During his keynote address, Mullenweg briefly demonstrated how Telex would allow users to create Gutenberg blocks — or the modular bits of text, images, columns, and more — that make up a WordPress website. He showed off how one developer used the new tool to make a simple marketing animation.

Available on its own domain at telex.automattic.ai, Telex today is labeled as “experimental.” To use the service, you type in a prompt for which sort of content block you want to produce, which is returned as a .zip file you can install as a plug-in to a WordPress site or WordPress Playground. (The latter being the platform that lets you run WordPress in a web browser on any device without a host.)

Image Credits:Telex screenshot

The launch follows WordPress’s announcement earlier this year that it was forming an AI team to steward the development of AI products that align with the WordPress project’s long-term goals.

Early testers found that Telex still has a ways to go, as several test projects failed or needed additional work to run properly.

Though Mullenweg did stress that Telex was still a prototype, he was bullish on the potential for AI to further the WordPress mission over time.

“When we think about democratized publishing, like embedded in that, is very core to WordPress’ mission, has been taking things that were difficult to do, that required knowledge of coding or anything else, and … made it accessible to people. Made it accessible in a radically open way, in every language, at low cost, open source — we actually own it and have rights to it,” Mullenweg said.

The CEO also admitted there were parts of AI’s progress that could be scary, given the hype and the talk about AI potentially being a bubble — but that didn’t overrule his excitement.

“At the core of it, there is a seed of something, which is so enabling,” he said of AI. “It is an incredibly exciting time to be building for WordPress.”

Image Credits:Telex screenshot

Mullenweg also showed off another simpler AI tool, built with an hour or two of work during Contributor Day, which offered a WordPress help assistant inside the browser. And he spoke of his favorite AI browser — Perplexity’s Comet — which would allow users to interact with WordPress from its interface.

As for the legal drama that’s been surrounding the company over the past year or so, Mullenweg only offered a brief update. The company has been engaged in a dispute with hosting provider WP Engine, which Mullenweg alleges is profiting off the work WordPress does, without contributing enough back. He wants WP Engine to therefore license the WordPress trademark, which he says confuses customers about its association with the company.

“The quick update is, it’s working its way through the legal system. We trust in the fairness of the courts,” Mullenweg said. “If there’s any commentary, I’ll just say that there was a settlement conference, I showed up; the other CEO did not. But it is working its way through that. And that’s my only comment on that whole rigmarole.”