This week on The WP Week Podcast, we cover a major security incident affecting five Awesome Motive products, including Uncanny Automator, following a supply-chain breach that has sent shockwaves through the WordPress ecosystem.We also discuss WordPress opening testing for long-awaited Unicode email address support, bringing internationalized email addresses to WordPress accounts, along with the launch of WordPress Studio for Linux, updates from the AI Team, and the redesigned plugin screenshots gallery on WordPress.org.In community news, Wordfence Login Security is being discontinued as its features move into the main Wordfence plugin, Kinsta launches free bot protection, Akismet releases an official PHP SDK, and Beaver Builder enters the AI website builder race with its new AI-powered page generation tools.Plus, we look at growing concerns around WordPress growth, AI-driven search traffic declines, the future of WordCamps, new WordPress projects, security updates, and much more.A big thank you to our sponsors:🎯 ProfilePress – Build membership sites and sell subscriptions on WordPress.⚡ 20i Hosting – Fast, reliable WordPress hosting you'll fall in love with.💼 WP Job Openings – Create professional career pages and start hiring in minutes.Tune in for your weekly roundup of everything happening across the WordPress ecosystem.

This week, we dive into WordPress.org’s new Protect The Shire initiative, introducing a 24-hour cooldown period for plugin and theme auto-updates to improve security and reduce supply-chain risks. We also cover the experimental Gutenberg dashboard, the React 19 rollback, and the call for WordPress 7.0.x release managers.

We discuss WooCommerce’s decision to drop the block-based Product Editor, benchmark results from over 55,000 WordPress plugins challenging the “too many plugins” performance myth, and highlights from WordCamp Europe 2026, including the announcement of Málaga, Spain as the host city for WordCamp Europe 2027.

Also in this episode: major security updates, Progress Planner’s acquisition, new hosting benchmarks, the future of Patchstack’s bug bounty program, and a roundup of exciting new WordPress projects and AI-powered tools.

A big thank you to our sponsors:

🎯 ProfilePress – Build membership sites and sell subscriptions on WordPress.
⚡ 20i Hosting – Fast, reliable WordPress hosting built for performance.
💼 WP Job Openings – Create a professional careers page and start hiring in minutes.

Tune in for your weekly roundup of everything happening in the WordPress ecosystem. 🚀

This week, the spotlight is on Matt Mullenweg’s emotional WordPress anniversary post as the WP Engine legal battle intensifies, alongside growing debate after SiteGround automatically installed its AI plugin on customer sites following WordPress 7.0 updates. We also discuss WordPress market share slipping for a sixth consecutive month and what that could mean for the future of the ecosystem.

Elsewhere, WooCommerce 10.8 arrives with performance improvements and a new AI Product Advisor beta, React 19 is on its way to WordPress, and new career-focused features are being tested on WordPress.org. Security remains a major theme, with malware campaigns affecting nearly 2,000 WordPress sites, critical plugin vulnerabilities patched, and fresh insights from the State of the Community survey.

Community discussions continue around declining WordCamp attendance, the future of plugin businesses, AI-powered support agents, and the growing role of MCP, AI workflows, and agent-driven development across WordPress.

Sponsored by:
🔹 ProfilePress – Sell memberships, subscriptions, and digital products directly on WordPress
🔹 20i – Fast, reliable managed WordPress hosting built for performance
🔹 WP Job Openings – Create professional career pages and manage applications with ease

From WordPress governance and security challenges to AI innovation, ecosystem trends, and new projects pushing the platform forward, Episode 155 captures another eventful week in the world of WordPress.