In my talk at @Press__Conf I talked about how AI will change how consumers think of their website and they will build different tools. If you focus on WORDPRESS and not their pain, you're already declining. WordPress is not the point. Customers are the point.

@Press__Conf was fantastic this year. I'm picky about swag and the notebooks were lovely. I'm sorry (not sorry!) I ended up with multiple!

Two groups. Two tracks. Same energy 🚀🙌 WonderDay at PressConf 2026 took us from autonomous rides in Waymo to the playgrounds: golf for some, go-karting for others. A little competition, a few winner’s cups, and a lot of fun to close out our time together the right way. #PressConf2026 #WonderDay

The opportunity in front of agencies right now is bigger than most of them realize. You can deliver 10x the work at the same price, today. Had a great chat with @crawyler at @Press__Conf about where WordPress, AI, and agencies are all heading 👇

After a full day of talks and sessions, we took it outside. 🌵 The After-Party at #PressConf2026 was exactly what it needed to be. We took time to decompress, debrief, and continue the conversations on the terrace, with a drink in hand. We're going to miss this. #PressConf #AfterParty

Back from @Press__Conf. The canceled flights gave me time to reflect. One takeaway: Industry is at a crossroad, but there's no "WordPress killer" coming. Platforms fade from community decay and lack of business opportunity - not because something shinier appears. Great event. Thanks @raquel__karina and @adamweeks610

.@Press__Conf 2026 wasn’t about trends. No recordings, no livestreams, just honest conversations about the WordPress business ecosystem. Smaller room. Bigger truths. Our notes 👇 eu1.hubs.ly/H0tB11v0

We chose golf for our @Press__Conf wonderday. Thanks a ton @gridpane for sponsoring and wrangling everyone's various schedules and preferences this morning. Had a blast at Topgolf with this crew. Next stop, Augusta... ⛳️

Wow, #PressConf2026 was one for the books. I don't say that lightly. I've never had more fun being a media partner at an event. I got to interview so many incredible people. And honestly? I wish I had an entire extra day to interview more people. I only scratched the surface of the knowledge and expertise the incredible speakers and attendees brought to the event. Here's a recap with @raquel__karina! Props to Raquel and the rest of the amazing team for pulling off another amazing event. And guess what? @Press__Conf has big plans for the future! Be sure to sign up for the mailing list at pressconf.events for updates.

Back home after two intense weeks: one week road-tripping from Manhattan to Tempe, and one week at @Press__Conf in Tempe, AZ. The road trip was all about the experience of crossing the country with my son @roandevries. #PressConf, on the other hand, was all about people and connecting with my fellow WordPress peers and their experience of WordPress as a whole. I watched most of the presentations and had dozens of in-depth conversations with some of the movers and shakers in the ecosystem. Here's three things that stood out to me: 1. AI’s influence on our ecosystem has moved far beyond code and content. It is now reshaping every layer of running a WordPress business. 2. WordPress as a platform is facing challenges unlike anything we have seen before. For a long time, it was possible to stay in “easy mode” and still do well because of the way the ecosystem was growing. That is no longer the case. 3. It is time for all of us to level up in how we work with WordPress. If you have not already stepped into the professionalisation phase of your WordPress career, you risk being left behind. I will turn each of these points into a full blog post soon. But the core message is simple: it is time to level up, in every way imaginable.

As well as having a wonderful time at @PressConf and spending time with lots of new and existing friends, attending gave me many business benefits - both for my WordPress plugins and Shopify apps: NEW PRODUCT IDEAS - Various pieces of news from PressConf combined to give me the idea to build a new plugin aimed at the same industry as our biggest plugin, so that we can cater for those users more comprehensively. - Developed an existing idea to release a SaaS version of one of our plugins. - Talked to someone who successfully acquired a Shopify app and gave me some useful advice on how to approach it. - Several people told me about specific pain points/gaps in Shopify which will be a good starting point for when I look for future app ideas. MARKETING - Being a speaker significantly raised my profile with all the attendees and directly led to lots of useful connections. It also came with an opportunity to be interviewed for a YouTube video. - Someone told me their biggest source of new users is to release free tools as a lead magnet, which is worth considering. - Someone told me you can get more users for a Shopify app by adding actions to Flow. I’ll definitely do this. - Discovered a major agency looking for reputable plugins to use for their projects. - Got some recommendations of industry-specific places to list one of our plugins. - Talked to a huge number of people about the issues with WooCommerce, which gave me a much better understanding of what puts merchants off using it and pushes them to Shopify. I’ll use this to improve my @checkoutsummit talk, which will be about how we can all promote WooCommerce more effectively instead of focussing on things most merchants don’t care about like open source and data ownership. - Met the CEO of an agency who specializes in the industry that our Document Library Pro plugin is most popular with, who requested more information about it for their clients. TEAM MANAGEMENT - Lots of company owners/CEO’s told me about the clear expectations they’re putting on their developers to adopt an AI-first approach and massively increase their output, which helps to reinforce that I need to continue insisting on this. - One speaker recommended formally documenting your AI-first vision and the areas where AI should be used, which is a good idea. - Compared support stats with the owner of a very similar company, who shared useful information about his processes such as requiring support engineers to record how each ticket could have been prevented in order to reduce volume in future. TOOLS - Someone told me that Google Workspace includes Gemini so I might not need to pay for Claude for my marketing team, which I will definitely look into. They also shared some good tips for sharing “gems” across the organization. - Received recommendations for various useful tools which I will check out. Definitely worth it! And if you spotted yourself in this anonymized list, I hope I helped you as much as you helped me 🙏 #PressConf

Ive had some of the most profound conversations of my life this weekend. I've made connections on levels I didn't even know were possible and I've acknowledged the level of growth it's taken me to get here. Words really do not do this event justice @Press__Conf

best one of these kinds of events I've ever been to. even if you didn't come to @Press__Conf this year, you should be planning for next already

I almost skipped @Press__Conf this year. - not feeling the most positive on some things lately, so wasn’t really feeling it - thought if I already knew most people, what more could I get from it? - thought I should save the money for our family Europe trip Turns out all of that was just terrible thinking 😣 I was quickly reminded this group of people are genuinely sincere people who are worth spending time with in any situation, anywhere. Getting to commiserate about everything from the state of things to my back issues (sorry if I bitched too much about it), and grow or start real friendships… that’s the part that made it very much worthwhile. Basically it reminded me of what the WP community is so well known for. I’ll be heading home more motivated, but more importantly, more connected to people. Grateful for everyone I got to spend time with.

Yes, someone mentioned during a conversation at PressConf yesterday that the real-time collaboration could enable multiple AI agents to work on sites more efficiently, and everyone in the group’s response was “Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that”.

Right in the feels, right out of the gate 🥹 Much love @ben_gabler You’re missing out if you’re missing this #PressConf2026

Paraphrasing Justin Livesay from @Fueled #pressconf Customer-centric product stories work because they don’t just explain the product, they make people feel what they’re missing out. The best marketing leaves you thinking, “wait, why am I not using this yet?

Paraphrasing from Emma Young: LLMs determine your authority based on everything that was ever said by you or about you EVER! #pressconf

Too much nuance for X. Attend @Press__Conf next year for the full story

The perfect way to close out #PressConf2026 — @KatieKeithBarn2, @LindseyMillerWP, and Emma Young sitting down with @mattmedeiros for an unfiltered wrap-up of the week. Real talk, great energy, and just enough left to say before the afterparty. 🎙️🌵 #PressConf #WordPress #WPcommunity