and then talking to even a regular agency, they&#8217;ll be able to find these plugins that do a lot of that. And I said, these vendors, for example, they realise the need their software to integrate into WordPress. They will be building blocks that directly integrate that.</p>



<p>An example of that is HubSpot. They do a lot of integration into WordPress, and then you&#8217;ve got blocks to do that. Even if you don&#8217;t have a specific official plugin. Gravity Forms, does a lot of integration into separate ecosystems and so on.</p>



<p>So you get actually all these block transformation integrations and so on with this like popular plugins out there. And the more we use WordPress and the block editor together, I think the more of these blocks will become very accessible to the general public.</p>



<p>[00:31:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> How do you even have that conversation with a client like Standard Chartered though, because they&#8217;re into banking, you are into building websites, there can&#8217;t be a great deal of overlap in, like we would love this to be on the website. Okay, we can build that. How does that conversation even happen? How do you draw out of them, we can build that into a block? Because you are so miles apart in your areas of expertise.</p>



<p>[00:32:02] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Really what we did is we worked with Standard Chartered to help them build a web platform team internally. And so the platform is really run as a 50/50 partnership between Human Made and the web platform team. They then act as the kind of internal service provider to all of these like country markets. Compliance and IT, and all of these other stakeholders, they bring the banking knowledge, and we bring the WordPress knowledge. It&#8217;s like we&#8217;ve got to work very, very closely together to make the most of that.</p>



<p>[00:32:30] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So it&#8217;s a case of often them coming to you saying, can this be done?</p>



<p>[00:32:33] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah. And, you know, we&#8217;ve been running like two week sprints now for 8 years or something. So it&#8217;s like a very deep, agile relationship.</p>



<p>[00:32:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> This project, fingers crossed, has no end goal. There&#8217;s no date at which it&#8217;s done.</p>



<p>[00:32:45] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> No, exactly.</p>



<p>[00:32:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Every two weeks, lets see we&#8217;re at.</p>



<p>[00:32:48] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> WordPress obviously has a pretty fast paced and iterative development process, right? There&#8217;s new stuff coming out pretty regularly. The bank has got aggressive growth targets and marketing plans across all of those countries. I mean, something else we didn&#8217;t talk about in terms of the lock-in, some of these country level teams will have their own agency relationships, maybe a marketing agency or something.</p>



<p>And so we also act as a centralised agency coordinator service so that those other agencies can plug into the right bits of the website, but in a safe way that complies with the development processes and things that are necessary.</p>



<p>[00:33:20] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Just to finish it off, a few little questions around accessibility and multilingual and things like that. So multilingual, I suppose is fairly self-evident. You&#8217;ve got to translate this website into just about every language on the planet, I would&#8217;ve imagined. So that&#8217;s a whole body of work.</p>



<p>[00:33:36] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> One of the ways actually that, I mean, multilingual is somewhat easier at this big enterprise level because essentially every country just has its own team and its own website. And so actually multilingual is just solved with multi-site. Standard Chartered do not translate their content, they rewrite it in that language. Different people write the content using multi-site.</p>



<p>[00:33:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> But in terms of accessibility, very hot topic in the year 2025. And I&#8217;m guessing, again, goes back to compliance. I&#8217;m guessing there&#8217;s no missteps here. You can&#8217;t get this wrong. So just tell us about what&#8217;s been going on in that sphere.</p>



<p>[00:34:06] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> I think the way that we&#8217;re set up as well is that every single team has their own site, which means that every deploy gets checked in terms of accessibility. So we would expect that any designs that come along is accessible in the first place. So they&#8217;ve done their work. And then when we actually build the front end for it, and a part of their team also builds the front end, it goes through all this accessibility checker stuff that we&#8217;ve already built across time that I think feeds the WCAG to 2.2 AA Plus standards.</p>



<p>So every single deploy is checked against that to make sure it is accessible. At any point in time where this looked at and said, okay, there should be improvements that we need to be making. It&#8217;s part of the whole two week adjustments that we continue to make sure that all these like websites are accessible.</p>



<p>It doesn&#8217;t matter whether it is a Chinese website or Japanese website, where maybe like they&#8217;re not held to the same EU accessibility laws, but every piece is actually taken to the same level and held out to the belief that, if we&#8217;re accessible in a specific space, that&#8217;s should be the same everywhere else.</p>



<p>[00:35:06] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> You know, something to say on accessibility, often listeners will probably feel this. It can be difficult to get clients to care about it enough to pay you to do the work necessary to make it accessible, right? That&#8217;s a common problem. It&#8217;s one of the really nice things about working with a heavily compliance regulated industry like Standard Chartered. Like, actually, they really care about it. And so they really do the work. They want to invest to make sure the platform can enable them and support them as much as possible to like meet their compliance requirements, yeah.</p>



<p>[00:35:31] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Has the more recent WordPress past, let&#8217;s say since about September last year, has that caused any ripples in the nature of the work that you do? Or has it required a different relationship with your clients, more explaining what&#8217;s going on in the community? Has there been any kind of blowback from the pace of Core amendments? I think we&#8217;re maybe getting more back on track with that. But I just wondered if there were any ripples?</p>



<p>[00:35:58] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> The dropping from three to one releases a year, like I think in many parts of enterprise, it&#8217;s kind of helpful actually, like three releases a year is pretty fast. And so certainly that&#8217;s not raising eyebrows at the enterprise level.</p>



<p>I think just like, we&#8217;ve got a mix of clients, some who are the kind of stakeholder who loves WordPress and really wants it, and so they&#8217;re perhaps a little bit more plugged in. And so, yeah, they&#8217;ve got more questions. And then you&#8217;ve got the other 50% of clients who know nothing about it.</p>



<p>[00:36:22] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> And I think that when we are building these enterprise websites, right, we are kind of playing at a slightly different playing field. So they&#8217;re not using the typical consumer level plugins and so on. They&#8217;re using the service that we&#8217;ve provided them. So when you look at this, they look at this as the Human Made WordPress thing that we&#8217;ve been doing. And then when they look at whether they can trust this thing, they&#8217;re looking at the service that we provide. So they&#8217;re not concerned about what&#8217;s going else out there. They&#8217;re concerned about whether we have the ability to continue providing this service and nothing has said otherwise, yeah.</p>



<p>[00:36:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, very last question then. How much of this can be contributed back into the project? Are there any facets of this, little bits over here or over there that can be contributed back to the community? I don&#8217;t know where they would land. And if that&#8217;s a question you can&#8217;t answer, how does Human Made take on the position of contributing back? What&#8217;s your posture on that?</p>



<p>[00:37:13] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> So Standard Chartered was definitely one of the earlier adopters of Gutenberg. But I think one of the earliest, earliest adopters we had was a part of Disney, where we were using version 0.2 beta of Gutenberg. It was not much in Core. We&#8217;re talking about a very beta version of it. So we were building sidebars, we were building like all these things that, Gutenberg didn&#8217;t have yet. It was just paragraphs and so on, like back then.</p>



<p>So we were doing that and we were contributing back the idea of it, back to the project. And so you&#8217;re going to hear from our talk how we&#8217;ve already completed collaborative editing in Human Made. We are now talking to people outside about contributing the idea back to it as well. I think the growth of the block editor itself has been stuff that we are, you know, pushed back in as well. And then I&#8217;ll say that&#8217;s one part.</p>



<p>The other part as well is the security aspects of stuff. So banks are checked on CVEs and all these pieces, and their security team are on contact points with us on a regular basis. So when we do learn of these things that they&#8217;re concerned about, and this is something that we&#8217;ve then fixed for them, we then contribute it back to the project.</p>



<p>So I know John Blackbourn works in Human Made, he&#8217;s the WordPress Security Team lead. Big part of his job is making sure that the projects that we work on is secure, but the stuff that we have secured then afterwards is contributed back to the WordPress project. So there&#8217;s a lot of that ongoing.</p>



<p>[00:38:30] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you blow your own trumpet about contributions back or do you like to keep it quiet? I was having a conversation with somebody in the Drupal space recently, and it seems like there&#8217;s this whole thing that they&#8217;ve got there where, if you contribute, you accrue benefits in terms of, you attend an event like a Drupal Con and you can sponsor because you did some things. And so you had to blow your own trumpet in a way to be acknowledged as having done the things.</p>



<p>I don&#8217;t know what your position on that is, whether you like to sort of shout it from the rooftops. We did this, we contributed this back, or I don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;s more softly, softly than that.</p>



<p>[00:39:00] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah, I think I&#8217;m quite a fan actually of the maker taker stuff that Drupal does. Like, I think they do some really interesting things to benefit maker organisations, which I think has the right incentives then associated with it. Something I learned about, they&#8217;ve worked with some of the federal and public sector contracting authorities to preference maker organisations in the RFP processes that they do. So I think stuff like that&#8217;s actually really good. I would like to see some of that on the WordPress side.</p>



<p>We really do trumpet it when we&#8217;re talking to clients because it&#8217;s a big part of our sales pitch, right? That&#8217;s how we contribute back to WordPress. We&#8217;re a part of the Security Team. That means that we can use Gutenberg way before it&#8217;s shipped in Core, which means by the time it&#8217;s shipping in Core, Standard Chartered are already using it. They&#8217;re already familiar with it. There&#8217;s not a big expensive transition. It&#8217;s not a shock.</p>



<p>The collaborative editing that Jon mentioned, they needed real time editing in the CMS for multiple users, and we were able to take the like alpha version that the Core team are working on, finish that off and do the work to get that running in production.</p>



