WordPress 7 Has Been Released: What Changed And How To Prepare

Editor’s note: This article was updated on June 10, 2026. It was first written to help organizations prepare for WordPress 7.0 before its release, and has since been updated to include the official release date, what changed before launch and what we know so far about the update.

WordPress 7.0 has officially been released. If your website runs on WordPress, you may be wondering what that means for you.

In this article, I’m going to share what changed in WordPress 7.0, what didn’t make the final release and how you can properly make the transition on your website without creating unnecessary risk for your team.

WordPress originally planned to release 7.0 on April 9, 2026. That date was delayed, and WordPress 7, named Armstrong, was officially released on May 20, 2026.

That delay wasn’t just a scheduling hiccup. WordPress 7.0 was supposed to include several significant architectural changes and the release team delayed things to protect stability and quality. Some of the more ambitious features WordPress had announced, particularly real-time collaboration, did not make it into the final release.

That may be frustrating if you were eagerly awaiting those features but it was the right call. A stable WordPress release matters more than a fancy, unstable upgrade that creates problems on production sites.

WordPress 7.0 is a big release, but it’s not quite as big as we were expecting.

It marks the start of Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project, which is focused on collaboration and workflows. The broader goal is to move WordPress from a mostly single-author editing tool into a more collaborative publishing platform where teams can work together more easily.

But the biggest expected Phase 3 feature did not make it to the release.

Real-time collaboration, the Google Docs-style editing experience where multiple users can work on the same post or page at once, was removed from WordPress 7.0 before the final release. The WordPress team cited concerns around stability, race conditions, server load, memory efficiency and recurring bugs found during testing.

So the better way to think about WordPress 7.0 is this: it starts laying the foundation for Phase 3, but it does not deliver the full collaboration experience yet.

Like I already said, real-time collaboration looked like one of the headline features of WordPress 7.0. We were excited about this feature as it’s something our clients often ask about. 

For most site owners, that means there is less immediate change to adapt to. You won’t need to retrain your team around live multi-user editing yet. It also likely reduces the risk of major instability in the first WordPress 7 release (more on that in a second).

So what did WordPress 7 actually include? 

WordPress 7.0 introduces new AI-related infrastructure, including the AI Client and the Abilities API.

No, WordPress does not now have a built-in AI writer. 

It means WordPress is creating a more standard way for plugins and tools to connect AI features into the CMS. In practical terms, that could eventually support things like generating alt text, suggesting titles, drafting excerpts, helping with content workflows or creating assistant-style tools inside WordPress.

The important point is that WordPress Core is not choosing one AI provider for everyone. It is building the plumbing so AI-powered tools can connect in a more consistent way.

The Abilities API gives WordPress, plugins and themes a structured way to describe what they can do.

For non-developers, think of it as WordPress making its capabilities easier for other tools to understand.

That matters because AI tools and automation tools need to know what actions are available. Can an external tool create a draft in WordPress? Can it update an existing page? Can it upload media? Can it retrieve published posts? Can it create a custom post type entry?

The Abilities API helps create a shared language for those actions. It’s not flashy. It’s wiring behind the walls.

WordPress 7.0 also includes several improvements to the editing and administration experience. These include:

For content teams, this means the editor will be more flexible and easier to manage over time. It also means WordPress is continuing to bring older admin screens closer to the newer block-based editing experience.

Overall, this seems to be a very successful release. So far, we’re not seeing any widespread reports of major WordPress 7 issues. We’ve tested the update on all of our clients’ staging sites and haven’t come across any issues in our Quality Control (QC). Throughout our research, we also haven’t found any reports of significant or recurring bugs. 

That may also be because other agencies, developers and site owners are still testing the update on staging sites before applying it to production sites and we’ll start seeing those bugs appear in the day-to-day use rather than the sandbox that is staging. 

But it’s likely because the riskiest planned feature (looking at you, real-time collaboration) was removed before release. 

