Automattic Acquires AI Company ‘WPAI’

Automattic has announced that it has acquired WPAI, a company specializing in AI-powered tools for WordPress. Founded two years ago, WPAI has developed innovative products like CodeWP (an AI IDE for WordPress developers), AgentWP (an AI agent for WordPress), and WP.Chat (a ChatGPT alternative for WordPress). No financial details of the deal have been disclosed.

WPAI’s founding members James LePage, Greg Hunt, and Ovidiu “Ovi” Iulian Galatan will join Automattic. “Our entire WPAI team is making the move to Automattic, and we’ll be integrating our products, data, and tools into both new and existing offerings. We couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead.”, James LePage shared on Twitter.

Automattic’s announcement post revealed that the founding members will “lead the exploration of applied AI as an interaction paradigm for WordPress. They’ll be working on testing, building, and integrating innovative AI solutions into the core ecosystem to redefine how users and developers work with WordPress.”

As part of the transition, CodeWP and AgentWP will be sunset in their current forms, the core technology powering these platforms will be reimagined and integrated into new offerings under the Automattic umbrella.

“We expect that all products will be completely sunset by January 9th, but it is up to Automattic on the exact timeline now.”, shared James LePage in the WPAI facebook group. “As we wind down our current products, monthly subscriptions will end without renewal, and annual subscribers will receive prorated refunds in the coming weeks.”, he continued.

While many are optimistic about the acquisition, some customers have expressed concerns. Some are worried that it’s disastrous for the current customers and they are not happy with CodeWP and AgentWP being sunset. But James Lepage has assured that “This move allows us to gather more resources and build a much more robust solution. We were punching way above our weight class. The agent will be back!”

Matt Mullenweg shared in his personal blog, “Very excited to share that we’ve acquired WPAI and the team is joining Automattic. They have some very cool products including CodeWP, AgentWP, and WP.chat.”

The acquisition comes on the heels of Automattic’s recent purchase of Harper, a grammar-checking tool tailored for developers. Harper’s founder, Elijah Potter, also joined Automattic as a Code Wrangler.