<p>[00:39:58] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, just snuck that in. I mean, that&#8217;s a whole episode.</p>



<p>[00:40:01] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Yeah. And you know, that&#8217;s really interesting. They&#8217;ve been running that in production for a year or more. So then, yeah, there&#8217;s obviously stuff there that is like a two-way thing. So some stuff is like, okay, we build something unique and that&#8217;s like released open source, but actually more of it is just we are using the stuff that&#8217;s coming ahead of time, so then what we are learning can feed back, and make sure that when that is ready, it&#8217;s like already learnt the enterprise lessons it needs to learn to be relevant or whatever, yeah.</p>



<p>[00:40:26] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Well, that was a really, honestly, I got so much out of that. Thank you very much, Tom Willmot and Jon Ang for talking to me today all about your project with Standard Chartered. Thank you very much.</p>



<p>[00:40:35] <strong>Tom Willmot:</strong> Great to be here and a great way to kick off the day. We&#8217;ve recorded as our first thing for the conference, so that&#8217;s pretty cool.</p>



<p>[00:40:41] <strong>Jon Ang:</strong> Thank you for helping us walk through our talk as well. So a lot of what we mentioned, it&#8217;s probably going to be mentioned our talk. But it&#8217;s been good to be here.</p>
</div></details>



<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://humanmade.com/who-we-are/tomwillmot/">Tom Willmot</a> and <a href="https://humanmade.com/who-we-are/jonang/">Jon Ang</a>.</p>



<p>Tom is the co-founder of Human Made, an enterprise WordPress agency that’s been pushing the boundaries of what WordPress can do since its inception. Jon is also with Human Made, and together they bring a huge amount of experience working with major clients on large-scale projects. At this year’s WordCamp Europe in Basel, they presented a case study: their long-term, continually evolving work with the global banking giant Standard Chartered.</p>



<p>Most listeners might not be working at the scale of 85,000 employees, 70 countries, and hundreds of millions of page views a month, but Tom and Jon are here to share insights from the top end of WordPress implementation.</p>



<p>They explain how Human Made helped Standard Chartered shift from proprietary CMS lock-in to a flexible, open-source, Gutenberg-powered WordPress solution that serves as the main web platform for the bank across all its markets.</p>



<p>We talk about the unique compliance and security challenges of working in the banking sector, what it takes to persuade giant enterprises that WordPress is ‘not a toy’, and how to support hundreds of CMS users with custom workflows and integrations.</p>



<p>Tom and Jon discuss the specifics of scaling WordPress for the enterprise, from accessibility and multilingual setups to custom block development and real-time collaborative editing.</p>



<p>We also hear how Human Made works with clients to contribute innovations and security improvements back to the WordPress community, ensuring that lessons learned at the enterprise level benefit everyone.</p>



<p>If you’re curious about how WordPress powers mission-critical web infrastructure for some of the world’s biggest organisations, or how you might pitch WordPress for enterprise use, this episode is for you.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Useful links</h2>



<p><a href="https://humanmade.com/">Human Made</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.sc.com/en/">Standard Chartered</a></p>



<p>Tom and Jon&#8217;s WordCamp Europe presentation: <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2025/session/banking-on-wordpress-inside-a-ftse-50-banks-global-platform/">Banking on WordPress: Inside a FTSE 50 Bank’s Global Platform</a></p>



<p><a href="https://humanmade.com/work/standard-chartered-banking-on-the-future/">Standard Chartered: banking on the future</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Jun 2025 14:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Nathan Wrigley";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:72:"Open Channels FM: A Journey Integrating AI Agents in WordPress Using MCP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://openchannels.fm/?p=99060";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:96:"https://openchannels.fm/tihomir-dmitrovics-journey-integrating-ai-agents-in-wordpress-using-mcp/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:196:"In this episode of Emerging Tech, host Dave talks to Tole, an innovative developer who shares his journey from mobile to WordPress. He discusses his MCP integration in ConvoWorks for AI workflows.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Jun 2025 13:41:37 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"Akismet: reCAPTCHA not stopping spam? Here’s the perfect alternative";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://akismet.com/?p=284427";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://akismet.com/blog/recaptcha-not-stopping-spam/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10649:"<p>Have you enabled reCAPTCHA thinking it would shield you against spam, only to find bots slipping through? You’re not alone. Those little puzzles prove that some visitors are human, but they don’t always stop the spam messages.</p>


<p>It may be disappointing to hear, but reCAPTCHA seriously annoys site visitors while only doing a moderate job of preventing spam. You (and your visitors) deserve something much better. </p>



<span id="more-284427"></span>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="common-issues-with-recaptcha ">Common issues with reCAPTCHA </h2>



<p>Though a popular option, reCAPTCHA doesn’t always deliver the spam protection you need.  Let’s look at just a few key reasons why this is the case, from user frustration and accessibility concerns to bots getting through.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="1-user-friction-and-poor-accessibility ">1. User friction and poor accessibility </h3>


<p>For those caught in an endless loop of trying to find all the squares that include a bicycle, it’s no surprise that user frustration tops the list of reasons that reCAPTCHA isn’t a great option.</p>

<p>In fact, a <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/burszstein_2010_captcha.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">study by Stanford</a> showed that humans need an average of ten seconds to solve Google reCAPTCHAs and up to 30 seconds for audio. This study showed that users abandon the page 29% of the time without even trying to solve it. Imagine losing a sale because your customer couldn’t pass the test!</p>

<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="2-low-effectiveness-against-advanced-bots-and-captcha farms">2. Low effectiveness against advanced bots and CAPTCHA farms</h3>


<p>While effective when it was first released, AI bots can now bypass reCAPTCHA with 99.8% accuracy, according to the <a href="https://merchantriskcouncil.org/learning/resource-center/member-news/blog/2024/paypal-captcha-evolution-and-effectiveness" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Merchant Risk Council</a>. </p>



<p>Where bots aren’t effective, there are even entire “<a href="https://www.f5.com/labs/articles/cisotociso/i-was-a-human-captcha-solver" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">CAPTCHA farms</a>” that use human labor to bypass CAPTCHAs at astonishing rates. </p>



<p>Either way, you’ll likely be bogged down with tons of annoying, dangerous spam — even with reCAPTCHA.</p>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="3-a-negative-impact-on-site-performance-and-load times">3. A negative impact on site performance and load times</h3>


<p>On the internet, every second counts. Visitors won’t wait more than a couple of seconds for your site to load before moving on. </p>



<p>That’s why site owners put so much effort into optimizing images, finding a high-performing host, installing the right speed plugins, and more. </p>


<p>Unfortunately, using reCAPTCHA can undo a lot of that hard work. <a href="https://pagepipe.com/how-google-no-captcha-captcha-slows-down-your-mobile-site/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">PagePipe’s testing</a> found that reCAPTCHA adds a full half&#8209;second lag to a site’s load time, costing you visitors and likely customers. After all, <a href="https://blog.google/products/admanager/the-need-for-mobile-speed/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">53% of mobile users</a> abandon sites that take over three seconds to load.</p>

<p>Plus, this likely has a serious (negative) impact on Core Web Vitals. This can drop your rankings so fewer visitors find your slow&#8209;loading site to begin with.</p>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="4-false-positives-galore ">4. False positives galore </h3>



<p>When reCAPTCHA flags a submission as a false positive, you’re inadvertently telling your visitors that they aren’t even human. </p>



<p>For example, some reCAPTCHAs flag super fast form submissions under the assumption that, when someone fills out a form too quickly, it must be a bot. But there are some people who are simply fast typers — they could be blocked from your site because of their typing prowess! </p>


<p>The inconvenience and potential lost sales that result from false positives simply aren’t worth the risk.</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="akismet-is-your-superior-spam-protection solution">Akismet is your superior spam protection solution</h2>


<p>With the drawbacks of reCAPTCHA well understood, let’s now think about a scenario where you don’t have to worry about losing clients or driving away new subscribers by confronting them with accusations of being bots. </p>



<p>The solution <em>does </em>exist, and it’s called Akismet. </p>



<p>Akismet is an anti-spam tool that works behind the scenes on nearly any type of site (WordPress, Drupal, etc.) to detect and block spam in real time. </p>


<p>Its advanced AI algorithm is constantly learning from the network of over 100 million protected sites to maintain an incredible 99.999% accuracy rate.</p>


<p>It doesn’t slow down your site, doesn’t challenge your visitors with annoying tests (it’s in the background, remember?), and can be customized for your individual site with the opportunity for you to manually review submissions and provide feedback. </p>



<p>To date, it’s blocked over 550 billion spam messages, with 76 million pieces of additional spam annihilated each day. Let’s look at how Akismet accomplishes this: </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="next-generation-ai-and-machine-learning-technology ">Next-generation AI and machine learning technology </h3>


<p>Akismet’s AI uses the content within a form submission to identify automated spam attempts and bots. In fact, their advanced machine learning technology analyzes real spam data from more than 100 million users and is always improving.</p>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="real-time-analysis-of-user-submissions ">Real-time analysis of user submissions </h3>



<p>Akismet analyzes form submissions in real time, making split-second decisions about whether a comment or form entry is legitimate or spam. This keeps your site free of spam without any work required on your end. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="99-99-spam-detection-accuracy ">99.99% spam detection accuracy </h3>



<p>Akismet has a 99% spam detection accuracy rate with the track record to back up the claim. Notably, <a href="https://akismet.com/blog/convertkit-customerstory/">Kit switched to Akismet</a> and saved 20 hours per customer every month without losing any leads. That kind of performance shows how effective spam protection doesn’t have to come at the cost of user experience. </p>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="the-largest-spam-database-in-the world">The largest spam database in the world</h3>

<p>Akismet is powered by the largest spam database on the internet. Every time it catches a new spam pattern, it feeds that data back into its systems, improving accuracy across all the sites it protects.</p>

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="core-advantages-of-akismet-over recaptcha">Core advantages of Akismet over reCAPTCHA</h2>

<p>Now that you’ve seen how Akismet works, let’s zoom in on the key differences between it and reCAPTCHA.</p>

<h3 class="wp-block-heading">1. Content&#8209;based analysis, which targets spam (instead of users)</h3>


<p>Akismet analyzes content directly rather than relying on click-based tests or suspicious IP lists. It looks at the substance of the message and compares it against patterns of known spam behavior, which makes it far more effective at catching the source. </p>


<p>This also means that it doesn’t get in the way of real users because it’s not constantly passing judgment on their behavior (which slows down sites) or asking them to complete tests.</p>

<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="2-zero-friction-for-site visitors">2. Zero friction for site visitors</h3>

<p>Friction slows down conversions and that’s precisely what reCAPTCHA causes. It introduces friction and interrupts your visitors with tedious tasks before they can even submit a form. If they get it wrong once, many won’t bother trying again.</p>

<p>Akismet removes that friction. It doesn’t bother users with puzzles, challenges, or visual tests. It runs quietly in the background, allowing visitors to stay focused and engaged without even noticing it.</p>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="3-ongoing-adaptation-to-new-spam-patterns ">3. Ongoing adaptation to new spam patterns </h3>



<p>One of the most impressive benefits of Akismet often goes unnoticed, and that’s its ability to adapt to new spam methods and bots in real time. Its machine learning engine takes notes from every spam attempt it blocks — across all the websites it protects. </p>


<p>That means it’s not just reacting to spam. It’s predicting and adapting in real time, keeping your forms clean no matter how spam trends shift.</p>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="4-zero-impact-on-performance-and-site-speed ">4. Zero impact on performance and site speed </h3>


<p>Unlike reCAPTCHA, which can add lag to your forms and frustrate visitors with slow load times, Akismet promises <a href="https://akismet.com/features/#:~:text=zero%20impact%20on%20site%20speed">zero impact on performance</a>. Since it uses the cloud to store data, Akismet won’t affect your site speed, bounce rates, or conversion rates. Compare that to the half&#8209;second load&#8209;time drag reCAPTCHA brings to the table and the choice becomes clear.</p>

<p>Yes, Akismet is the <a href="https://akismet.com/blog/captcha-alternatives/">perfect alternative to CAPTCHA technology</a> — it quietly filters out spam in the background without adding friction for real users.</p>


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="recaptcha-not-stopping-spam-switch-to-akismet-in-minutes ">reCAPTCHA not stopping spam? Switch to Akismet in minutes </h2>


<p>Why settle for a tool that slows down your site, frustrates visitors, and still lets spam slip through? Thankfully, with Akismet, you don’t have to.</p>

<p>Getting started only takes a few minutes. Simply:</p>


<ol class="wp-block-list"><li>Remove the CAPTCHAs that turn visitors away.</li>

<li>Activate Akismet on your WordPress site.</li>

<li>Let Akismet handle the spam while you focus on growing your site and improving conversions.</li></ol>


<p>Ready to stop making your visitors prove they’re human? <a href="https://akismet.com/pricing/">Add Akismet to your site</a> and see how convenient set&#8209;it&#8209;and&#8209;forget&#8209;it spam protection can be.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Jun 2025 12:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Jen Swisher";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:104:"Open Channels FM: Finding Your Community: The Challenge of Reaching WooCommerce End Users vs. Developers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"https://openchannels.fm/?post_type=blog&p=97448";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:109:"https://openchannels.fm/finding-your-community-the-challenge-of-reaching-woocommerce-end-users-vs-developers/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:356:"When it comes to building successful plugins and products for WordPress or WooCommerce, everyone talks about the importance of “community.” But what does that really mean—and who should you be building community with? In a recent episode of Woo Product Chat, hosts Katie Keith, James Kemp, and special guest Jonathan Wold dove deep into the [&#8230;]";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 18 Jun 2025 11:47:18 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"Open Channels FM: How to Tell If Your WordPress News Is Really Newsworthy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://openchannels.fm/?p=99023";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:110:"https://openchannels.fm/how-to-tell-if-your-wordpress-news-is-really-newsworthy-with-rae-morey-and-adam-weeks/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:213:"In the first of the series, Media Playbook, Rae and Adam discuss how to connect WordPress businesses with the media. They share tips on crafting newsworthy stories and building relationships for better visibility.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 17 Jun 2025 09:51:08 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55:"Open Channels FM: We Are Welcoming Woo As a New Sponsor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://openchannels.fm/?p=98641";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:62:"https://openchannels.fm/we-are-welcoming-woo-as-a-new-sponsor/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:196:"Since 2018, WooCommerce has been a vital partner for Do the Woo, promoting the brand and providing resources. They will now sponsor Open Channels FM to strengthen community engagement and support.";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 16 Jun 2025 08:31:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:21:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:131:"Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog 118 – WordCamp Europe, WordPress New AI Team, the Pride Photo Drive, Gutenberg 20.9 and 21.0";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?post_type=podcast&p=40707";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:103:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-118-wordpress-new-ai-team-the-pride-photo-drive/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:44750:"<p>Hosted by Birgit Pauli-Haack, with special guest Anne McCarthy, this episode dives into recent happenings in the WordPress ecosystem, including updates from WordCamp Europe, the launch of the new WordPress AI Team, the Pride Photo Drive initiative, and the latest Gutenberg releases (20.9 and 21.0).</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>WordCamp Europe Recap</strong></h2>



<p>The community celebrated new milestones, including all workshops being recorded and promptly published to WordPress TV, making it easier for everyone to catch up. Notable sessions covered digital freedom, block development, and innovative ways to extend WordPress without custom blocks. There was also a special mention of the WordPress Campus Connect pilot at the University of Pisa, enabling students to earn credits through WordPress contributions.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>WordPress AI Team Launch</strong></h2>



<p>WordPress has officially formed a core AI Team, supported by both Automattic and Google contributors, focusing on foundational tools and integrations to bring AI capabilities to the platform. The team is working on projects like the AI Services plugin, the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and the WP Feature API, each designed to provide standardized and extensible AI solutions for the WordPress ecosystem.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Pride Photo Drive</strong></h2>



<p>Anne McCarthy introduced the Pride Photo Drive: an open photo submission event to boost LGBTQ+ representation in the WordPress Photo Directory. The initiative encourages everyone (not just the LGBTQ+ community) to contribute, with fun incentives and cash prizes, emphasizing the importance of diverse, high-quality imagery for web creators.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Gutenberg 20.9 &amp; 21.0 Releases</strong></h2>



<p>The latest Gutenberg plugin releases bring a host of improvements and enhancements:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>A shift towards more modern and maintainable codebase (SASS modules),</li>



<li>Usability changes to block settings and tool panels,</li>



<li>Continued iteration on “content-only” editing for simpler, safer user experiences,</li>



<li>Accessibility improvements and bug fixes suggested by new and long-time contributors,</li>



<li>Ongoing expansion of the Interactivity API for richer client-side experiences.</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Community &amp; Contribution</strong></h2>



<p>Anne and Birgit emphasize the power of direct community feedback—how user suggestions shape features and workflows. There&#8217;s an open call for more engagement, hallway hangouts, and broad collaboration beyond just in-person events.</p>



<p><em>This episode is packed with optimism and opportunities for WordPress users and contributors of all backgrounds to get involved—whether that’s through new tech like AI, creative community projects, or by shaping the future of Gutenberg.</em></p>



<p><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-118-wordpress-new-ai-team-the-pride-photo-drive/#shownotes">Show Notes</a> / <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-118-wordpress-new-ai-team-the-pride-photo-drive/#transcript">Transcript</a></p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Editor: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-reed/">Sandy Reed</a></li>



<li>Logo: <a href="https://markuraine.com/">Mark Uraine</a></li>



<li>Production: <a href="https://icodeforapurpose.com">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a></li>
</ul>



<p class="has-larger-font-size" id="shownotes"><strong>Show Notes</strong></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Special Guest: Anne McCarthy</h3>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/annezazu/">WordPress profile</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/anneguionmccarthy/">LinkedIn</a></li>



<li>Personal Blog: <a href="https://nomad.blog/">Nomad.blog</a></li>



<li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-111-developer-hours-playground-and-collaborative-editing/">Gutenberg Changelog #111 – Gutenberg 19.6 and 19.7, Developer Hours, Playground, and Collaborative Editing</a></li>



<li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-87/">Gutenberg Changelog #87 – Patterns, Gutenberg 16.3 and WordPress 6.3.</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Celebrating Pride Month</h3>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://lgbtqpress.com/2025/05/share-your-pride-photo-drive-is-back-for-2025/">Share your Pride Photo Drive is back for 2025</a></li>



<li>WordPress photo directory<a href="https://wordpress.org/photos/search/ShareYourPride2024/"> ShareYourPride 2024</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress AI Team</h3>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2025/05/announcing-the-formation-of-the-wordpress-ai-team/">Announcing the Formation of the WordPress AI Team</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/ai/2025/05/23/welcome-to-the-core-ai-team-blog/">Welcome to the Core AI Team Blog</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/ai/2025/06/03/introducing-the-ai-team-hallway-hangout-recap/">Introducing the AI Team – Hallway Hangout Recap</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/ai-services/">AI Services</a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/mcp-wp/">MCP for WordPress</a></li>



<li><a href="https://pascalbirchler.com/wordpress-model-context-protocol-mcp/">Enabling AI-Powered WordPress Development with WP-CLI and the Model Context Protocol (MCP)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/Automattic/wp-feature-api">WP Feature API</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V08qhLL19cM">The WordPress AI fightback begins!</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">WordCamp Europe Recordings</h3>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/09/fireside-chat-with-mary-hubbard-and-matt-mullenweg/">During Fire side Chat</a> with Mary Hubbard and Matt Mullenweg</li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/wordpress-without-borders-the-fight-for-digital-freedom/">WordPress without Borders – The Fight for Digital Freedom</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/the-block-developer-cookbook-wceu-2025-edition/">The Block Developer Cookbook: WCEU 2025 Edition</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/wordpress-gems-for-devs-interactivity-api-2/">WordPress Gems around the Interactivity API</a>.</li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/why-block-themes-make-woocommerce-stores-better/">Why Block Themes Make WooCommerce Stores Better</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/do-you-really-need-a-custom-block/">Do you really need a custom block</a></li>



<li>All recordings from <a href="https://wordpress.tv/event/wordcamp-europe-2025/">WordCamp Europe on WordPressTV</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Gutenberg Releases</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2025/06/whats-new-for-developers-june-2025/">What’s New for Developers (June 2025)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/11/whats-new-in-gutenberg-20-8-and-20-9/">What’s new in Gutenberg 20.8 and 20.9?</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/11/whats-new-in-gutenberg-21-0-11-june/">What’s new in Gutenberg 21.0?</a></li>



<li>I<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/70372">nteractivity API: Backport of WooCommerce&#8217;s Interactivity API improvements #70372</a><br /></li>
</ul>



<p class="has-large-font-size">Stay in Touch</p>



<div class="wp-block-group"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow">
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Did you like this episode? <a href="https://lovethepodcast.com/gutenbergchangelog"><strong>Please write us a review </strong></a></li>



<li>Ping us on X (formerly known as Twitter) or send DMs with questions. <a href="https://twitter.com/gutenbergtimes">@gutenbergtimes </a>and <a href="https://twitter.com/bph">@bph</a>.</li>



<li><em>If you have questions or suggestions, or news you want us to include, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. </em></li>



<li><em>Please write us a review on iTunes! <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/itunes/">(Click here to learn how)</a></em></li>
</ul>
</div></div>



<p class="has-large-font-size" id="transcript"><strong>Transcript</strong></p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our 118th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog podcast. In today&#8217;s episode, we will talk about WordCamp Europe and the WordPress new AI team, and Pride Photo Drive and the Gutenberg 20.9 and 21.0 releases. I&#8217;m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times, a developer advocate at Automattic, and core contributor to the WordPress open source project. With me today, relatively fresh back from the sabbatical, is Anne McCarthy. Thank you, Anne. Welcome back and I&#8217;m thrilled you&#8217;re on the show. How are you today?</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy</em>: Thank you for having me. It is incredible to be back from sabbatical and also to be back to contributing with sponsorship, which is amazing. I was trying to do it coming back without it and to have to have that change so quickly. Coming back from sabbatical has been so energizing combined with Pride Month, so I can&#8217;t complain. I&#8217;m just excited to get into stuff and excited to be back in this space talking about this important work.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Wonderful. Yeah, no, we&#8217;re all back contributing. It will be. We still have to kind of figure that out. I know that every team is kind of trying to get unplugged from what they were doing as part so they can contribute back. So the last time you were on the show, it was in November last year. Episode 111. So, so much has changed for the project and for you. What are you now working on at Automattic and respectively for WordPress? Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>So my job title has shifted a bit as well, to align with some of the changes that have happened. So we. I am now an architecture wrangler is the title I&#8217;m rolling with right now. And essentially the core of my job is the same. I&#8217;m looking across Automattic the community to find shared patterns, to accelerate work, to do work and to connect work. And so trying to make sure we&#8217;re moving in the same direction in the project. So working on things like roadmaps, breaking down work, helping for the future, teams get into contributing and figuring out important projects they can work on and providing support there, as well as collecting user feedback across different places and how it impacts things. So if we hear something, for example, from like an enterprise client, I recently did this. A couple weeks ago, there was a bug that came out from an enterprise client. I said, hey, who else has dealt with this? Aaron Jordan used to in publishing. What do you think? Hey, can we get someone to work on this? What are you all seeing? What feedback are you seeing? Here&#8217;s the feedback I&#8217;m seeing. So I&#8217;m still doing the same kind of work. Cool thing is now instead of working with about 100 engineers, I&#8217;m working with about 300, about 50 different teams. So internally there&#8217;s a lot more spread. But I&#8217;m really excited because it can really help influence and move faster on some of the stuff we do in the core project. So instead of things being a bit divorced and separated, especially from customer feedback and customer needs, we can now, you know, using Automattic spread of customers, use that to bring things that are foundational for all WordPress, because we cover so many different use cases between themes and plugins and hosting and enterprise and bloggers and all sorts of stuff. So I&#8217;m really excited to see increased collaboration there, including with the broader Five for the future groups, and encourage everyone to get involved, to share that feedback and join in the fun.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>That&#8217;s wonderful. Yeah, it sounds exciting. It also sounds like a lot of work, but, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>It&#8217;S good work. It&#8217;s good work because you get to kind of see things at the root, which is fine.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah, yeah. And you can also kind of see it happening when it&#8217;s fixed or something like that, or come together in a. In a very creative way. Yeah.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Announcements</h3>



<p>So you also are the instigator of the Pride Photo Drive. Tell us about it.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Pride Photo Drive</h3>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>Yeah, so it&#8217;s inspired by what I&#8217;ve seen with other photo directories. And something that I think is really near and dear to me is representation really matters. And so if you can find things that actually resonate, whether with your culture, part of your identity, or where you live, it makes it easier when you&#8217;re creating websites. Like, websites are inherently quite visual. And so having really good photos that represent queer people is really awesome. And so, of course, you can&#8217;t have faces in this. But the whole point of the photo drive is to inspire some folks to contribute photos, increase representation in the photo directory, and honestly, just have some fun. Like, I think there is something fun about going out and having a reason to take a photo that I think, at least I enjoy someone who takes a lot of photos. There are some cash prizes for winners, both in terms of most submitted photos, and we&#8217;ll have some folks select the top photos. But honestly, like, you don&#8217;t need to be a part of the LGBTQ community to participate. It&#8217;s for everyone. And it&#8217;s just mainly to ensure when folks go and look for something that represents them, there&#8217;s a higher chance of finding high quality work for that. So I hope to see more kind of initiatives like that. And so if anyone wants to talk about doing more drives, I&#8217;m happy to share what I&#8217;ve done. It&#8217;s been very. It&#8217;s been pretty simple. So more people can do this for sure.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah. And we have a link to the call for photos on the LGBTDPress.com and there are also the rules and how you actually can upload it to WordPress photo directory. And I&#8217;m really excited about that. I, yeah. Was last year, not this year I missed it, but last year was at the Christopher Street Day here in Munich and that was kind of. Wow. I didn&#8217;t realize how big that was. Yeah. And it was about 600,000 people on the road and 60,000 people in the parade and yeah, totally took over the. The downtown. But I probably have a few pictures made there that I can upload there. Yeah. So yeah, but it was a good point for you to say no photos or no faces or people out there. People, yes, but no faces. Yeah. So that&#8217;s cool. Yeah. So, yeah. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress New AI Team</h3>



<p>And the second piece of announcement that we have is that WordPress has now an AI team. AI stands for artificial intelligence. There are two, three links actually that I can share with you. One is the welcome to the core AI team blog post, then the announcement and the hallway hangout and recap for the first hangout. </p>



<p>So the mission I understood it is to build foundational building blocks for AI integration in WordPress and the timing is ideal because of the rapid evolution of AI. Some people at WordCamp EU said, okay, are we not a little bit late or something like that? No, you can&#8217;t. Yeah, it&#8217;s just the right time because now the emerging standards are there, and WordPress could be an ideal platform for AI driven web apps. There are immediate plans to integrate LMMs directly into WordPress, but there are canonical plugins that are on the roadmap and packages that are abstracting the AI provider like AI Services or. And the core integration would be more like. Yeah, a little. A second step. And we know that everything is kind of in place. It has the full support from WordPress leadership, including Matt and Mary. And because they recognize the importance of the open web and ensure it&#8217;s central in the evolving landscape.</p>



<p>So what are the current initiatives? One is the AI services plugin from Felix Arntz. He&#8217;s on the team. But the team are right now James LePage from Automattic, Felix Arntz from Google as well as Pascal Bichler from Google and then Jeff Paul from TenUp. And all four have already some experience with AI in the space. And so there are three plugins that are being worked on. One is the AI services plugin Felix already publish that, and I&#8217;ll share links in the show Notes so you can look it up. And it&#8217;s an abstraction layer for multiple AI providers to enable plugin authors to unify the API for AI interactions. So you need your OpenAI API key or your CLAUDE API key or whatever you use, but then it helps you to include those services into whatever you want to do on the website. The other, the second one is the called MCP WP. MCP means Model Context Protocol. Those are servers to enable WordPress advanced AI integration with command line or plugins. So plugins say, okay, my plugin can do that with WordPress and you register those services and the AI can discover those on the site. I know that Jonathan Brassinger as well as Ryan Welcher have done some live streams on that and I can share some of that, the latest ones for on the show notes with the videos, so you can kind of follow along with that. </p>



