Why does AI matter to people who use WordPress?
At first glance, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and WordPress might seem to be unlikely bedfellows. WordPress would seem to be the important but reasonably straightforward job of content management. Artificial Intelligence makes us think of self-driving cars and a wide array of robots like R2D2, Terminator, Wall-E and Bumblebee.
But AI is best thought of as a family of technologies that range in capability from the reasonably modest through to the utterly mindblowing. We use many AI technologies in our daily lives without even thinking about them. Google search, Google Maps, Gmail spam filter, Google photos – pretty much any Google product you can name will use some type of AI. Same thing with Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon. Anywhere there are large data sets and difficult problems to solve, you’ll generally also find AI in play.
Anywhere there are large data sets and difficult problems to solve, you’ll generally also find AI in play.
But what about WordPress? Most WordPress and WooCommerce sites don’t have big data sets and most don’t run on the kind of hardware that AI needs. But there is nevertheless an intersection. So what are some examples of how you can get more out of WordPress by using AI technologies today?
What are some examples of AI services you can use with WordPress now?
- Clerk offers personalisation services for ecommerce stores (including WooCommerce). Personalisation is a great example of a problem that relies on crunching lots of data with lots of resources. So Clerk, like any of the AI-powered tools you can use within WordPress, is powered by an external service that’s integrated into WordPress.
What we especially like about Clerk is that it brings to WooCommerce functionality that you’d otherwise have to rely on a big centralised, proprietary software platform for. Oh, and it’ll probably increase your sales too 🙂 - WordLift automates several aspects of your site’s SEO. It uses Microsoft Azure’s cognitive services to analyse your content and suggest entity tags. Slightly annoyingly, these aren’t actually WordPress native tags but rather separate ‘entities’. That small gripe aside, it’s actually an incredibly powerful plugin that shows you how a machine (e.g. Google) is likely to see your content. Wordlift then has a bunch of neat features that lets you organise that extra data and manage your user experience around it.
Two things we love about Wordlift: first is that it helps editorial teams achieve better consistency with tagging. Second, through the entity concept, it allows sites to leverage Google’s Help, Hub Hero content strategy by ensuring that content always has great internal link structure. - Automatic Alternative Text does for images something similar (but simpler) to what WordLift does for text. It uses Microsoft’s vision cognitive service to analyse your images as you upload them and suggest alt text. Alt text is important for several reasons – internal searchability within the WP media library, accessibility for users with visual impairments and for SEO. But it’s a job that’s often overlooked, and when it is done, it’s often done poorly.
What we love about AAT is that it gives content editors an alt text suggestion for every new image uploaded, saving time and improving overall site quality.
How can I learn more about using AI and WordPress?
David had the privilege of being invited to speak at Press for Word in Israel, October 2021. For more examples of how you can use WordPress and AI together, we’d recommend watching David Lockie’s talk.
Angry’s David Lockie was the opening session! 
Our first in-person conference since COVID-19 and it was a busy one! The Advanced track at Press for Word, Israel 2021 Press for Word, Israel 2021
Where can I see examples of AI and WordPress in use today?
The most visible of the AI examples in this article is Clerk.io. You can see this in action on these sites:
How can we help you use AI services for WordPress at Angry Creative?
Angry Creative loves helping our clients by saving them time and making their sites better. With AI technologies we can usually do both at once! If you fancy trying some of the solutions we talk about in this article, or David’s talk, please do get in touch.
Or if you’re the kind of person who wants to work with a WooCommerce-focused company that invests in using AI, please do find out more and get in touch!