When people talk about AI website builders, WordPress usually sounds like the old option.
You have the shiny new platforms where you describe an app and watch it appear on the screen.
Then you have WordPress, the thing people have been installing on hosting accounts forever.
I think that comparison is getting outdated fast.
After spending a lot of time and money experimenting with AI builders, I have started looking at WordPress differently.
WordPress might actually become one of the most interesting AI website platforms precisely because it was not built as an AI website builder.
AI builders changed what I expect from software
I do not want to go back to clicking through 14 settings screens every time I need to make a simple change.
AI ruined that for me.
Once you get used to telling software what you want, traditional dashboards can feel slow as hell.
That was one reason I got so deep into AI builders in the first place.
But I eventually hit the other side of that convenience. I was spending around $600 a month across AI builder usage and started questioning whether the AI needed to own the environment I was building in.
I wrote the full story in I Was Spending $600 a Month on AI Builders So I Went Back to WordPress.
What if WordPress becomes the platform and AI becomes the interface
This is the idea that changed things for me.
Instead of asking an AI to generate an entire proprietary-feeling environment around my project, what if I keep WordPress and let an AI operate it?
That means I still have WordPress underneath everything.
Posts. Pages. Users. Plugins. Themes. Memberships. SEO. Media. The database. Hosting. Backups.
Then AI becomes another way of controlling those systems.
That is very different from using ChatGPT as a glorified instruction manual.
WordPress is officially moving toward AI agents
This is not just something I made up for Marketur.
WordPress introduced the Abilities API as a standardized way for WordPress core, plugins and themes to register things they can do with defined inputs, outputs and permissions.
Then there is the official WordPress MCP Adapter, which can expose those abilities as tools that MCP-compatible AI agents can discover and execute.
In July 2026, the WordPress Developer Blog demonstrated the Abilities API, AI Client and MCP Adapter working together in an AI-powered WordPress plugin.
Read the official WordPress AI plugin walkthrough.
That is the part I think people should pay attention to.
WordPress does not need to turn itself into another prompt-to-app service.
It already has the ecosystem.
AI just needs a safe way to use it.
A plugin can become an AI capability
This is where my brain really starts running.
Think about what made WordPress huge in the first place.
Plugins.
One site might use a membership plugin. Another runs ecommerce. Another is a community. Another publishes content. Another has custom business tools nobody else has.
Historically, those plugins gave humans interfaces.
Now imagine plugins also exposing controlled abilities to AI agents.
The WordPress Abilities API is specifically designed to make functionality discoverable and executable, including by external systems and AI agents.
WordPress documents the Abilities API here.
That opens a completely different future for WordPress.
This is what I am building Marketur MCP around
My Marketur MCP plugin takes this general idea and turns it into something I can actually use on my sites right now.
I can connect supported AI assistants to WordPress and give them defined tools instead of giving them some vague promise of total access.
I have been using that approach to manage content, SEO, memberships and other WordPress operations.
You can see the broader concept in How to Connect ChatGPT to WordPress and How to Connect Claude to WordPress.
WordPress has something AI builders cannot recreate overnight
History.
Usually that sounds like a disadvantage in technology.
In this case I think it can be an advantage.
There is an enormous ecosystem of plugins, themes, developers, hosts, documentation and existing WordPress sites.
The question is not whether AI can replace all of that.
The more interesting question is what happens when AI can operate it.
I think the website builder itself is becoming less important
We might be heading toward a point where I care less about which dashboard has the prettiest builder.
I care about whether the underlying platform gives my AI the capabilities I need while still giving me control when the AI screws something up.
That last part matters.
I want AI to be powerful.
I do not want AI to be my only way into my own website.
That is why I am back on WordPress.
And weirdly enough, AI is one of the biggest reasons I am more excited about WordPress now than I have been in years.