What We Learned at WordCamp Asia 2026 in Mumbai

WordCamp Asia 2026 just wrapped in Mumbai, and it was one of the largest WordPress events ever. WordPress users, developers, and creators gathered at the Jio World Convention Centre for three days of building and learning together.

Before we get into the highlights, a massive thank you to the organizers, volunteers, and speakers who made this happen. Attendees came from right here in Mumbai, across India, and around the globe.

Contributor Day kicked things off

If you’ve never heard of Contributor Day, it’s exactly what it sounds like — people sit down together and contribute to the open-source WordPress project. Code, documentation, translations, community planning, and more.

The magic isn’t just the work that gets done. It’s the connections. New contributors sat alongside people who’ve worked on WordPress core for over a decade. Ideas got shared. Friendships started and renewed. This is where WordPress’s “extended family” energy comes from. Find the full official recap post here.

Sessions worth your time

After contributor day, we held two full days of talks that covered everything from enterprise scaling to cross-border payments. You can watch every session on YouTube. Here are a few we attended and want to spotlight.

Education initiatives in the WordPress ecosystem

A dedicated panel covered WordPress Education — the growing effort to bring WordPress directly to students through campus events, student clubs, and a credits program that partners with universities to integrate WordPress into their curriculum. Real-world, hands-on open source experience for the next generation of web creators.

The Speed Build Challenge

Moderated by our own Jamie Marsland, this one packed the room. Ajay Maurya and Craig Gomes went head-to-head — one using AI, one going fully old-school — with 30 minutes to rebuild a complete site using only the Full Site Editor. No page builders, no custom code. There was no clear winner, which made it even more fun.

Danny Sullivan at the Google booth

Danny Sullivan is a Google Search Director and one of the most well-known voices in SEO. He was right there live at the Google booth, giving 1:1 advice to WordPress folks in person. While this wasn’t an official session on the schedule, it is the kind of thing that only happens at a WordCamp.

We heard him share that the same long-standing principles of quality content for good SEO still apply in today’s AI world. But it’s even more important now to have a strong point of view, a distinct voice, or a unique position. Without that, you’re just creating commodity content, which is less likely to be cited or used by LLMs. Content remains king.

Mary Hubbard’s magic wand

Mary Hubbard, Executive Director of WordPress, was asked what one surprising thing she’d change about WordPress if she had a magic wand. Her answer was to improve the WordPress.org plugin directory by treating it as a product and less like infrastructure. A lot of heads nodded at that one, and we look forward to helping make that vision a reality.

AI was everywhere

No surprise, but AI came up often throughout the conference. Including a talk from Nirav Mehta, a Mumbai-based entrepreneur. His Lost & Found in AI Wonderland session was a walkthrough of what actually worked (and what didn’t) when his team tried to apply AI across development, marketing, and operations.

Nirav reminded us that like a hammer, AI is only a tool. When you hold a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail. AI may not always be the right tool for the job. In a time full of AI excitement, that kind of honesty was refreshing.

What WordPress.com brought to Mumbai

The WordPress.com team showed up strong with a few things to share, and the conversations at our booth didn’t stop all week.

Plugins and themes on every paid plan. We made sure everyone knew: you can now install plugins and themes on all WordPress.com paid plans. Developers and agencies who build on WordPress every day loved hearing about the flexibility this means for pricing and features on our hosting platform.

A new WordPress agent on Telegram. We showed off a brand new Open-Claw-inspired WordPress agent you can chat with directly from Telegram — with WhatsApp and more platforms coming soon. The idea of managing every aspect of your WordPress site through a conversation on your phone sparked a lot of “wait, what if…” moments at the booth. More on this soon!

Your feedback is heard. Beyond the demos, we spent a lot of time talking to users, agencies, and developers who gave us direct, honest feedback about what’s working and what isn’t on WordPress.com. We’re already bringing all that learning into our roadmap and future plans. A huge thank you to everyone we chatted with.

The WordPress community is as strong as ever

It is clear after a week in Mumbai that this community is growing, and the momentum is real.

The hallway conversations, the contributor sprints, the after-parties, the people who traveled halfway around the world to be in the same room — that energy isn’t slowing down.

If you’ve never been to a WordCamp, make this your year. And if a full conference feels like a big step, start with a local meetup. Find one near you at events.wordpress.org.

Now with four flagship WordCamps a year: