AI Is Changing the Case for Choosing WordPress

WordPress' contribution to the web is something we should not forget. But as a platform, it needs to evolve. With WordPress, we have not seen that. We've seen it evolve by adding a new editor to help Automattic compete with Squarespace and WIX.  The platform was built in the 2000s and can still feel like it's from the Stone Age.

WordPress’s Original Advantage Is Fading

WordPress made websites more affordable by letting agencies combine themes and plugins for things like forms, galleries, ecommerce, seo, and other features. That became a familiar, non-technical, and repeatable way to build a website.

Now, AI can help developers build templates and connections, making a tailored editing experience more practical to deliver. We can offer more than before: a custom solution instead of a plugin that doesn't fit your needs.

But the problem is that when AI is used with WordPress, it's still slow and is often counterproductive. Imagine you need to build a custom Gutenberg block, but the styling is separated; you have to instruct AI to keep track of styling in the theme, plus the HTML from the plugin; nothing is together. The process is frustrating, and at some point, it's not worth the AI's help. If AI is not very helpful with WordPress builds, then it has no AI advantage. The complexities with style overrides cause most ai coding tools to miss the easy edits. AI will also write your theme's PHP code in strange, unnatural ways unless you specify it and review it closely.

A WordPress website investment becomes harder to justify when other platforms and frameworks work better with AI.

WordPress Work is Just Plain Slow

WordPress work is a slow process. You have to wait for pages to load, edit a dozen different interface styles, understand plugin changes, and use inefficient methods to upload changes depending on where the site is hosted.

Everything in WordPress depends on the database. If you're working locally, you have to pull down that database every time. That database can be very large. Don't forget images. Make sure you either pull them down or load them remotely. One plugin setting that is different could throw off everything you're working on

Deploying is another issue. You'll need real SSH access to set up deploy scripts with your host or GitHub Actions to deploy your code changes, or you're stuck in 2005 with an FTP upload connection. WP Engine offers a Git deploy, and Kinsta lets you use GitHub Actions for this. But WordPress splits themes and plugins, so you have to use multiple IDEs to edit your code rather than a unified one; this is especially critical if you have to build custom Gutenberg blocks and then style them at the theme level. This is 2008 Drupal-style development that still exists in WordPress in 2026! As a developer working with modern tools, this is totally unacceptable.

‍That further weakens the case for WordPress: businesses have more affordable ways to get a website organized around their content, with fewer manual updates and less plugin coordination. Those efficiencies should benefit the employees maintaining the website after launch.

WordPress Inefficiencies

Are you ready for this? Here are the WordPress inefficiencies broken down.

1. Waiting throughout the editing process. Opening an administration screen, loading a page builder, saving changes, and opening a preview each interrupt the work when the installation responds slowly. Plugin performance and hosting resources affect how much time those repeated actions consume.
2. Switching between unrelated interfaces to complete one task. Updating a landing page can involve the page editor, a form plugin, and another plugin’s settings. Each interface requires the person editing to find its controls and understand its terminology. WordPress lets plugins introduce their own administration pages and menus.
3. Searching for the setting that actually controls an element. A button’s appearance can depend on theme settings, global styles, individual block settings, and custom styling. Before changing its color or spacing, the developer has to determine which setting takes precedence.
4. Keeping up with changes from multiple plugin developers. A website assembled from separate products requires continuing attention to how those products interact. An update can introduce compatibility problems, changed behavior, or outdated functions that require investigation before the website can operate as intended.
5. Overriding styling before implementing the approved design. A theme or plugin can apply its own typography, spacing, colors, and layout rules. Developers then spend time locating and overriding those rules. Elementor’s troubleshooting documentation explicitly identifies theme styles overriding its styles as a potential problem.
6. Clearing several caches to verify a finished change. The editor shows the update, while visitors continue seeing the previous version. Checking the result can require clearing the builder’s generated files, a caching plugin, the hosting cache, the content delivery service, and the browser cache.
7. Discovering that an uploaded template has no effect. With block themes, WordPress gives a user-saved database template priority over the corresponding theme file. A developer can upload a corrected file and still see the old layout because a database customization takes precedence. That adds another place to investigate.
8. Moving code and settings separately. Uploading theme or plugin files does not transfer configuration stored in the database. A finished feature may require a file deployment followed by a separate settings transfer or manual configuration on the live website.
9. Protecting live content while deploying development work. The live website may receive new content, users, or orders while a developer works on a staging copy. Copying the older database back can overwrite that information. Someone must identify which changes to transfer and which live records to preserve.
10. Adapting deployment to each hosting environment. On installations without an established automated process, publishing changes can involve file transfers, database exports, hosting control panels, and separate configuration steps. Each project needs a documented procedure for moving the correct parts of the work into production.
11. Updating stored addresses when moving between environments. A local or staging copy can contain its own domain in content and settings. Moving it requires correctly replacing those references, including values stored in formats that a simple text replacement can damage. This adds another migration and verification task.
12. Testing plugins individually to identify a conflict. When something stops working, troubleshooting can require disabling plugins in a safe testing environment, reactivating them one at a time, and checking the result after each activation. WordPress documents this process itself. The investigation can consume substantial effort before anyone reaches the actual fix.
13. Copying browser-made template changes back into the codebase. Changes made through the Site Editor live in the database. To include those changes in the maintained theme files, developers must export or copy the relevant block markup. Otherwise, the files alone provide an incomplete record of the website’s templates.
14. Maintaining compatibility with previously saved custom blocks. Changing a custom static block can require additional code to recognize and migrate earlier versions already present in pages. WordPress recommends testing those earlier versions. A seemingly small component revision can therefore involve work across existing content.
15. Repairing finished work after an update changes its behavior. After the update, you have to investigate the change, restore readable colors, and test it again.

AI Is Making WordPress’s Old Advantages Obsolete

WordPress became an affordable choice because themes and plugins let agencies reuse work that other developers had already completed. A business could get page layouts, forms, and galleries without paying someone to develop each feature individually. That reduced the initial development bill. The business also inherited those products’ settings, styling rules, and ongoing update requirements.

AI-assisted development weakens that cost advantage by reducing the repetitive coding involved in a custom website. A developer can provide an approved design and specific requirements, then use AI to help create the layouts and functionality. The developer still directs the implementation, reviews the code, and tests the result.

Consider a construction company that needs a searchable project portfolio. In Storyblok, a developer can define fields for project names, locations, services, and photographs. AI can then help with the heavy lifting by writing the code that displays and filters those projects by service and connects them to related pages. The company gets an editing system organized around its project information and a portfolio that follows its approved design.

Established platforms already provide much of the underlying software. Storyblok supplies content-management tools and custom fields. Webflow combines visual design with content management. AI helps developers complete the business-specific work around those capabilities, making a tailored website more practical within the project budget.

The economic reason for building another WordPress website is weakening. As tailored development becomes more efficient, the hours spent configuring plugins, overriding their styles, and resolving conflicts become harder to justify. We favor using those development savings to move beyond WordPress and deliver websites with clearly labeled content fields, fewer independently maintained plugins, and direct control over the finished design.

How Platforms that Utilize AI Tools Better Gain an Advantage Over WordPress

AI is becoming an established part of development work. In Stack Overflow’s 2025 Developer Survey, 84% of respondents said they were using or planning to use AI tools in their development process, and 51% of professional developers reported daily use.

Website platforms are incorporating similar capabilities. Webflow, for example, offers AI-assisted site creation, copy generation, and code-component generation alongside its visual development tools.

These capabilities can reduce the effort required to produce an initial version of a page or feature. The actual benefit depends on the task, the tool, and the person directing the work.

Review and correction remain part of the process. The same Stack Overflow survey found that 45% of respondents identified time-consuming debugging of AI-generated code as a frustration. Not every project becomes faster or cheaper automatically.

The practical implication is more specific: where AI reduces implementation effort, businesses may have more room to consider approaches that previously seemed too expensive or labor-intensive.

A developer working from an established framework and a defined content model may be able to build a tailored website more efficiently. That could make a different CMS or a custom front end worth evaluating alongside a conventional WordPress build. You can get a more premium, modern website for not much more than a WordPress site.

A tailored website can still rely on mature, maintained software. The agency can customize the presentation, content structure, and integrations while using an established CMS for publishing and administration.

AI changes the value of basic website production

AI has changed the production side of website work. A developer can use AI to generate boilerplate code, troubleshoot errors, summarize documentation, build components, and test ideas. A designer can explore visual directions faster. A copywriter can generate rough drafts, headline options, FAQ ideas, and content outlines. A business owner can test a page concept before hiring anyone.

Stack Overflow’s 2025 Developer Survey reported that 84% of respondents were using or planning to use AI tools in their development process, and 51% of professional developers used AI tools daily.

That level of adoption tells business owners something important: AI has become part of how websites get planned, written, designed, and built.

AI does not magically produce a strong business website. It does reduce the amount of time required to create a first version of many things. That includes layouts, code snippets, copy drafts, sitemap ideas, design concepts, and technical research.

This makes low-level production less defensible as the main reason to hire an agency.

If an agency’s value comes from installing WordPress, configuring a theme, adding plugins, and filling in pages, AI and website builders will keep pushing that work down in price.

A stronger agency brings judgment. A stronger agency helps a business decide what pages should exist, what those pages need to say, how the brand should come across, how visitors should move through the site, how leads should convert, and which platform will support the company for the next several years.

AI can speed up execution. It does not replace the thinking that makes a website useful.

When it comes to WordPress, if the platform is working against your content models because of it's outdated architecture, then that's an issue. Consider taxonomies that show up in the sidebar, and no clean way to customize the interface. What if your content flow required those terms to be selected in a different area of the edit screen? You're left fighting the interface instead of using a CMS that gives you complete control.

WordPress is has competition from several directions

AI is only one part of the pressure on WordPress.

WordPress also faces pressure from Webflow, Framer, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, headless CMS platforms, custom frameworks, static site generators, and modern JavaScript tools. W3Techs lists Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, Drupal, and others in the CMS market alongside WordPress.

Each platform competes for a different kind of website owner.

Some business owners want visual editing and less maintenance. Webflow or Framer can be a strong fit for those projects.

Some businesses need commerce operations, inventory, product management, and checkout. Shopify often fits that need.

Some companies want high performance, structured content, stronger security, and a cleaner editing experience. A headless CMS such as Storyblok or Contentful, paired with a modern front end, can make sense.

Some small businesses want a quick website with minimal budget. AI website builders and simple hosted platforms will appeal to them.

WordPress still has strengths. It has a large ecosystem, many developers, wide hosting support, and broad familiarity. For some companies, that familiarity is the only reason they keep it. That shouldn't be the reason to keep a platform that does not fit.

WordPress Adapting to AI Does Not Help It

WordPress’s recent development shows the platform is responding to these changes.

WordPress 7.0, released on May 20, 2026, introduced an AI Client in core, a Connectors API, and a central Connectors screen. The infrastructure gives plugins a shared way to communicate with AI providers and manage connections. The documented default providers include Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI.

The release also described optional AI functionality for tasks such as generating titles and excerpts, editing images, and suggesting alternative text. Those features can add support to familiar publishing workflows.

WordPress 7.1, released on August 19, 2026, continued improving the broader editing experience. Its additions included responsive styling controls, expanded editorial notes, revised media-editing workflows, and further development of its automation APIs.

The business must incorporate new editing controls. Centralized AI connections do not, by themselves, reorganize a confusing content model or remove unnecessary dependencies. New editing controls need to be incorporated into a coherent publishing workflow. Generated content still needs to reflect the company’s expertise and approved messaging.

A business should assess an AI feature by the task it improves and the review it requires. Producing a first draft may be useful. The company still needs someone accountable for its accuracy and suitability.

Tools like Novamira now give AI full access to a WordPress site. Most people won't use it past the initial build, and it's not a plugin you'd want to install on a production site; it's something people should use with caution. These tools don't even level the playing field for WordPress; they are modern tools trying to work with an older architecture.

The case that WordPress can fully adopt AI, is something that remains to be seen. For now, it's still losing the race on new technologies and capabilities.

Use Your Next Redesign to Move Beyond WordPress

For more than two decades, WordPress gave organizations a practical way to publish their websites. Its publishing tools, themes, and plugin ecosystem made it adaptable to a wide range of projects.

WordPress has had a lasting influence. As of September 11, 2026, W3Techs reports that WordPress runs 40.3% of all websites and accounts for 58.8% of websites with a known content management system. Last year I guessed that WordPress' market share was not 43%.

For a business planning its next website, though, these numbers are not good reasons to choose WordPress. The market share is declining. People are moving away from WordPress. The more important consideration is how well a particular platform will support the company’s content, customers, and internal team over the next several years.

AI adds another factor to that decision. When AI-assisted tools reduce the effort of producing layouts, components, and other parts of a website, more approaches can fit within a project’s budget. That creates an opportunity to evaluate the website’s long-term operation more carefully.

Choosing a Modern Platform for Your Business

For your next business website, we recommend moving beyond WordPress. Use the redesign to address the recurring support requests, inconsistent content, and difficult updates that consume your staff’s time.

Calculate costs over the website’s expected lifespan, including development, hosting, subscriptions, maintenance, support, and staff time. Identify which features require additional software and who will maintain each service. Include those responsibilities in the proposal.

Choose a replacement that gives your business clearer editing controls, fewer overlapping software dependencies, and a defined maintenance plan. Make those requirements part of the project scope. Your next website investment should resolve the problems you have spent years paying to manage.