AI Block Editor – Gutenberg Block Generator & AI Assistant vs Spectra Legacy – Gutenberg Blocks

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.

This plugin was previously called Spectra. It’s now Spectra Legacy. Nothing on your website has changed. Your blocks, pages, settings, and content all continue to work exactly as they did before. There’s nothing to migrate and nothing to configure. Spectra Legacy vs. Spectra Blocks We’ve split Spectra into two products. Spectra Legacy is this plugin — built for existing Spectra users. It receives security and compatibility updates and full support, but no new features. Spectra Blocks is a new, separate plugin where all new feature development happens, aimed at new installs and anyone who wants ongoing additions. If you’re already using this plugin, no action is needed; installing Spectra Blocks is entirely optional whenever you’re ready. If you’re already using this plugin, you don’t need to do anything. If you want new features as they’re released, you can install Spectra Blocks separately, whenever you’re ready. There’s no deadline and no required migration. What’s included Spectra Legacy includes the full block library your site is already built on: layout tools, content and post blocks, form and SEO blocks, social blocks, and site tools like Popup Builder and Coming Soon mode. Blocks included Core — Container, Heading, Image, Icon, Buttons, Info Box, Call To Action, Countdown Content — Sliders, Content Timeline, Google Maps, Inline Notices, Tabs, Taxonomy List, Price List (Loop Builder in Spectra Pro Legacy) Post — Counter, Modal Popup, Post Carousel, Post Grid, Post Timeline Social — Instagram Feed, Blockquote, Social Share, Team, Testimonials Forms — Contact form, newsletter signup, suggestion form, reCAPTCHA (registration/login forms in Spectra Pro Legacy) SEO — FAQ, How-To, Review, Table of Contents Dynamic content — Archive feed filtering by date, author, category, and post type Site tools — Popup Builder, Coming Soon mode, block animations, local Google Fonts, global styling defaults About the AI block The AI block previously included in this plugin is now called ZipAI. It still works in Spectra Legacy for compatibility. New AI features are being built in Spectra Blocks going forward. Compatibility Works with most standard WordPress themes, including Spectra One, Astra, Blocksy, and GeneratePress. Compatible with common plugins including WooCommerce, SureCart, Gravity Forms, LearnDash, MemberPress, and Yoast SEO. See our documentation for the full compatibility list. Support & community Spectra Legacy is actively maintained — security patches, compatibility updates, and support all continue. This plugin is not deprecated. Support forum: use the Support tab on this page Documentation: wpspectra.com/docs Facebook Group: Web Creators by Astra Facebook: Spectra X (Twitter): @wpspectra Contribute Spectra is open source. Browse the code or contribute on GitHub: brainstormforce/wp-spectra Credits Our external packages use Rating Star Component that are distributed under the terms of the ISC. While Slick, Lottie and Striptags is distributed under the terms of the MIT. Additionally, we incorporate FontAwesome v6 under the CC BY 4.0 License, and dnd kit licensed under the MIT License.