📅 Day 5 of 30 · Week 1: Get the Stack · ⏱ 15 minutes
What Is the WordPress AI Experiments Plugin?
The WordPress AI plugin is an official experimental plugin from the WordPress project that brings AI-powered content features directly into the block editor. It’s free, open-source, and works with multiple AI providers — OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
🔧 Tool: WordPress AI Experiments Plugin — AI features embedded in the WordPress editor. Includes title generation, excerpt suggestions, alt text generation, content optimization, and an AI assistant. Install from github.com/WordPress/ai
Installing the Plugin
The AI Experiments plugin isn’t in the WordPress plugin directory yet — it’s distributed via GitHub. Here’s how to install it:
- Go to github.com/WordPress/ai/releases and download the latest
.zipfile - In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
- Upload the .zip and activate it
- Go to Settings → AI and configure your preferred AI provider (OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic) with an API key
For Playground users: You can install it directly in your Playground sandbox to experiment risk-free before adding it to a production site.
The Core AI Features
1. Title Generation
Write or paste your article content, then use the AI Title Suggestions panel in the editor sidebar. The plugin generates 3-5 alternative headlines optimized for clarity and engagement. Compare them to your original — you’ll quickly develop a sense for which headline structures work best.
Why it matters for editorial teams: Headlines are the single biggest lever for article performance. AI-generated alternatives help break you out of your default patterns and test new approaches.
2. Excerpt & Meta Description Generation
Auto-generates article summaries that work as meta descriptions, social share text, or newsletter blurbs. In the post sidebar, find the Excerpt panel and use the AI generation option. It creates a concise summary that captures the article’s key points.
3. Image Alt Text Generation
One of the most practical AI features for publishers. The plugin can automatically generate descriptive alt text for images — a critical accessibility and SEO requirement that editorial teams often skip under deadline pressure.
4. Content Optimization & Review
Get AI-powered suggestions for improving readability, grammar, and accessibility. The plugin reviews your content and flags areas for improvement — all with a “human approves first” philosophy that keeps editors in control.
Today’s Exercise
- Install the plugin — Download from GitHub and activate it on your site (or use Playground for a safe sandbox)
- Configure an AI provider — Set up OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic in Settings → AI
- Open an existing draft and try Title Suggestions — Generate alternatives and compare them to your original
- Generate an Excerpt — Compare it to what you’d write manually. Is it better? A good starting point?
- Upload an image and test the alt text generation — How does it compare to hand-written alt text?
💡 Tip: The AI Experiments plugin + MCP is a powerful combination. In Week 2, you’ll learn to use Claude with MCP to query your content programmatically — asking questions like “which posts are missing alt text?” and getting bulk AI-assisted fixes.
✅ Key Takeaway: The WordPress AI Experiments plugin puts AI content features directly in the editor with a “human approves first” philosophy. It works with your choice of AI provider and doesn’t require any paid platform subscription — just your own API key.