WordPress's 'Vibe-Coding' AI, Telex, Hits the Real World!

Published 1 week ago3 minute read
Uche Emeka
Uche Emeka
WordPress's 'Vibe-Coding' AI, Telex, Hits the Real World!

WordPress has rapidly deployed its experimental AI development tool, Telex, into real-world applications just months after its September debut. At the company's annual "State of the Word" event in San Francisco, WordPress project co-founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg showcased several instances where Telex has been successfully integrated into working WordPress sites to perform a variety of tasks.

Telex, which Mullenweg previously described as a "v0 or Lovable, but specifically for WordPress," represents the platform's strategic effort to develop its own "vibe-coding tool for the AI era." This innovative software empowers developers to generate Gutenberg blocks – the modular components comprising text, images, columns, and other elements that form a WordPress website. Despite its experimental label, Mullenweg provided compelling demonstrations of practical applications developed by community creator Nick Hamze.

One notable example presented by Mullenweg was a sophisticated pricing comparison tool built entirely with Telex. He highlighted that creating such rich, interactive web elements traditionally required extensive custom development, often costing thousands of dollars and significant time. With Telex, these complex features can now be generated in mere seconds, drastically reducing development overhead and time-to-market.

Further demonstrations illustrated Telex's versatility. Developers used the tool to seamlessly integrate real-time store hours, a phone number, and a direct map link into the header block of a WordPress site. Other applications included a dynamic carousel for partner logos, a custom pricing calculator, robust Google Calendar integration, and a visually consistent grid for posts on a WordPress homepage, ensuring each post card maintained the same height.

Mullenweg underscored the profound impact of these advancements, stating, "Again, things that you used to have to, like, hire developers, do custom software like this would have cost thousands, tens of thousands of dollars to build, even just years ago. We’re now able to do in a browser for pennies. It’s kind of insane." This sentiment highlights the democratizing potential of AI-powered tools like Telex in web development.

Beyond functional applications, Telex also fosters creativity. Developer Tammie Lister famously used Telex to create a new Gutenberg block every day throughout October, resulting in unique creations like a playable ASCII version of Tetris and a festive trick-or-treat block for Halloween, showcasing the tool's flexibility beyond standard business integrations.

The Telex demonstrations were presented alongside a broader discussion of WordPress's comprehensive AI-focused initiatives, including critical architectural developments such as the Abilities API and the MCP adapter. The Abilities API is designed to define WordPress's capabilities in a structured format that AI systems can readily interpret. Complementing this, the MCP adapter works to expose these defined abilities, making them accessible and usable by any MCP-compatible tool.

Mullenweg explained the significance of this approach: "This adapter pattern means WordPress can participate in AI workflows without duplicating logic or creating separate integrations for every AI platform." This enables seamless connectivity between WordPress installations and popular AI tools like Claude, Copilot, and various other MCP-compatible platforms, streamlining AI integration for developers.

Furthermore, Mullenweg observed that developers are already leveraging AI in their daily workflows through tools like Cursor, Claude Code, and advanced command-line interfaces (CLIs). He elaborated that these tools empower developers to "refactor projects, search code bases, automate tasks, [and] run scripts with WP CLI alongside the AI agent," significantly enhancing productivity and code management.

Looking ahead, WordPress plans to introduce a major initiative in 2026: a set of benchmarks and evaluations specifically designed for AI models. These will allow AI systems to be tested on a range of WordPress-centric tasks, including changing plugins, editing text, or even manipulating the WordPress interface using sophisticated browser agents, further solidifying WordPress's commitment to the AI revolution in web development.

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