AI Block Editor – Gutenberg Block Generator & AI Assistant vs Classic Editor

AI Block Editor adds a Gutenberg blocks assistant inside the WordPress editor. Describe what you want to add or change, and AI Editor will place, arrange, and update WordPress blocks directly in the editor. Use it for complex block layouts or simple edits. It supports the latest OpenAI models and lets you use your own API key. When your theme uses theme.json, AI Editor can follow your global styles, presets, and design tokens like colors, typography, spacing, and layout so generated blocks match your site’s design system. Major updates released in May 2026: theme.json style matching, selected block editing, and newer AI models with reasoning controls. Features Natural language block creation: Describe your desired content in plain language and the AI will handle the rest. Core Gutenberg blocks: AI Editor can use core Gutenberg blocks to create complete page sections and complex layouts, not just add single blocks one at a time. Selected block editing: Select one or more blocks in Gutenberg and ask AI Editor to update the selected content or layout. Custom block editing: Custom and third-party blocks can be edited after you add and select them. AI Editor uses the markup it can see for the selected block, so review the result because custom blocks may have private fields, dynamic rendering, or plugin-specific rules the AI cannot fully infer. Existing content lookup (WordPress 6.9+): AI Editor can look up existing WordPress posts, pages, and public custom post types for context, then use that text while helping you create or edit content. Theme-aware output: For themes that use theme.json, AI Editor can use your theme’s presets and editor settings to keep generated layouts consistent with your site’s colors, spacing, typography, and other design styles. Abilities API support: On WordPress 6.9+, connect custom WordPress Abilities API features to AI Editor so it can use site-specific data or actions while helping in the editor. Resizable sidebar: Drag the left edge of the AI Editor sidebar to make the chat panel wider. GPT model selection: Choose from the GPT models supported by AI Editor and available to your OpenAI account. Reasoning effort controls: Choose how much reasoning the model should use for faster simple edits or more careful complex layout work. Conversation context controls: Limit how many recent chat messages are sent with each request. Prompt caching: AI Editor keeps repeated system instructions stable so OpenAI prompt caching can reuse shared context when available, helping monitor API usage and reduce repeated input processing. Theme compatibility check: Review whether the active theme is a good fit for AI Editor’s Gutenberg and theme style workflow. BYOK: Use your own OpenAI API key. Language translation: Multilingual support. Prompt Examples “Add this article as a magazine-style layout using blocks: (paste article here).” “Create a layout for an About Us page, including sections for a mission statement, team members, and contact.” “Add 3 columns, each with a pricing plan.” “Create a table comparing the caffeine content of popular drinks.” “Rewrite this testimonial block to sound more concise.” “Update the selected columns for better balance.” Getting The Best Results Quickly add content blocks: Ask AI Editor to add headings, sections, buttons, lists, tables, columns, and other core blocks for your content. Turn full copy into blocks: Paste a full page draft or section copy and let AI Editor structure it into blocks. Use existing site content: Ask AI Editor to work from existing posts, pages, or custom post types when the request needs site context. With lower models or no reasoning, be explicit, such as “use the current page content as context” or “find posts about pricing and add a summary section.” Choose settings for the task: Select an available model and adjust reasoning effort based on the complexity of the requested layout or edit. Select the right amount of content: If the change depends on a parent layout, columns, group spacing, or surrounding section structure, select the whole relevant block or section and say what you want changed. Use narrow selections for simple edits: If you only need a specific text, button, heading, or single block changed, select just that block and give a direct instruction. Settings Navigate to Settings -> AI Editor to configure the plugin. OpenAI API Key: Add your own OpenAI API key. Requests are sent from your WordPress site to OpenAI. GPT Model: Choose the model AI Editor should use. Reasoning Effort: Choose none, low, medium, or high. Lower values are faster for simple edits; higher values can help with larger layouts or more careful restructuring but may take longer and use more tokens. Theme Style Context For AI: A short style note used as design direction. AI Editor can rewrite the active theme description with AI. Raw theme presets are handled separately, so this field should stay short and human-readable. Limit Conversation Context Sent To OpenAI: Turn on/off trimming of older chat messages before sending a new request. Max Messages In Conversation Context: Set how many recent messages are kept when conversation context trimming is enabled. The default is 50. Theme Compatibility For AI Editor: Run a compatibility check for the active theme. It reviews Gutenberg support, block theme signals, editor style support, and available theme presets so you can spot where manual cleanup may be needed. Note: AI Editor is powered by OpenAI’s GPT technology. For more information on the data handling and privacy aspects, please refer to OpenAI’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Connect Custom Abilities On WordPress 6.9+, developers can connect custom abilities registered with the WordPress Abilities API to AI Editor. If your plugin or theme registers a custom ability, add an AI Editor config to the ability meta. Example: 'meta' => array( 'ai_editor' => array( 'action_name' => 'get_product_details', 'description' => 'Use this when the user asks for current product details from WooCommerce.', ), ) AI Editor will only use abilities that explicitly opt in. Keep ability results focused and avoid returning large private datasets or unrelated site data. Requirements PHP 7.0+ is recommended, WordPress 5.8+, with Gutenberg active. An OpenAI API key is required.

Classic Editor is an official plugin maintained by the WordPress team that restores the previous (“classic”) WordPress editor and the “Edit Post” screen. It makes it possible to use plugins that extend that screen, add old-style meta boxes, or otherwise depend on the previous editor. Classic Editor is an official WordPress plugin, and will be fully supported and maintained until 2024, or as long as is necessary. At a glance, this plugin adds the following: Administrators can select the default editor for all users. Administrators can allow users to change their default editor. When allowed, the users can choose which editor to use for each post. Each post opens in the last editor used regardless of who edited it last. This is important for maintaining a consistent experience when editing content. In addition, the Classic Editor plugin includes several filters that let other plugins control the settings, and the editor choice per post and per post type. By default, this plugin hides all functionality available in the new block editor (“Gutenberg”).