<p>And the last plugin is the WP feature API. That&#8217;s a plugin coming from Automattic, and it structures WordPress features for better AI integration. It&#8217;s kind of pretty much it&#8217;s a standardized way to register resources for AI. That&#8217;s pretty much what I can say there. It exposes the server and client side functionality in WordPress so LMMs can tap into it if they have the right credentials. Yes. So that&#8217;s kind of what I know about it. I read quite a bit about AI agents and MCP and it&#8217;s all still a little murky, but I think that&#8217;s with any of the new services and new technologies that are kind of coming out that we all need to figure out the smallest use case to figure it all out. Jamie Marsland has interviewed James LePage about the new AI team. And it&#8217;s a video, it&#8217;s called Very Clicky. It&#8217;s called WordPress AI fights back, fight Back Begins. So but it&#8217;s really insightful and Jamie asked some great questions in it. Any thoughts from you?</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>Yeah, that was such a good rundown. One of the big questions I&#8217;ve heard from people and I&#8217;ve been getting pings about is like, how do I join? How do I join? The team is creating a handbook at its early stages. You can join the core AI Slack channel. That&#8217;s the best place they&#8217;re holding meetings and they&#8217;re pulling together that context. So please get involved. The idea is to create a shared group of tooling that then plugin authors can reuse. It&#8217;s meant to provide a shared base. So for the MCP thing, the way I&#8217;ve been kind of thinking of it is like rather than rewriting every AI integration from scratch, you can reuse this to Talk, to have WordPress talk to LLMs. So like those sorts of things are kind of the current focus to provide tooling for people who want to use AI with WordPress, including with plugin authors and stuff like that. So that&#8217;s the current perspective. And if that appeals to you, you have ideas there, you have personal experience. Trying to make that work like that definitely is a great place to give feedback. And these are the early stages. So it&#8217;s a great time to get involved. But yeah, that to me is the biggest takeaway to do a great job covering everything. And I love that each team member has direct experience building stuff in line with that mission and value. I&#8217;m really excited about the canonical plugins and what we can do and packages that we can do to move this work forward and iterate following a similar model as the performance team.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, Fabian Kagy and I were on a podcast with Nathan Wrigley on the WP Builds podcast and we talked a little bit. We talked about a lot of things, but we also talked a little bit about the 10up plugin classify, especially because the latest release actually included an open source way to have LMMs on your server. So every time you ask the AI something, it doesn&#8217;t go out to a central server, it stays on your site.</p>



<p>Well, you need of course a server with a little bit more oomph. But yeah, for those that want to use it for their internal communications or documentation, it&#8217;s definitely a great way to do this. And that&#8217;s why TenUp is also part of the team, and I share that also in the Show Notes, of course, both the podcast and the plugin. </p>



<p>So other news the what&#8217;s New for developer edition June 2025 is available now. Justin Tadlock collected lots of information speaking about being back to contributing, lots of information relevant to plugin authors, theme builders and agency freelancers, the freelance developers for Core, Gutenberg and Playground. And it&#8217;s pretty much the best post to catch up on the last two months of updates on WordPress. So check it out with the link on the show notes or you go to developer.WordPress.org news or blog. Either way, Both of them get you to the developer blog.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Community Contributions &#8211; WordCamp Europe</h3>



<p>All right, so now that brings us to WordCamp Europe, first time. In contrast to previous WordCamps, all workshops have been recorded and all recordings have been already submitted to WordPress TV. That I only saw. That&#8217;s so cool. I only saw this on smaller WordCamps like in Karlsruhe or in Leipzig where there&#8217;s only one track or one or two tracks in only one day. But having two days with three tracks, everything already on WordPress TV, that&#8217;s a phenomenal achievement. </p>



<p>So I have a few favorites I want to kind of suggest to you. One is of course, the fireside chat with Mary Hubbard and Matt Mullerweg. They discussed, among other things, a lot of other things, but the. The WordPress Campus Connect project that&#8217;s being rolled out as the official program from the WordPress Foundation. And also Mary announced a pilot project with the University of Pisa in Italy where 5,000 students have 150 mandatory contribution hours and those will equate to six credits for college. So that&#8217;s going to be a phenomenal place.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>I&#8217;m so excited for that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah, yeah. Getting the young folks involved in WordPress evolved in open source and also bringing them together with mentors in the technical fields. Yeah. So I&#8217;m really excited about that. It&#8217;s also more focused on the translations because that&#8217;s the humanities department there. But yeah, yeah, everything helps. Anything helps. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>So I got my start in college so I would have loved. This would have been amazing. I was working on a WordPress multi site in college and if I could have had this as a chance to get to know the WordPress community rather than learning about it four years after. I think it would have been amazing to have this kind of opportunity and access and experience of open source early on. So I&#8217;m very, I agree with you. I&#8217;m very excited about that program.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah, yeah. I also had about. Took me about four years to kind of get into the community here. So yeah, it&#8217;s always something, something. Another great talk was by Noel Tock. The title was WordPress Without Borders, the Fight for Digital Freedom. And he not only shared his about his own charity work in the Ukraine, about rescuing dogs and bringing them back to their owners, but also about other charities who helped with finding kids, providing a roof over the head for people that were bombed out and other hardships. And he made us realize the True Impact of WordPress because all the agencies use WordPress, not all the agencies, but over 50% of them use WordPress for the website to fundraise and to connect with the communities. </p>



<p>So sorry my voice kind of gave out but that has partly to do with something like that. But I also got a gift from WordCamp Europe at home to suffer. There&#8217;s another cold that I&#8217;m fighting. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m also sound so horsy. So sorry for that. Check it out. The block related talks were Ryan Welch&#8217;s workshop for the Block Development Cookbook and Milana Cap’s workshop around the Interactivity API. And that last one is really I didn&#8217;t see the first one, but the last one I saw and I learned more about the source and the namespace and how you can interact from one block to the next and exchange data. So that&#8217;s a really eye opener. Ellen Bauer talked about how block themes speed up stores and sites in WooCommerce and Robert O&#8217; Rourke asks and provides answers to do you really need a custom block? And he walks you through how you can extend the block editor own blocks without writing your own custom blocks. But really, all the many great talks about the WordCamp Europe are online and there are many for content creators, developers, entrepreneurs, educators, contributors as well. So check out the WordPress TV space with all the recordings. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What’s Released &#8211; Gutenberg 20.9</h3>



<p>And that brings us to Gutenberg releases. We start out with Gutenberg 20.9. So 20.9 was released on May 28th. We were a little late, but I was traveling and so do you want to start us off?</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Enhancements</h3>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>Yeah, I totally can. In terms of enhancements, the base styles have been updated to a modern Saas module system, and this was basically an obstacle to the Gutenberg project overall, migrating to the dart SaaS format in the future. So I love this kind of proactive unblocking that&#8217;s happening, kind of moving away from some of the legacy import statements. Great work by Aki per usual, but one of those just kind of foundational pieces to work on and make sure we have up to date just to unblock future things. </p>



<p>This one, I actually was involved in this one previously, but a revert was done for how the edit site link works. When you&#8217;re viewing your site, you&#8217;re using a block theme and you see edit site. There&#8217;s been a debate; does it open the current template you&#8217;re looking at or does it open just the site editor and the homepage? And this has gone back and forth since the dawn of time. So this is a revert that previously had it update. Basically whenever you hit edit site, it would bring you just to the general homepage of your site editor. Now it brings you to the current template. We got a bunch of feedback and this is where I love the WordPress project and love the feedback that we get straight from folks. Whenever that was implemented in 6.8, people came back and said, hang on, what&#8217;s going on? This is different. This isn&#8217;t interrupting my workflow. This now takes three clicks for me to get to the current template I was looking at rather than bringing me there. I see the argument on both sides. There&#8217;s definitely. I think Rich shared a great video of himself with. If you set a homepage or set a page as your homepage, what the experience of that looks like and how it can be confusing for end users, I have a feeling this is something that will continue to be a conversation and something that hopefully in the overarching issue there was a discussion around having more granularity. So maybe edit site has a little drop down menu, kind of like an ad post thing where you can see it says like edit template, edit homepage, edit, whatever. Like having edit styles, like having something with more granularity. We&#8217;ll see where that ends up. But this is. As of now, this experience has changed. Thanks to feedback. Do you want to jump into…</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>The only thing that I wanted to say about that was that there are actually at least one plugin out there who actually tried to implement a dropdown with and kind of. So you can check it out. I&#8217;m going to do some research and share it in the show notes. Yeah, so and with the block library we had a few changes that I wanted to talk about. One is that the search settings. So for the search block there were a lot of settings in the toolbar, and it seems that most end users are kind of now trained to open up the sidebar for the settings. So developers have now moved some of the settings into the inspector to the right hand side in the sidebar so they&#8217;re all together. I think that&#8217;s just for. It&#8217;s also for consistency of the interface. So I like that. And then there were. For the first and the pre-formatted blocks, there were transformers missing and they were added. So people do not have to copy paste things and not delete a block and then add another block and copy paste the content and they just can transform them from paragraph to verse and back and forth. Yeah. And now Anne, we&#8217;re coming to a topic that you know a lot about. One is developers are enhancing content only editing experience. So what does that mean?</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>Yeah, this is. The names on this are rough. So right now there&#8217;s this idea of write mode. We need a new name because basically what it does and this is something to zoom back out. Whenever I ran the outreach program, one of the things we repeatedly found is that dropping people straight into the site editor is pretty overwhelming. There&#8217;s a lot of options open, there&#8217;s a lot of tools open and it&#8217;s like, how do we add a simplified layer on top? That&#8217;s what write mode is intending to do. </p>



