Every year as we hit the holidays, we like to zoom out and ask a simple question: where is WordPress really heading next? Not in theory, but in ways that affect our agencies, our clients, and our revenue.

In this WordPress predictions round‑up for 2026, we draw on a panel conversation with Matt Medeiros, Raquel Manriquez, Eric Karkovack, and Kurt von Ahnen and fold in broader community signals to map out what might be coming for events, plugin ecosystems, AI, legal battles, and the business side of WordPress.

If you run an agency or freelance shop, this is about what these shifts could mean for how we package services, pick tools, and position WordPress with clients in the next 12 to 24 months.

WordCamps On The Decline And The Rise Of Alternative Events

Matt Medeiros opened with a hot take many community folks feel but rarely say out loud:

“I think we’re going to see a restructuring of WordCamps to fewer WordCamps, and we might see groundwork for a single big event for WordPress.”

That line hits differently when we look at who is still stepping up to organize and who is quietly stepping back.

Raquel’s Community View: Burnout And “Paying With Money”

Raquel Manriquez, who lives deep in the community and runs PressConf, does not push back on the “fewer WordCamps” idea. Her angle is that the change is already happening from the bottom up.

She points to a few pressure points many of us feel:

• Volunteer burnout: long‑time organizers are older, busier, and less able to donate weeks of unpaid time.
• Economic reality: many of us can no longer “pay with time and talent” instead of cash.
• Community friction: more internal discourse, more scrutiny of motives, especially when someone tries a paid or alternative event.

Raquel compares it to the co‑working boom during the housing crisis. For a while, you could pay with social capital. Then reality hit, people needed to pay rent with real money, and the “free community space” model collapsed or became commercial.

Events feel similar. Many organizers still believe in open source and in WordPress, but they also need to earn a living. That tension is not going away.

State Of The Word: Apple Day Or Just Another Meetup?

Matt often treats State of the Word like “Apple Day” for WordPress, the moment the project shows its best side. That is why the contrast between recent editions raised eyebrows.

He and the panel compared:

• Tokyo 2024: full stage, live musicians, very “keynote” energy, clear production value. You can see that tone in the official State of the Word hub.
• Salesforce Tower 2025: broken live stream, no visible stage, camera angles that made it feel like a random meetup room.

On the ground, Raquel and others say the San Francisco event felt high‑end. There was good catering, interactive art, and even custom vinyl printing that ruined more than one shirt. There was also a “TBPN” program segment she loved.

From the outside, though, the livestream read as “cheap” to many. For a project that powers so much of the web, that mismatch matters for brand perception.

Alternative Events Like PressConf Are Filling The Gap

While traditional WordCamps stall in North America, Raquel expects more non‑sanctioned WordPress events to pop up, not fewer.

Her own PressConf is a good example. The intent is to:

• Run a serious, high‑quality event.
• Pay speakers and organizers fairly.
• Still keep the WordPress community at the center.

She notes that some in the ecosystem question the intent of paid events or non‑Foundation events. At the same time, organizers outside WordPress are already circling the “WordCamp vacuum” as a business opportunity.

Eric Karkovack adds an important reminder for all of us who came up through events. His first WordCamp in 2009 in Philadelphia is the reason he is still in WordPress. He is sentimental about those smaller, regional camps because they made the project feel human.

The panel shares a clear consensus that in‑person events still matter, whether they are branded as WordCamps or not. For agencies, that likely means:

• Fewer classic WordCamps on our calendar.
• More private or independent WordPress‑adjacent events we can sponsor, attend, or even produce.

Plugin Suites And “Fenced Gardens”: How Agencies Might Get Boxed In

Kurt von Ahnen raised a concern we hear more often in agency circles: the rise of plugin suites that function like mini‑platforms.

Instead of mixing and matching best‑in‑class tools, agencies are nudged into whole stacks from a single vendor.

He gave two live examples:

• The Fluent stack from WPManageNinja, covering CRM, forms, email, cart, community, and more.
• The SureCart stack, which now includes cart, CRM, and their own SEO and marketing tools.

Agencies are already saying, “We are a Fluent house” or “We are a SureCart house.”

That has benefits, but it also looks like a fenced garden.

The Agency Tradeoff: Comfort Vs Flexibility

Kurt’s concern is simple. Once we put a dozen clients on the same vendor’s suite:

• We gain speed, familiarity, and predictable integrations.
• We lose the curiosity to try different tools or architectures.
• We face serious migration pain if the vendor is acquired, stalls, or changes terms.

It is the “riches are in the niches” problem. Niche specialization helps us sell, but it can also trap us.

Matt Medeiros pointed to Fluent’s rapid development of community and course tooling. If a suite can do “good enough” LMS features, some agencies might feel less pressure to reach for a dedicated LMS.

Kurt pushed back with his experience as an advocate and implementer for LifterLMS. His view:

• LifterLMS has spent years getting the core course and membership experience right.
• When new tools like FluentCart or FluentCommunity ship, LifterLMS tends to integrate fast, rather than trying to copy every feature.
• That makes LifterLMS a natural anchor for learning projects, with suites acting as add‑ons, not replacements.

We can see that thinking in how LifterLMS maintains a broad set of integrations with other plugins, plus extras for WooCommerce, PayPal, Stripe, and more. There is a free core LMS, then focused add‑ons for things like advanced quizzes, assignments, and groups.

For agencies, that mix keeps us flexible. We can pick a dedicated LMS, then connect it to lighter tools for e‑commerce, forms, or marketing instead of locking clients into a single stack.

The Data Angle And Vendor Risk

Eric Karkovack was more positive on suites in one area: reporting.

He has felt the pain of:

• Membership data in one plugin.
• Course progress in another.
• Orders in WooCommerce.

Trying to pull all of that into a single report can feel like “pulling teeth.” Tools like AI can help analysts stitch data together, but suites that share a unified data model help even more.

That said, he stressed that going all‑in on one vendor is always a calculated risk. If a suite gets sold or loses its edge, we are the ones doing client migrations.

It is worth reading a neutral breakdown like this comparison of SureCart and FluentCart before we decide to bet an entire agency stack on either side.

The panel came back to a middle path: anchor projects on a few stable, specialist tools, use suites tactically when they truly reduce friction, and always keep an exit plan.

AI Battles In Hosting, Abilities API, And The Coming Fatigue

When the conversation turned to AI, Eric’s view was blunt: hosting companies are about to fight a full‑on AI feature war.

We are already seeing early moves from GoDaddy and Hostinger, and the official WordPress AI team is talking publicly about AI becoming a core part of the platform. You can see that direction in the post on AI as a WordPress fundamental.

Hosting As An AI Platform

The idea being floated in core discussions is that hosts could:

• Provide an AI platform layer as part of hosting.
• Expose that to WordPress via an “Abilities API.”
• Let plugins and themes hook into that shared AI layer.

In practice, that might mean:

• Theme setup guided by an AI onboarding agent.
• Plugin configuration suggestions powered by host‑level models.
• Site health and performance tips delivered in plain language.

Matt mentioned tests with GoDaddy’s Arrow website designer. It used AI to ask a few key questions, then built a working starter site. It actually did what it promised, which hints at what better AI tooling could become.

AI Growth Feels Like “Cat Years”

Raquel has been sourcing speakers for PressConf, and AI keeps slipping into almost every talk, especially from hosting companies. Her read: the pace is wild.

The internal WordPress AI team described their first six months of work as if they had been “six years.” The tooling and expectations are moving in dog or cat years, not human years.

From an agency seat, that speed creates real risks:

• If clients get admin access plus a powerful AI agent, they can create chaos in minutes.
• Support teams for plugins like Gravity Forms may get flooded with, “My AI bot said this integration should work, please fix it.”
• Every new ability adds another place where something can go wrong.

AI Fatigue And The Return To Simple

Kurt took the contrarian view. He uses AI daily and even teaches it in business workshops, but he does not want average users driving AI on production sites.

He predicts:

• A wave of AI fatigue among small businesses by 2027.
• Owners of coffee shops, dry cleaners, and local services who just want a simple menu and a contact form.
• A renewed appetite for “analog” web presence that is understandable and stable.

Eric backed that with anecdotes from the next generation. Teens and college students in his life are excited about records, MP3 players, and physical mail. For kids raised on hyper‑connected tech, simpler tools feel fresh.

We are already seeing developers ask for kill switches for AI. Some want a simple constant in wp-config.php to disable the Abilities API for client sites so they can keep control.

Smarter AI: Beyond Text And Images

Even with all those worries, the panel expects at least one meaningful AI breakthrough in WordPress in 2026, something more useful than text and image generation.

Candidates include:

• AI‑guided onboarding in Jetpack, which Devin Walker has hinted at.
• Smarter site configuration tools that combine AI insights with real WordPress APIs.
• Better SEO and content tuning aligned with trends like the 2026 SEO predictions from Moz.

Raquel drew a parallel with the first big page builders. Agencies feared clients would not need us anymore. In reality, a small portion of users leveled up, but most still wanted help.

AI may follow the same pattern:

• Some clients will handle more day‑to‑day updates themselves.
• Many will be overwhelmed by extra alerts and “smart suggestions.”
• Agencies will sell “AI plus human oversight” care plans, not “AI instead of humans.”

Kurt and Eric both stressed that when auto‑updates break things or AI decisions misfire, clients will still want a person who can take responsibility and fix it.

The Automattic vs WP Engine Lawsuit And What Comes After

Matt dropped another bold prediction: the Automattic vs WP Engine lawsuit settles in 2026, and once it does, Automattic takes the gloves off on marketing.

His imagined future:

• A clearer public split between “Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and Jetpack” and “WordPress, the open source project.”
• A strong consumer‑facing push built around Jetpack as “the way regular people experience WordPress.”
• A big annual event, almost like “Automattic Day,” where new product moves are announced and framed for the wider market.

This fits with Automattic hiring leaders like Devin Walker to focus on specific products, and with the broader push many product folks see toward better onboarding and UX, not just features. Matt Cromwell captured that shift in his advice for WordPress product businesses in 2026.

Will The Lawsuit Really Settle?

Eric is not convinced we will see peace that soon. His read is that both sides are very dug in and that if they wanted to settle early, they probably would have already.

There is public material from both directions:

• WP Engine’s framing of its case in “Ensuring Stability and Security.”
• Automattic’s view in “Defending Open Source,” spelling out counterclaims about trademark misuse.

For clients and agencies trying to decode what this means for them, neutral summaries like this overview of what the WP Engine vs Automattic lawsuit means for businesses are helpful.

Raquel added a twist from her event organizer’s vantage point. Coordinating with both companies, she is seeing a new “beast” enter the ring that may matter more to them than this one battle. With private equity firms like Silver Lake involved at high levels and deals as large as the EA acquisition in play, WordPress legal fights are small numbers on their balance sheets.

Her experience this year is that, at least for events, the lawsuit is not even the main issue anymore.

For agencies, the practical takeaway is simpler:

• Stay informed enough to answer client questions calmly.
• Remind clients that open source WordPress, the Foundation, and the wider ecosystem are bigger than any one company spat.
• Watch how Automattic and large hosts adjust their branding and product offerings so we are not caught flat‑footed.

Where The Community Energy Is Shifting

Another important prediction from Raquel was geographic. On paper, global WordCamp applications are up. In reality, most new activity is in APAC, not North America or Western Europe.

She encouraged us to watch:

• The community and events channels in Make Slack.
• The steady stream of meetup and WordCamp applications from Asian cities.
• Big events like WordCamp Asia, which many say feel like WordCamp San Francisco did in 2012 or 2013.

In those rooms, you still hear stories of people who could not feed their families before they found WordPress and now run stable businesses. That reminder of what open source can do economically is powerful.

Compare that with the “jaded” feeling many western professionals have after a decade of WordPress politics, company drama, and burnout.

Raquel tied this to her other prediction: in North America and Europe, WordPress usage may flatten or even dip, while apathy about owning data continues. Users stay on SaaS platforms where they do not control their content or stack, at least until a major privacy or AI shock forces them to care.

Eric’s own rapid‑fire prediction was that we will see a big AI‑related privacy or security incident that hits at a national or global level. When that happens, people may look harder at tools that let them keep data on their own servers, away from big social and AI companies.

For us as agencies, this is a chance to make a simple, strong case for open source and for self‑hosted stacks like:

• WordPress with specialized tools like LifterLMS for courses and memberships.
• Commerce handled via WooCommerce or carts that respect data ownership.
• Automation via tools like Uncanny Automator’s LifterLMS integration that still sit inside a site the client controls.

Rapid‑Fire Predictions And What They Mean For Agencies

The panel closed with a lightning round. Taken together, these quick hits sketch a 2026 that is messy, but full of opportunity for agencies that prepare.

