E136: WP-Bench Released, Guildenberg Closure, Divi 5 Release, Web Agency Summit 2026

This week’s episode explores how WordPress is evolving alongside AI, performance, and community leadership. The spotlight is on WP-Bench, the new official AI benchmark from the Core AI Team, setting a clear standard for what it means for AI tools to truly understand WordPress. We also cover early moves toward WordPress 7.0, including View Transitions coming to wp-admin, Playground UI improvements, and important PHP support changes.

Security remains front and center with hundreds of new vulnerabilities disclosed, a critical patch for the Modular DS plugin, and fresh guidance from Wordfence. On the WooCommerce side, we look ahead to 10.5, including breaking changes developers need to prepare for and new performance-focused experiments. Beyond WordPress, we touch on major updates from Node.js, AWS, Google Gemini, and Claude that will shape how developers work in 2026.

The episode also rounds up a packed week of plugin releases, open-source moves, upcoming events, new courses, market insights, and real-world lessons from builders growing successful WordPress products.

Sponsored by:

🔹 Kinsta – Premium managed WordPress hosting built for speed, security, and scale

🔹 ProfilePress – Sell subscriptions, courses, and digital products with Stripe and PayPal

🔹 WP Job Openings – The easiest way to create a professional career page and manage applications

A full week of WordPress news, tools, and ideas shaping what comes next.