WordCamp Europe 2026 Takeaways

A couple of personal takeaways from my attendance of #WCEU 2026.

• WordPress’ decline is probably understated. In terms of the percentage of new sites starting on WordPress, the numbers are way down compared to a couple of years ago.
• This is reflected in the numbers for most product owners I spoke to. Pretty much everyone is experiencing declining new revenue.
• No one has a good workflow for managing their WordPress site with AI yet. No one. Some thought their flow was good, but that’s only because they’ve never run an agent on a local static site and seen how it rips.
• Everyone is either looking outside the WordPress ecosystem or already has one foot out the door, as a hedge.
• Matt deciding at the last minute not to board his plane to Kraków did not help raise the mood around WP leadership.

This is just my personal observation. I hope I’m wrong, because this is a pretty sour takeaway from what otherwise was an amazing couple of days. The venue, event, people, and Kraków itself were all amazing. Absolutely top-notch.