A clumsy Q&A at WordCamp Asia 2025 noticed Matt Mullenweg wrestle to reply the place WordPress can be in 5 years. Apparently caught off guard, he turned to the Lead Architect of Gutenberg for concepts, however he couldn’t reply both.
There have been a number of moments that uncovered cracks in the neighborhood, equivalent to an attendee pleading with Mullenweg to reverse his resolution to cut back Automattic’s contribution to the WordPress core, one other asking for recommendation on easy methods to persuade individuals to make use of WordPress, and core contributor Taco Verdonschot citing Mullenweg’s personal recommendation on the significance of adaptability for survival to ask whether or not he himself is adaptable to vary.
Venture Gutenberg
Gutenberg is a reimagining of how WordPress customers can construct web sites with out realizing any code, with a visible interface of blocks for various elements of an internet web page, which is meant to make it simple. Conceived as a 4 part venture, it’s been in improvement since 2017 and is at present in part three.
The 4 phases are:
- Section 1: Simpler Modifying
- Section 2: Customization
- Section 3: Collaborative Modifying
- Section 4: Multilingual Assist
There’s a notion that Venture Gutenberg has not been enthusiastically obtained by the WordPress developer group or by common customers, regardless that there are at present 85.9 million installations of the Gutenberg WordPress editor.
Nonetheless, one developer at WordCamp Asia instructed Matt Mullenweg on the finish of convention Q&A session that she was experiencing hesitations from individuals she speaks with about utilizing WordPress and expressed frustration about how tough it was to make use of it.
She stated:
“A few of these hesitations had been it’s simple to get overwhelmed. You recognize, once you lookup easy methods to be taught WordPress, and I needed to be actually motivated… for myself to really research it and type of be taught the fundamentals of blocks… So do you could have any recommendation on how I might persuade my buddies to begin a WordPress web site or easy methods to deal with these challenges myself? You recognize like, getting overwhelmed and feeling like there’s simply a lot. I’m not a coder and issues like that… any recommendation you may supply small enterprise house owners?”
The entire function of the Gutenberg block editor was to make it simpler for non-coders to make use of WordPress. So a WordPress consumer asking for concepts on easy methods to persuade individuals to make use of WordPress offered an unflattering view of the success of the WordPress Gutenberg Venture.
The place Will WordPress Be In 5 Years?
One other awkward second was when another person requested Matt Mullenweg the place he noticed WordPress being in 5 years. The query seemingly caught him off guard as he was unable to articulate what the plan is for the world’s hottest content material administration system.
Mullenweg had been speaking concerning the significance of AI and of some integrations being examined within the business model at WordPress.com. So the individual asking the query requested if he had some other concepts past AI.
The individual requested:
“If in case you have different concepts past AI and even how we eat WordPress 5 years from now that could be totally different from at present.”
Matt Mullenweg answered:
“Yeah, it’s arduous to consider something besides AI proper now. And as I stated a couple of years in the past, earlier than ChatGPT got here out, be taught AI deeply. Everybody within the room needs to be taking part in with it. Check out totally different fashions. Try Grok, take a look at DeepSeek, two of the best ones that simply launched.
And for WordPress, at that time can be previous all of the phases of Gutenberg. I feel… I don’t know…”
It was at this level that Mullenweg calls on Matías Ventura, Lead Architect of Gutenberg, to ask him if he has any concepts of the place WordPress is headed in 5 years.
He continued:
“Matías, what do you suppose? What’s post-Gutenberg? We’ve been working for thus lengthy, it’s…”
Matías Ventura, Lead Architect of Gutenberg, got here as much as a microphone to assist Mullenweg reply the query he was fighting.
Matías answered:
“I imply, hopefully we’ll be carried out by then so…”
Mullenweg commented:
“Typically that final 10% takes, you realize, 90% of the time.”
Matías quipped that it might probably take 100 years then continued his reply, which basically admitted that there have been no plans with out really admitting that there have been no plans for 5 years out.
He continued his reply:
“I don’t know, I feel, nicely within the speak I gave I… additionally mirrored a bit that a part of the factor is simply discovering as we go, like determining how like, proper now it’s AI that’s shaping actuality however who is aware of, in a couple of a long time what it will be. And to me, the one conviction is that yeah, we’ll have to adapt, we’ll want to vary. And that’s a part of the enjoyable of it, I feel. So I’m wanting ahead to no matter comes.”
Mullenweg jumped in at this level along with his ideas:
“That’s an excellent level of the, you realize, what number of releases we now have of WordPress proper now, 60 or no matter… 70 in all probability…. Exterior of Gutenberg, we haven’t had a roadmap that goes six months or a yr, or a pair variations, as a result of the world modifications in methods you may’t predict.
However being responsive is, I feel, actually is how organisms survive.
You recognize, Darwin, stated it’s not the fittest of the species that survives. It’s the one which’s most adaptable to vary. I feel that’s true for software program as nicely.”
Mullenweg Challenged To Adapt To Change
His assertion about being adaptable to vary arrange one other awkward second on the 6:55:47 minute mark the place Taco Verdonschot, co-owner of Progress Planner, stood as much as the microphone and requested Mullenweg if he actually was dedicated to being adaptable.
Taco Verdonschot is previously of Yoast website positioning and at present sponsored to work on WordPress by Emilia Capital (owned by Joost de Valk and Marieke van de Rakt).
Taco requested:
“I’m Taco, co-owner of Progress Planner. I used to be questioning, you had been speaking about adaptability earlier than and survival of the fittest. Which means being open to vary. What we’ve seen within the final couple of months is that individuals who had been speaking about change bought banned from the venture. How open are you to discussing change within the venture?”
Mullenweg responded:
“Positive. I don’t need to go too far into this however I’ll say that speaking about change is not going to get you banned. There’s different behaviors… however simply speaking about change is one thing that we do just about on daily basis. And we’ve modified loads over time. We’ve modified loads up to now yr. So yeah. However I don’t need to communicate to anybody personally, you realize. So maintain it constructive.”
Greatest Challenges WordPress Will Face In Subsequent 5 Years
Watch the query and reply on the 6:19:24 mark