We’re still playing it safe and waiting for that first update (7.0.1) to be released and in the meantime will continue to monitor WordPress 7.0, plugin compatibility and reported issues.

We’re going to talk a little bit more about what changed in WordPress 7.0, but the short version is: don’t rush to update, and don’t do it first on your live site. (Can I emphasize that more?) 

The reason you shouldn’t rush to update is, your WordPress site isn’t just WordPress. It’s WordPress plus your theme or theme framework, your plugins, your hosting environment, your integrations and any custom code your site depends on. All of those pieces need to work with WordPress 7 before you make the switch.

Rather than clicking the big green “Update now” button and hoping for the best, here are the steps we recommend for making the switch to WordPress 7.

These steps may seem like overdoing it, but whenever you’re making big updates to your production site, you want to make sure that you’re first testing in a controlled environment that doesn’t really matter if it goes down (your staging site). 

For someone running all premium, actively maintained tools, this whole process might take a couple weeks. If you’ve got niche or older plugins in the mix, it could take longer, and that’s actually a signal that those plugins may need replacing.

If you do update and something breaks (either a plugin or your theme), there’s unfortunately nothing you can do other than wait for the developers of that plugin or theme to fix their product, or switch to a different plugin. That’s why we test on staging first.

Note: One more thing to be aware of: WordPress 7.0 is raising the minimum PHP version to 7.4 (up from 7.2). If your site is running PHP 7.2 or 7.3, you won’t even be able to update to WordPress 7.0. Check with your hosting provider to confirm what PHP version you’re on, and if you need to upgrade, do that before attempting the WordPress update. For the best performance and security, the WordPress core team recommends PHP 8.3 or higher.

Like we said, we’re still recommending to wait until WordPress 7.0.1 gets released. In the meantime, there are a few things you can and should do right now to get ready:

Naturally, the question is do you have to make that switch or can you stay on WordPress 6.0? You can, technically, for a while. But it’s not a good long-term plan.

WordPress’s official position is that only the latest major release is fully supported. Previous major releases may or may not receive security patches as serious vulnerabilities come up, but there’s no guarantee and no fixed timeline for those.

WordPress has historically backported security fixes to older versions as a courtesy, but that courtesy is shrinking. In 2022, they dropped security support for versions 3.7 through 4.0. In July 2025, they dropped versions 4.1 through 4.6. The pattern is clear: older versions eventually stop receiving any security updates at all. Every new major release adds to the maintenance burden of supporting old branches, which makes it more likely that your version gets cut off.

Beyond security, plugins will also stop supporting past versions of WordPress as they update their code to work with the new version. Over time, you’ll find fewer and fewer plugins that are compatible with your older version, and the ones that are may have their own unpatched vulnerabilities.

By not making the update, you open yourself up to risks that could be far more costly than the update itself.

WordPress is an actively maintained platform that makes regular updates and improvements. The last version was WordPress 6.0, released in May 2022. Between major versions, there are smaller updates that get rolled out (6.7, 6.8, 6.9, etc.). Where major updates typically introduce new features, architectural changes, and user-facing improvements, minor updates are smaller and focus on bug fixes and security patches.

WordPress 6.9 focused on laying the groundwork for collaboration features. It introduced a new Notes system for block-level commenting, improvements to the Command Palette for faster dashboard navigation, and the early foundations for AI integration through the Abilities API.

One of the strengths of WordPress is it’s an open source ecosystem with an active community contributing to it through plugins and themes. Unfortunately, that means that during large updates, WordPress’s code changes might cause those plugins and themes to no longer work until they get updated.

That means that key functionality on your website (for plugins) or even your site itself could break when you update to the new version.

WordPress 7.0 is laying the foundation. It starts the next phase of WordPress, introduces important infrastructure and sets the stage for future collaboration, workflow and AI-related improvements.

For now, the best move is straightforward: check your setup, test carefully, watch plugin compatibility and update when your full website stack is ready.

A little patience now will do more good than a rushed update later.