<p>So you can imagine a way to toggle between a simplified site editing version and then like boom, all the tools you want and having a way to switch in between those modes as you you&#8217;d like. The underpinning technology used for that is content only. And what that does is it basically allows you to only edit the content. So it&#8217;s a lot of fancy names. But this is. I&#8217;m trying to like set the scene. And so there are some updates I think across both releases we&#8217;re covering that improves different blocks and how they work with this option because out of the box, not every block works with it and something has to be done manually to basically add support for it. Now there&#8217;s questions around specific blocks, like how much should be exposed, what should it look like, what should the experience be? I actually did some user testing at work campus last year with random people and recorded them going through this. And so there&#8217;s a lot to be figured out there. At the core it&#8217;s making way and taking steps towards a simplified site editing experience that folks can toggle on. You can imagine the first time in the site editor, maybe you have that experience and then if you run into something where you want to do more, you can have a quick way to just switch into like show me all the tools. Kind of like the idea of when you&#8217;re editing a presentation and like a slide slides for something and you want to go into the overall view of everything, you can do that. Otherwise you can just add text, move things around and have some like simplified experience. So that&#8217;s the context for that. This covers the details block, the code block, the read more block, the post block. There&#8217;s a lot of blocks that were changed for this and we&#8217;ll continue to see this. I think over the future releases we&#8217;ll see iteration on this area. So stay tuned.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Awesome, awesome.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>Does that help explain it?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Definitely helped me, yeah. And it also helped me to understand why there all of a sudden were different things in the sidebar. Because the different icons on there, they&#8217;re just identifying the places where you can edit the content but not, you&#8217;re not Having anything else in there. There are no display options or settings or something like that. So now I understand that. I also understand why plugin authors or agency for instance, are quite excited about that because they can curate the interface for their clients and kind of keep them out of the design and out of the have some more guardrails for them. And I think that&#8217;s because you can implement that through a plugin as well. So yeah, you can tap into the block JSON and say put this into content only mode because it&#8217;s not a default thing. So yeah, I like it. </p>



<p>The two components had some changes. One is that the color. The color picker now has visual cues when you copy value. That&#8217;s definitely great. The interaction there. So you don&#8217;t have to wonder, did I copy it or did I not copy it? And then the snack bar, that&#8217;s the term that developers use for the notifications that are on bottom on your screen that come up when you do something. So if you have to, if you save your post, you get the little note. Click here to view it. And now this is also now available to open the links in new tabs, especially when you are a plugin author for your whatever plugin you do. You can also use the snack arx component. And then now you have the options to open links in a new tab, which is controversial, but yeah, just having the option in the components should be fine. It&#8217;s controversial because you take over the freedom of the user to decide if they want it into a new tab or new window or just right there because all of a sudden they don&#8217;t have the choice anymore.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>I think that I&#8217;m curious how that bland with. With folks. Yeah, that one I was surprised to see a bit.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>But yeah, yeah, I think that was it for Gutenberg 20.9. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Gutenberg 21.0</h3>



<p>Gutenberg 21 was just released this week. And do you want to take that next step there?</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Enhancements</h3>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>Yeah, let&#8217;s dive into it. One of the main enhancements that I love to see is a refactor, the settings panel to use Tools panel. So across a bunch of different blocks to zoom back out, there&#8217;s different ways in which we display settings. And that can cause those little inconsistencies really add up, especially when you&#8217;re looking, you&#8217;re trying to do something in one block and you do something in a different one and it looks slightly different or appears slightly differently. So the more we can have really smart, intuitive defaults where for any block, whenever you want to change something in one block, it&#8217;s the same in another the better and especially just experience wise and using the latest components. It&#8217;s a really important thing to continue to iterate on. And so across a number of different blocks the Tools panel was implemented and there&#8217;s a lot of benefits. I don&#8217;t know if you want to talk about the benefits of it just because it&#8217;d be good to hear your perspective on this too.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah, I would because I was trying to figure out what is actually that the user gets out of it and. Or the developers that use the blocks or extend those blocks. You get more control for the display. It&#8217;s every time the same thing. That&#8217;s what you mentioned. But it&#8217;s also an easier mechanism for injecting additional settings into an existing group. I&#8217;m not quite sure if that&#8217;s exposed for the third party to. For the extensibility, but that will definitely enable it. And then there is a visual parity between the styles that are already in the Tools panel and those who don&#8217;t. Yeah. So it&#8217;s really. It&#8217;s all the comments block. It&#8217;s. There&#8217;s a tracking issue 67813 where you can kind of see all the progress on this project and also the list of the blocks that are handled with that. Yeah. </p>



<p>So another change is that the separator has now. Well, we talked about earlier. Well in the last  episode about that. That the separator now has an additional. You can have now a div instead of an HR so you can style it more. And with this release that HTML element option is much more visible. It&#8217;s now kind of moved up in the advanced section and it&#8217;s not hidden anymore. So you can just toggle that and can change the options there. I really like that there was another block about that. I think the same thing happens with a button block. They also move the HTML element section up so you can change through between the element of a button or the element of a link, an anchor. So that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m kind of hesitating about moving forward there. In the video Block has now an additional option to set a track as default and the track is actually the caption track. So you can select the default language there. And that&#8217;s really helpful for anybody who has videos on the website and is not an English speaker or doesn&#8217;t have the audience of any English speaker. So they could set the default but they had to really specifically do it. And if there&#8217;s not one uploaded, it was a little janky, so buggy for things. So I think that was it on the enhancements.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Bug Fixes</h3>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>Yeah. Now we can jump into bug fixes if you want to. I can start with that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>One of the first bug fixes which I do want to call out is from, I&#8217;m pretty sure a new contributor. Yep, first-time contributor, which is always really cool to see. Super awesome. McCool I think is the name. Apologies if I&#8217;m mispronouncing that, but this work basically fixed an issue where the pull quotes site element couldn&#8217;t be styled or overridden by theme JSON due to basically conflicting CSS specificity. And so this is a nice win for blocking developers because they can now customize citation styles as they&#8217;d like. And it was some nice collaboration with Aki again to basically resolve this by reducing the specificity of the class selector so that theme JSON styles can actually work. I love when that actually works out. So yeah, keep the feedback coming, especially block theme authors around limitations you run into like this. It&#8217;s always really helpful to start to continue to fix these sorts of things. So I was excited to see that bug fix there.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Definitely. It&#8217;s also, if you want to read up about it and see how such a collaboration between veteran contributors and new contributors actually happens. It&#8217;s a great example where a lot of people have some opinions, but then you move forward and you get a nice PR merged that helps a lot of people. So it&#8217;s definitely a great way to contribute. I don&#8217;t think I see any other bug fixes that I would want to talk about. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Accessibility</h3>



<p>So there&#8217;s one on the component that&#8217;s more on accessibility thing, that the toolbar now adjusts the colors for dark mode support. And that&#8217;s really cool because now you can also have the toolbar on the block in dark mode. For a lot of people that are around in dark mode, it&#8217;s really cool. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Documentation</h3>



<p>And then there is one documentation issue I need to look at that, but it is that the block schema now also has a roll field and the role field is important for.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>It looks like it was added before in 6.7. Like the roll field was stabilized but it wasn&#8217;t exposed in the schema. Which, you know, might be good to follow up on.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah, yeah, it happens with 6.7 it was. Yeah. And that&#8217;s for the content mode.</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>Yeah, that&#8217;s right.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah. So that&#8217;s it. I think we&#8217;re through that. We have Gutenberg 20.9 and 21 and we are at the last bit of our show. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What’s in Active Development or Released</h3>



<p>And that is what&#8217;s in active development or discussed. And with a few more talks on flagship WordCamps, the interactivity becomes more and more popular, and the team worked in the last few months with the WordPress team together to implement additional features, and those are now with the start of contributing again backported to the Gutenberg repo. There are many issues and you can follow along on the tracking issue. Backport WooCommerce Interactivity API improvements. That&#8217;s tracking issue 70372. It&#8217;s like a phone number. Yeah, there are actually quite a few issues in there. I&#8217;m really excited about that because there is a new feature that&#8217;s the interactivity router that lets you organize your pages better or the links between blocks. And also what was the other one?</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>I know there&#8217;s some client side navigation work that&#8217;s been done too, which I&#8217;m really excited about. I&#8217;ve been using that in the Block Museum for a while now and it just makes it super quick to switch between pages and to have it be pulled in and hopefully stabilize soon. It&#8217;d be really, really neat to have as an option. I have loved having it on the Block Museum.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>So yeah, yeah, that was also something, that was an experiment I think in Gutenberg for the, for the query block. Yeah, yes, yes. So, okay, so now we&#8217;re kind of moving forward on that and I&#8217;m quite excited about that, and I hope you dear listeners are too. All right, is there anything else that you wanted to talk about on the show?</p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>But nothing on my mind. I mean I would love this is a selfish ask, but as I get back into the project, mainly coming back from sabbatical, I would love to know what sort of hallway hangouts or conversations folks want to have. I&#8217;m really keen on making sure we continue to have a lot of those community wide conversations, not just at WordCamps because not everyone can join those. And like that&#8217;s some inspiration I took from the COVID times is to continue the conversation. So if folks have ideas or suggestions, I&#8217;m Nzazu and WordPress at org Slack, my site Snowmad Blog, you can contact me there. I&#8217;m not on X or any of the social media so you cannot find me. But yeah, I, I just am. I&#8217;m very curious to see what&#8217;s on people&#8217;s minds, what feels like hot topics to discuss and what feels important to hear more about and how we can facilitate sharing that knowledge and inviting more folks into the work. That&#8217;s the only other thing I&#8217;d love to add.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Awesome. Awesome. Yes. And as always, the show notes will be published on <a href="http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast">GutenbergTimes.com/podcast</a> this is episode 118. And if you have questions or suggestions or news you want us to include, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a> that&#8217;s <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a> and this is the end of this show. </p>



