As mentioned in my recap of WordCamp Switzerland 2023, the panel discussion «WordPress in 2025» left attendees buzzing with excitement and anticipation. The session brought together a diverse group of seasoned WordPress experts who were «forced» to make bold predictions about the platform’s evolution. Moderated by Noel Tock, a part-time humanitarian in Ukraine and a growth hacker at Human Made, the panel included Karin Christen, Managing Partner and Interaction Designer at required, Matt Cromwell, Senior Director of Customer Experience at StellarWP and co-founder of GiveWP, Roslyn Lavery, Partner Program Director at WooCommerce, and Simea Merki from Morntag and blogger at publishing.blog.
Here are the key takeaways and bold predictions made by these WordPress luminaries, offering a fascinating glimpse into what the future holds for the platform and its community.
WordPress in 2025: Key Topics
- WordPress community and growth
- Future of WordPress and technology trends
- Democratizing publishing and content ownership
- WordPress customization and usability
- Open source and proprietary concerns
- Multilingual and dialect challenges
- Back office and back end design in WordPress
WordPress in 2025: Discussion
The panel discussed various aspects of the WordPress community, its growth, and the future of the platform. They reflected on the 20th anniversary of WordPress and the changes in technology, particularly in the wake of the pandemic and economic shifts. The conversation touched on the original mission of democratizing publishing and how it has evolved with the changing definition of content and the platforms it resides on.
The panelists shared their thoughts on the future of WordPress, emphasizing the importance of community, AI, UX design, payments, simplicity, and usability. They also discussed the challenges of multilingual content and dialects. The conversation shifted to the backend of WordPress, with a focus on the need for better customization and usability in the admin area to keep WordPress relevant and user-friendly.
Essentially, if WordPress.org doesn’t help, plugins and themes start to have better data then somebody else is going to solve that problem, and you may or may not like it. But it is a problem that plugin authors and theme authors have and need. And if they’re all trying to solve it individually, it gets worse for the user. So somebody needs to solve that problem because .org so far isn’t.
Panelist at WordCamp Switzerland 2023
Controversial predictions for the future of WordPress included the possibility of WordPress no longer being open source and the increasing difficulty of work despite advancements in AI (Artificial Intelligence). The panelists also highlighted the importance of data and privacy, the role of plugins in innovation, and the need for better product marketing to address WordPress’s perception as a blogging platform. They concluded by acknowledging the potential for AI to assist with multilingual content and the necessity for WordPress to adapt to the needs of users and developers.
If you wanna know which of the panelists made the bold prediction that WordPress will not be Open Source in 2025, watch the video. But before watching, comment below who you think made the prediction
The next WordPress flagship event, WordCamp Europe 2024, will take place in Turin, Italy. Next to WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg’s WordPress summer update, it will also host interesting panel discussions, workshops and presentations.
Credits
- Photos by Florian Ziegler.
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