The Future of WordPress & What’s Next for Gutenberg

Nearly 2,000 attendees gathered for two days of keynotes, sessions, and community-building conversations at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in the largest attended WordCamp US ever. Saturday’s sessions concluded with back-to-back keynotes by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy. 

What’s Next for WordPress

Josepha launched her keynote by celebrating 20 years of WordPress and reflecting on its journey from a blogging tool to the world’s most popular community-driven web platform. On WordPress as a platform for empowerment and change, Josepha shared, “The more people that know about WordPress, the more people can access the incredible opportunities that WordPress can provide.” And that sustaining the platform for future generations ensures these opportunities will persist. She added, “We exist for as long as people want to use our software.”

The community is the key to sustaining WordPress, and Josepha touched on the importance of WordCamps, workshops, and events that create value, promote inclusivity,  and spark inspiration. WordPress can be a catalyst for positive change in the life of a contributor, end user, or site builder.

Concluding her keynote, Josepha asked the audience to think about the story they’d want to tell about themselves and their time in WordPress; and the story they would want WordPress to tell the world.

What’s Next for Gutenberg

Matt began his keynote with a touch of nostalgia, referring to a comment on his personal blog in 2003 by WordPress Co-founder Mike Little, and then looked ahead to the most recent release, WordPress 6.3. As this year’s largest release, it includes new features such as the Command Palette, a quick way (⌘+k on Mac or Ctrl+k on Windows) to search your site and access common commands.

Matt continued, “WordPress never rests, so right around the corner is WordPress 6.4 on Nov 7… with some cool new features.” He shared that 6.4, like 5.6, will be an underrepresented gender-led release. A new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Four, is tailored for entrepreneurs and small businesses, photographers and artists, and writers and bloggers. Additionally, 6.4 will feature integrated font management and Image block options to expand single images for optimal viewing.

Looking further into the future, Matt highlighted Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project, which will focus on workflows and collaboration, “moving WordPress from a single-player to a multi-player tool.” In that spirit of collaboration, a new #LMS working group will also bring WordPress learning management systems together to improve the web standards for courses and learning content.

Beyond Phase 3, Matt shared thoughts about what it means to support WordPress many years from now. A new 100-Year Plan from WordPress.com is an exploration into long-term planning for your online presence. He encouraged attendees to be inspired by the region’s history, reflecting on what it would mean to honor the past while anticipating and planning for the future. 

Q&A

A Q&A session followed the keynotes, with questions submitted by the in-person audience and live stream viewers.

Additional questions will be answered in a future post on make.WordPress.org/project/. Join the global community making WordPress and be part of our journey toward a brighter future!

Thank you to @angelasjin, @bmcsherry, @cbringmann, @dansoschin, and @eidolonnight for collaborating on this post.