Here are the standout predictions and how they might touch our work:

1. Automattic starts or expands a hosting play.
   
   A deeper push into managed WordPress hosting from Automattic could blur lines even more for clients who already confuse WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Agencies will need clean messaging about when platform hosting is right and when a custom stack is better.
2. PressConf Europe becomes real.
   
   Matt joked about it, but Raquel’s reaction hinted that more regional PressConf‑style events are likely. Agencies that get involved early as sponsors, speakers, or co‑organizers can build strong positioning in their regions.
3. Automattic buys Beaver Builder.
   
   Pure speculation, but a move like that would show how serious Automattic is about controlling core parts of the WordPress experience beyond Gutenberg. For page‑builder‑heavy agencies, it would be a signal to keep options open.
4. Fewer WordCamps, harder‑to‑fill meetups.
   
   Kurt already sees meetups in places like Kansas struggle to get attendees. That makes any well‑run community channel that brings different tool camps together, not just one vendor’s fans, incredibly valuable.
5. Etch keeps growing and divides opinion.
   
   As new tools gain buzz, the marketing around them can split communities into for and against camps. Agencies can stand out by focusing less on tool wars and more on outcomes.
6. Jetpack will look very different.
   
   Eric expects Jetpack to be far more focused in a year and less of an “everything for everyone” bundle. That could give agencies a clearer story about when Jetpack is the right fit and when a custom mix of plugins is better.
7. A major AI privacy or security scandal hits.
   
   When that happens, both regulators and clients will ask harder questions about data collection, training models, and consent. Agencies that already frame services around ethical AI and data ownership will have a head start.
8. Facebook and OpenAI take major hits.
   
   Matt predicted big setbacks for both. If mainstream trust in those brands falls, clients may look harder at independent platforms and tools where they are not just data points in a giant experiment.
9. Course platform hype pushes people back to WordPress.
   
   Kurt sees creators burned by high‑priced “all‑in‑one” platforms like Skool or Passion.io that promised $50,000‑per‑week dreams. When that does not materialize, they will look for sustainable, own‑your‑stack options. WordPress with a solid LMS like LifterLMS, plus e‑commerce via something like the LifterLMS WooCommerce integration, is an easy pitch at that moment.

How Agencies Can Prepare For 2026

Predictions only matter if they change how we act. Looking across all of this, a few moves stand out for agencies and freelancers.

1. Diversify, but standardize smartly.
We should avoid putting every client on one vendor’s suite, but we also should not keep 15 different carts or CRMs in play. A small, vetted stack plus strong integration habits will age better.

2. Treat AI as an assistant, not a replacement.
We can embrace AI features in hosting, Jetpack, and plugins where they clearly save time, while still selling the value of human judgment, QA, and creative thinking.

3. Reposition care plans around “AI plus expert oversight.”
If AI starts suggesting updates, content tweaks, and optimizations, we can frame maintenance as the layer that verifies, implements, and tests changes safely.

4. Invest in community, even if it is not called WordCamp.
PressConf, regional gatherings, meetups inside coworking spaces, and online communities all have room for agencies that show up consistently. The label matters less than the relationships.

5. Sharpen our data‑ownership story.
Between AI, lawsuits, and growing privacy worries, clients will care more about who controls their content. WordPress, open source, and tools with clear integration stories, like the LifterLMS integrations documentation, give us solid talking points.

6. Stay lawsuit‑aware, not lawsuit‑obsessed.
We do not need to track every filing, but we should understand the basics enough to reassure clients that their sites are safe, regardless of who wins in court.

Share Your WordPress Predictions For 2026

We started with a simple question: where is WordPress heading next, and how does that shape our agency work?

Looking ahead to 2026, we see fewer classic WordCamps and more independent events, plugin suites that can both help and trap us, aggressive AI moves from hosts and core, a high‑stakes lawsuit hovering in the background, and a community whose energy is shifting toward APAC while western pros wrestle with burnout and data apathy.

As always, the opportunity sits with those of us who stay curious, keep our stacks flexible, and put clients’ long‑term interests ahead of short‑term hype.

We would love to hear your own predictions. What do you expect for WordPress, client work, or agency life in 2026? Share your thoughts in the comments on the video above or with your own audience, and keep the conversation going.