Meet Matt Medeiros
Matt runs the WP Minute, a platform focused on informing, educating, and entertaining WordPress professionals through a newsletter, podcast, YouTube channel, and courses. In his role as Community Evangelist at Gravity Forms, he spends his time talking with users, gathering real-world feedback, and helping teams understand how WordPress products are being used in practice.
That combination of agency experience, media work, and product perspective is what makes this conversation especially grounded. Matt has lived agency life, and he is watching how AI is reshaping expectations in real time.
Speed is not the same as stability
One of Matt’s clearest warnings was about confusing fast output with long-term stability. AI can generate results quickly, but speed alone does not guarantee a foundation agencies can support with confidence.
He compared today’s moment to an earlier phase in WordPress, when agencies regularly inherited sites built cheaply and quickly, only to discover later that they could not evolve with a client’s business. The rebuild always cost more than doing it right the first time. As Matt put it, “People were conditioned to ‘I only paid 500 bucks,’” and the disconnect became painfully clear when a rebuild was required.
AI can create a similar risk. Matt remarked, “If you ask [AI] to build a landing page a hundred times, you will get a hundred different outcomes.” WordPress, when paired with a consistent foundation, gives agencies a reliable starting point every time.
That is where intentional setup matters. For agencies looking to build repeatability into their workflow, our livestream Creating your starter site: Foundations walks through how to create a structured starter site that supports faster launches without sacrificing stability.
The lesson is not to avoid speed, but to make sure it is anchored in a foundation you can stand behind.
WordPress still matters, but “WordPress and…” is becoming the baseline
Matt also acknowledged a shift many agencies are already navigating. WordPress remains a powerful foundation, but it is increasingly paired with other tools and services.
For some agencies, that “and” might be eCommerce, marketing automation, analytics, or performance optimization. The point is not abandoning WordPress, but recognizing that clients are building businesses, not just websites.
Matt noted that agencies often underestimate the value they bring simply because it feels routine. Connecting a site to email marketing, configuring DNS, or helping a client understand how content and communication work together may feel basic to a professional, but to a client it represents expertise and reassurance. “I didn’t just build you a website,” Matt said. “I built you this complete platform.”
That platform mindset is where many agencies continue to differentiate, even as tools evolve.
The agency edge is still human
Throughout the conversation, Matt returned to one core idea: trust. Technology changes quickly, but trust is still the currency agencies operate on.
AI can generate content, layouts, and ideas, but it cannot replace context or accountability. Matt encouraged agencies to lean into AI conversations rather than avoiding them. Clients are already experimenting, often without a clear sense of what the outputs mean or how they fit into a larger system. Agencies that step in as guides help clients make better decisions and avoid costly missteps.
As Matt put it, “You still need that human on the other side,” especially when things break, need to scale, or require judgment. That human role is where value continues to concentrate.
Hosting is part of the WordPress experience
When the discussion turned to hosting, Matt reframed it as a core part of the WordPress experience rather than a technical afterthought.
Clients do not distinguish between their site and the infrastructure behind it. When performance suffers or reliability becomes an issue, it reflects on the entire setup. “It’s not about gigabytes or bandwidth,” Matt explained. “It’s about understanding what a project needs and where it should live.”
As WordPress sites take on more responsibility and AI introduces new layers of complexity, that foundation becomes even more critical. Agencies that help clients make informed hosting decisions are protecting both the site and the relationship.
A reminder about AI-generated content
Matt also shared a candid example from his own work. He used AI to turn a video transcript into a blog post and published it with minimal editing. The result was accurate, but it did not quite land. A trusted peer told him plainly that it “sounded way too AI generated.”
The lesson was not that AI failed, but that it still requires human judgment. AI can accelerate planning and iteration, but the quality of the output depends heavily on how clearly it is guided and how carefully it is reviewed.
That is where prompt architecture matters. The difference between content that feels generic and content that reflects real expertise often comes down to how well the input is structured, how much context is provided, and how much human refinement happens after the first draft.
If you want to go deeper on that skill set, our past livestream, Mastering prompt architecture: how to get AI to finally give you what you asked for, walks through practical ways to guide AI tools more effectively and use them as a support layer rather than a replacement for your voice and experience.
As Matt’s example shows, even when AI is working from your own words, it still needs a human editor to shape the final result. Tools can help you move faster, but judgment is what makes the work feel finished and resonate with the right audience.
Wrapping it all up
This conversation was less about predicting the future and more about grounding agencies in what has always mattered.
AI will continue to change how work gets done. WordPress will continue to evolve. Tools will come and go. But agencies that focus on stable foundations, clear guidance, and human relationships are not being replaced; they are being needed in new ways.
As Matt framed it, the real value does not come from how fast something can be built, but from knowing how to support it, adapt it, and stand behind it over time.
For agencies navigating a noisy, fast-moving landscape, that perspective is not just reassuring. It is practical.
If you want to hear these ideas unpacked in Matt's own words, with more nuance and examples, the full conversation is available on our YouTube channel. It's well worth the time for anyone interested in where agency work is headed next.
