AI Is Changing How Websites Are Read and WordPress 7 Makes That Harder to Ignore

A few months ago I wrote about the idea that websites now have two audiences: humans and AI systems which was off of the back of a talk I gave at an Agency Hackers SEO Leaders event in London where I explored how AI conversations, AI summaries and AI discovery are changing the way websites are found, read and understood stuff online.

The short version was that your website still needs to work for people, and really, no matter what you may have read, not that much has changed for website owners because more often than not most websites are in fact already fully readable and understandable to AI systems.

As long as you have a solid structure, good content clarity, strong technical foundations, basic internal linking, the usual schemas, and good performance then you are already ahead of the website AI game.

However. Since writing that post, a lot has happened very quickly!

AI has moved even further into search, discovery, content workflows, browsers, operating systems and day-to-day business tools. And now WordPress 7.0 has arrived with AI foundations built into the platform conversation in a much more serious way. So let’s revisit the topic.

WordPress 7 changes the conversation

WordPress 7.0 (Armstrong) is not just another routine WordPress release. The release includes visible editor improvements, such as visual revisions, responsive controls and a cleaner dashboard, but also deeper foundational changes designed to give plugins, tools and AI services a more consistent way to work with WordPress over time. (see WordPress.com)

The important part for this update is the new AI foundation layer that makes up the AI Client, Connectors API and a Connectors screen.

This is meant to be a uniform way for WordPress to connect with external AI providers and services.

Until now, a lot of AI inside WordPress has been all over the place with plugins having their own AI setup and external content tools connecting in different and random ways.

WordPress 7 changes this and instead of every plugin building its own separate AI setup WP core now includes a standardised system for connecting tools and services. The goal is for websites to be able to communicate directly with AI models such as Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini.

See ‘The Source of Truth for WordPress 7.0‘ for a deeper dive.

AI-friendly websites still need the old foundations

This is where I come back to the point from the original AI + humans post.

A lot of what makes a website easier for AI systems to understand is also what makes it better for humans and the mistake would be to treat AI as a separate layer that sits on top of a messy website.

If the site is hard for your own team to understand, hard for users to navigate and hard for developers to maintain, AI will not magically fix that.

In fact, AI may expose those weaknesses faster.

This is why website and web app development projects now needs to think beyond pages and layouts. New sites, web applications, intranets and connected platforms need to be built with clear structure, maintainability and future AI workflows in mind.

The website is becoming more like an interface for your data

One of the biggest shifts is that websites are becoming less like static destinations and more like interfaces into wider systems.

Your website may now connect to CRM data, online sales platforms, event and ticketing systems, membership areas, internal databases, automations, support systems, APIs, the list grows and grows and as AI becomes more embedded in the way people search the web and compare and act on this data and information the structure of your systems starts to matter more.

A site that is just a collection of attractive pages may struggle to be fully “see” by AI.

But a site that has clear content types, structured data, reliable integrations and trusted content is in a stronger position.

This is why Websites & Software is becoming a more useful way to think about this work than simply “website design”.

The website is still your “visible layer” but in this modern format the value often sits in the systems behind it.

WordPress is still in a strong position

The arrival of WordPress 7 does not mean every organisation should suddenly rebuild everything around AI but it does reinforce why WordPress remains a strong platform for many organisations.

WordPress already gives teams flexible content models, custom post types, taxonomies, blocks, patterns, plugins, editorial workflows and open-source extensibility. The new tools in the toolbox can be integrated and enhanced over time. That is the key point.

For organisations already running complex WordPress sites, this is a good time to ask if your current setup is ready for what comes next. It likely does not mean a rebuild or major refactor but checking your website works as your primary source of truth for AI and for humans is key, start now, don’t wait!

Existing sites may need reliability before AI

There is a temptation to jump straight to the exciting part and play around with tools that do things like AI content, AI workflows, AI search, AI agents, AI, AI, AI, AI… enough with the AI.

Fact is many existing WordPress sites have more basic problems than if they should integrate with Claude or ChatGPT. They are slow. They are fragile and broken. They are hard to update. They rely on plugins nobody fully understands. They have old integrations, unclear hosting, messy templates or weak editorial processes.

Adding AI to that is just going to more noise rather than value.

This is where WordPress rescue and reliability becomes relevant. If a site is already hard to manage, the first step is often not AI adoption. It is stabilisation, review and a clearer route forward.

Support will matter more, not less

As WordPress becomes more capable, the support model around a site becomes more important and even though AI is a huge help for most tasks AI does not remove the need for reliable human support.

Teams will need help understanding things like:

• Which AI features are actually useful?
• Which plugins are safe and appropriate for my site?
• How AI tools interact with content and data?
• What should and should not be automated?
• How do we keep content structured and reliable?
• Can we test changes before they affect users?
• Is this AI [insert thing here] just hype or will it really help my business?

AI can help with things like maintenance but you need a team like Make Do to support long-term platform stewardship.

That is why WordPress support and growth plans need to cover more than just your basic updates and bug fixes. They need to support ongoing improvement, safer experimentation and better decision-making as the platform evolves.

Hosting and infrastructure are part of the AI conversation too

AI features can also change how websites behave technically with some tools may adding technical API calls and new, complex workflows. We’ve seen this already in popular plugins and most of the time they are a vibe-coded mess that need to be handled with care.

Some if these new AI features may also affect editing performance, image handling, content generation, media libraries or background processing meaning your once simple website now needs a lot more processing power just to do the basics.

That makes the hosting and infrastructure layer important because a site that is already struggling with performance, backups, staging or server configs may not be ready for more complexity like this.

This is why WordPress hosting and migrations should not be treated as an afterthought. Hosting is part of the reliability foundation that allows a site to evolve safely.

So what should organisations do now?

The answer is not panic and “rebuild everything for AI”.

And it is definitely not “install every AI plugin you can find”.

And really do NOT ask your favorite AI tool “should we rebuild our website for AI” because you’ll get uninformed slop that without proper technical oversight and stewardship could lead you to a costly and unnecessary website rebuild project.

A better first step is to review the current state of the website:

• Is the site clear enough for people?
• Is the SEO foundation strong?
• Is it structured enough for search and AI systems?
• Is the content useful, specific and well-organised?
• Are the most important services, products and expertise easy to understand?
• Is the site stable?
• Are we ready to experiment with AI safely?

WordPress 7 makes this more urgent because the platform is moving. AI is no longer just an external thing that sits somewhere else. It is becoming part of how websites are built, edited, managed and extended. Right there in the Dashboard.

What this means for Make Do clients

For Make Do, this fits into a wider shift in how we talk about websites because a website is not always just a website anymore. The fact is, it has been this way for a long time, way before GPT’s and LLM’s became popular.

For many organisations, your website is digital platform connected to sales, marketing, operations, content, data, reporting and customer experience.

So if your site is clear, stable, structured and easy to improve, you are in a better position to adapt. If your site is slow, fragile, unclear or difficult to update, AI will probably not be the first thing to fix. The first step may be a proper review of the platform you already have.

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Related reading

This post follows on from my earlier article:

Architecting Websites for Two Audiences: AI + Humans
https://www.makedo.net/insight/architecting-websites-for-two-audiences-ai-humans/

It also builds on the announcements for WordPress 7.0 below:

WordPress 7.0 Has Arrived: Here’s Everything You Need to Know
https://wordpress.com/blog/2026/05/26/wordpress-7-0-armstrong/

Welcome to the Source of Truth for WordPress 7.0!
https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordpress-7-0-source-of-truth/

WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong”
https://wordpress.org/news/2026/05/armstrong/