<p>Thank you all for listening, and thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy, busy schedule to be on the show with me. And thank you all for listening. And until the next time, bye. </p>



<p><em>Anne McCarthy: </em>Bye.</p>



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<p>Hi there,</p>



<p>WordCamp Europe is over. I had a blast and also caught a bug.<img alt="🤧" class="wp-smiley" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.1.0/72x72/1f927.png" style="height: 1em;" /> </p>



<p>The next flagship WordCamp is just around the corner: <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/">WordCamp US</a> will take place August 26 &#8211; 29 with Contributor Day, Showcase Day and a two-day conference. The <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/call-for-speakers/">call for speakers is open</a>, notice the deadline June 20 for your submission. Also open are the <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/call-for-sponsors/">call for sponsors</a> and <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/volunteer/">for volunteers.</a></p>



<p>I am so excited as I will finally connect with my WordPress friends from the US again. It took me three years to get back to WordCamp US after our move to Germany. </p>



<p>With Automattic <a href="https://automattic.com/2025/05/29/returning-to-core/">getting back to contributions</a>, the team caught up on Gutenberg release posts and there is a new Gutenberg version available. I also have a few notes and links collected about the new AI team and their work. </p>



<p>I hope to see you at WordCamp US, too</p>



<p>Yours, <img alt="💕" class="wp-smiley" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.1.0/72x72/1f495.png" style="height: 1em;" /><br /><em>Birgit</em></p>






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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>



<p>In the latest edition of <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2025/06/whats-new-for-developers-june-2025/"><strong>What’s New for Developers (June 2025)</strong></a>, <strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> collected lots of information relevant for plugin authors, themes builders and agency freelance developers from Core, Gutenberg, and Playground. It’s the best post to catch up on the last to month of updates in WordPress. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Carlos Bravo </strong>release Gutenberg 21.0. In his release post <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/11/whats-new-in-gutenberg-21-0-11-june/"><strong>What’s new in Gutenberg 21.0?</strong></a> he highlighted. </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/11/whats-new-in-gutenberg-21-0-11-june/#html-element-now-selectable">The HTML Element is now selectable on Button and Separator blocks.</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/11/whats-new-in-gutenberg-21-0-11-june/#experimental-inline-comments">Extensive ToolsPanel Refactoring</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/11/whats-new-in-gutenberg-21-0-11-june/#accessibility-and-usability">Accessibility and usability</a></li>
</ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Jessica Lyschik</strong> used the time during Contributor Day at WordCamp Europe to get a head start on catching up with the release posts for earlier Gutenberg releases. </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/05/whats-new-in-gutenberg-20-4-and-20-5/">What’s new in Gutenberg 20.4 and 20.5?</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/11/whats-new-in-gutenberg-20-6-and-20-7/">What’s new in Gutenberg 20.6 and 20.7?</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/11/whats-new-in-gutenberg-20-8-and-20-9/">What’s new in Gutenberg 20.8 and 20.9?</a></li>
</ul>



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<p><img alt="🎙" class="wp-smiley" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.1.0/72x72/1f399.png" style="height: 1em;" /> The latest episode <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-118-wordpress-new-ai-team-the-pride-photo-drive/">Gutenberg Changelog 118 – WordCamp Europe, WordPress New AI Team, the Pride Photo Drive, Gutenberg 20.9 and 21.0 </a> <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> is back from sabbatical and we talked about WordCamp Europe, the new WordPress AI team, the Pride Photo Drive, and Gutenberg 20.9 and 21.0 . </p>



<p><em>If you are listing via Spotify, please leave a comment. If you listen via other podcast apps, please leave a review. It&#8217;ll help with the distribution.</em></p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="new-wordpress-ai-team">New WordPress AI Team</h3>



<p>Just ahead of WordCamp Europe, <strong>Mary Hubbard</strong> <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2025/05/announcing-the-formation-of-the-wordpress-ai-team/"><strong>announce the new AI team</strong></a>, identifying James LePage and Felix Arnzt as team reps. James LePage followed up with his post <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/ai/2025/05/23/welcome-to-the-core-ai-team-blog/"><strong>Welcome to the Core AI Team Blog</strong></a>. </p>



<p>The community came together for the <strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/ai/2025/06/03/introducing-the-ai-team-hallway-hangout-recap/">Introducing the AI Team Hallway Hangout</a></strong> and <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> published the recap and the recording. </p>



<p>What I learned: </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The AI Team is laying the groundwork to bring AI into WordPress, and the timing couldn’t be better. With AI moving at lightning speed, it’s important for WordPress to stay in the mix.</li>



<li>For now, the AI Team isn’t adding big AI tools directly into WordPress. Instead, they’re working on simple plugins that help connect WordPress to different AI services. Maybe someday AI will be built right into the core, but that’s not on the table yet.</li>



<li>WordPress leaders are fully behind the AI Team, recognizing that AI is the future and wanting to keep WordPress front and center as things evolve.</li>
</ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>The current initiatives / plugins have been mentioned in early editions of the newsletter: </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/ai-services/"><strong>AI Services</strong></a> Plugin by Felix Arnzt provides an abstraction layer for multiple AI providers, enabling plugin authors to use a unified API for AI interactions. </li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/mcp-wp/"><strong>MCP for WordPress</strong></a> plugin  by Pascal Birchler implements Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers in WordPress, enabling advanced AI integrations via command-line or plugins. You can learn more about reading Pascal Bichler&#8217;s post <a href="https://pascalbirchler.com/wordpress-model-context-protocol-mcp/"><em>Enabling AI-Powered WordPress Development with WP-CLI and the Model Context Protocol (MCP)</em></a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/Automattic/wp-feature-api"><strong>WP-Feature-API</strong> </a>plugin by Automattic structures WordPress features for better AI interaction, offering a standardized way to register resources for AI use. It&#8217;s a system for exposing server and client-side functionality in WordPress for use in LLMs and agentic systems</li>
</ul>



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<p>The <strong>WordPress AI Team</strong> chats in the WPSlack <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C08TJ8BPULS">#core-ai</a> channel and holds meetings every other Thursday at 16:00 UTC. You can read <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/ai/2025/06/13/ai-chat-summary-12-june-2025/">the summary of this week&#8217;s meeting</a> on the Make AI blog. </p>



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<p>In his video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V08qhLL19cM"><strong>The WordPress AI fightback begins!</strong></a> Jamie Marsland interviews James LePage about AI in WordPress and the new team. </p>


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<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="wordcamp-europe">WordCamp Europe </h3>



<p>It was a fantastic WordCamp at a great venue. I enjoyed the many, many conversations with attendees, sponsors, contributors and fellow speakers. The organizing team has done a fabulous job, in all areas, and the volunteers were awesome. The speaker team was first-class in their support. As a first time WCEU speaker, I felt very well cared for. I loved the bright and brilliant designs at the venue as well as on the website and on screens. </p>



<p>The most astonishing work was done by the AV team, who <a href="https://wordpress.tv/event/wordcamp-europe-2025/">uploaded all videos to WordPress TV</a> by the end of the WordCamp.  In contrast to previous WordCamps, all workshops were also recorded, and you can watch them at your own speed. </p>



<p>As always, I share my opinionated list of favorites: </p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/09/fireside-chat-with-mary-hubbard-and-matt-mullenweg/"><strong>During Fire side Chat</strong></a> with <strong>Mary Hubbard</strong> and <strong>Matt Mullenweg</strong> they discussed, among other things, the <strong>WordPress Campus Connect</strong> project that’s being rolled out as an official program. Hubbard also announced the start of a pilot project for student internships with the University of Pisa, encompassing 5000 students to contribute 150 hours and received six college credits.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/09/fireside-chat-with-mary-hubbard-and-matt-mullenweg/"><img alt="Mary Hubbard and Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp Europe 2025. Photo by Sathwik Prabhu" class="wp-image-40669" height="435" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Mary-Hubbard-Matt-Mullenweg-WordCamp-Europe-2025.jpg?resize=652%2C435&#038;ssl=1" width="652" /></a></figure>



<p>Another great talk was by <strong>Noel Tock <a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/wordpress-without-borders-the-fight-for-digital-freedom/">WordPress without Borders – The Fight for Digital Freedom</a></strong>. Tock not only shared from his charity work in Ukraine but also about other charities who help with finding kids, providing a roof over the head of people who lost their homes, and trying to alleviate other hardships. Tock made us realize the true impact of WordPress has to all the agencies who use it for their web site to fundraise and connect with communities. The pictures from Ukraine are heart-wrenching.</p>



<p>The Block related talks:  </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> and <a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/the-block-developer-cookbook-wceu-2025-edition/"><strong>his block development cookbook</strong></a> workshop and</li>



<li><strong>Milana Cap</strong> conducting the workshop <strong><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/wordpress-gems-for-devs-interactivity-api-2/">WordPress Gems around the Interactivity API</a>. </strong></li>



<li><strong>Ellen Bauer</strong> talked about <strong><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/why-block-themes-make-woocommerce-stores-better/">how block themes speed up stores and sites</a> </strong>and give back control for the layouts to the merchants</li>



<li><strong>Robert O’Rourke</strong> asked <strong><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/do-you-really-need-a-custom-block/">Do you really need a custom block</a>.</strong>   </li>
</ul>



<p>If you are interested in working with Playground, two workshops might help you get started depending on your needs</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/from-zero-to-demo-mastering-wordpress-playground-blueprints/"><strong>From Zero to Demo: Mastering WordPress Playground Blueprints</strong></a> with yours truly and</li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/building-automated-tests-with-wordpress-playground/"><strong>Building Automated Tests with WordPress Playground</strong></a> with <strong>Berislav (Bero) Grgicak</strong></li>
</ul>



<p>This is only a small list, and there are many great talks about all WordPress topics, for content creators, developers, entrepreneurs, and educators. <a href="https://wordpress.tv/event/wordcamp-europe-2025/">Check them out.</a> </p>



<p>A few attendees published recap posts:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2025/06/wceu-2025-a-community-celebration-in-the-swiss-sun/">WCEU 2025: A Community Celebration in the Swiss Sun</a> by <strong>Brett McSherry</strong></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/10/wordcamp-europe-2025-recap-of-the-event/">WordCamp Europe 2025 | Recap of the event</a> by <strong>Benjamin Zekavica</strong></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2025/06/10/wceu-2025-contributor-day-recap/">WCEU 2025 : Test Team Contributor Day Recap</a> by <strong>Krupa Nanda</strong></li>



<li><strong>TechRadar:</strong> <a href="https://www.techradar.com/pro/live/wordcamp-europe-2025-all-the-latest-news-and-updates-as-they-happen">WordCamp Europe 2025 &#8211; here&#8217;s all the highlights from the event</a></li>



<li><a href="https://kau-boys.com/4146/wordcamp/wordcamp-europe-2025-a-trip-to-a-beautiful-city">WordCamp Europe 2025 – A trip to a beautiful city</a> by <strong>Bernhard Kau</strong></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-p">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>



<p><strong><br />Carlo Daniele</strong>, Kinsta, dug deeper in the term <a href="https://kinsta.com/blog/hybrid-themes/"><strong>WordPress Hybrid Themes</strong></a>. He covered two approaches. The first is how hybrid themes bridge the gap between Classic and Block Themes by supporting modern block features. They maintain compatibility with traditional plugins and templates. The second highlights ways developers can enhance hybrid themes with global styles. They can use block patterns and template parts for flexible site building.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>In her post, <a href="https://groundworx.dev/from-page-builders-to-blocks-how-and-why-to-finally-move-to-gutenberg/"><strong>From Page Builders to Blocks</strong></a>, <strong>Johanne Courtright</strong>, founder of Groundworx,  explains why it’s time to move from page builders to Gutenberg, the built-in block editor. She points out its built-in stability, better performance, and easier design control. Courtright tackles common worries, then suggests starting small—like switching your blog first, updating your theme, and helping users learn—showing that Gutenberg’s block system is the way forward for WordPress.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>In here post <a href="https://binatethoughts.com/design-once-build-everywherethe-lego-principle-for-page-builders/"><strong>Design Once, Build Everywhere:The Lego Principle for Page Builders</strong></a>, <strong>Tammie Lister </strong>reflects on the fragmented world of page builders, arguing for a “Lego principle” where design components are created once and used everywhere. She suggests that adopting shared foundations and modular systems—much like Lego’s approach—would unlock creativity, improve portability, and better meet modern demands. Ultimately, Lister envisions a future where page builders are collaborative, flexible, and empower users to build without barriers.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>



<p><strong>Fabian Kägy,</strong> director of Editorial Engineering, introduced <a href="https://fueled.com/blog/figma-to-wordpress-in-minutes/"><strong>Fueled’s open-source Figma to WordPress plugin,</strong></a> which exports design tokens from Figma directly into a WordPress theme.json file, reducing a 10–15 hour manual process to about an hour and enabling rapid, consistent theme development without extra frameworks or licenses</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://fueled.com/blog/figma-to-wordpress-in-minutes/"><img alt="Screenshot of the Figma to WordPress plugin " class="wp-image-40680" height="408" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Figma-to-theme.json_.png?resize=652%2C408&#038;ssl=1" width="652" /></a></figure>



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<p>J<strong>eremy Holcombe</strong> at Kinsta, also researched <a href="https://kinsta.com/blog/convert-figma-to-wordpress/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">How to convert a Figma project to WordPress</a> and walks you through three methods. He covers using the <a href="https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1195068675739761335/figma-to-wordpress">Figma plugin </a>by <a href="https://yotako.io/">Yotako</a> for automation, manually rebuilding designs in WordPress for precision, and hiring professional services, highlighting the pros, cons, and best use cases for each approach.. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Mike McAlister</strong> introduced <a href="https://olliewp.com/introducing-the-ollie-theme-academy-video-course/"><strong>the Ollie Theme Academy video course</strong></a> a free and in-depth video course teaching everything from the basics to advanced techniques of WordPress block theme development. The course covers full site editing, global styles, patterns, and aims to help anyone modernize their WordPress workflow for 2025 and beyond.</p>



<p>10 days later, McAlister followed up with the announcement of a <a href="https://olliewp.com/introducing-the-ollie-block-dev-academy/"><strong>Block Development course</strong></a>. This is a new resource to help developers master building custom WordPress blocks. It provides practical, hands-on video lessons focused on modern block development. This approach aims to make it easier for anyone to create powerful, custom blocks for their WordPress sites.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://olliewp.com/introducing-the-ollie-block-dev-academy/"><img alt="Screenshot of the landing page for the Ollie Block Academy, courtesy of Mike McAlister " class="wp-image-40685" height="341" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-12-at-1.47.26%E2%80%AFPM.png?resize=652%2C341&#038;ssl=1" width="652" /></a></figure>



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<p><strong>Bernhard Kau</strong> explored <a href="https://kau-boys.com/4130/web-development/implementing-a-custom-block-style-variation-using-only-json-files" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank"><strong>Implementing a custom block style variation using only JSON files</strong></a> in WordPress block themes. He explains how to make a perfectly round button by defining a new style in a JSON file. This approach bypasses the need for PHP or JavaScript. Despite some limitations, this approach allows for easy customization. There is incomplete support for certain properties. Nevertheless, it enables consistent design without writing traditional code.</p>


<section class="wp-block-newsletterglue-callout undefined not-color-set" style="border-color: #f9f9e5; border-radius: 22px; border-style: solid; border-width: 0; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; text-align: left; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; background-color: #f9f9e5;">
<p><strong> <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2025&#8221;</a> </strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. The previous years are also available: <strong><strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/">2020</a> | <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2021/">2021</a></strong> | <strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2022/">2022</a></strong></strong> | <strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2023">2023</a></strong> | <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2024/"><strong>2024</strong></a></p>
</section>


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor</h2>



<p><br /><strong>Alfredo Navas</strong>, developer at WebDevStudios, explored <a href="https://webdevstudios.com/2025/06/11/using-wordpress-mcp-as-a-development-tool/"><strong>the MCP server plugin</strong></a>. He shared his findings and highlighted how it enables external tools or AI agents to interact with WordPress. These interactions are useful for tasks like creating posts or debugging. He notes its usefulness for automating workflows, its extensibility, and that it’s still under active development.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Eric Karkovack</strong> explains how to <a href="https://speckyboy.com/add-custom-style-variations-wordpress-blocks/"><strong>add custom style variations to WordPress blocks using a custom plugin</strong></a>. He guides you through creating custom style variations for WordPress blocks. He details building a plugin, using the ‎`register_block_style()` function, and applying unique styles—like a “Unicorn” button—via PHP or JSON. This way you empower your users to personalize block designs and enhance site consistency. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>I mentioned <strong>DeepWiki</strong> before, <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/block-styles-woo-product-collection-deepwiki-accessibility-day-weekend-edition-329/#deepwiki">in WE #329</a>, and now <strong>Jonathan Bossenger</strong> invites you in you YouTube video to learn more about <strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq0P8Gc-9xk">DeepWiki | AI powered documentation you can talk to</a></strong>.</p>



<p>I asked DeepWiki the following questions, click on the links to get to the answers. </p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://deepwiki.com/search/what-are-the-elements-of-the-w_7f48ffc6-285a-4522-bb0c-5b98471c3178">What are the elements of the WordPress Design system</a></li>



<li><a href="https://deepwiki.com/search/what-are-the-elements-of-the-w_7f48ffc6-285a-4522-bb0c-5b98471c3178">How is the spacing fluid?</a></li>
</ul>


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<p><strong><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. </p>



<p>Now also available via <a href="https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/playnightly.json">WordPress Playground</a>. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">Email me </a>with your experience</p>



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<p class="has-text-align-center has-small-font-size"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? </em><br /><em>Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">them via email</a> or</em><br /><em> send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>.</p>



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<p class="has-text-align-center has-small-font-size">For questions to be answered on the <a href="http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, <br />send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>



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<p>Featured Image: WordCamp Europe 2025 photo by Kostas Fryganiotis, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wceu/54572922149/in/album-72177720326409151">found on Flickr</a></p>



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