I Read the “Official” WordPress in 2025 Report

You might have noticed a new report published on the official website of the WordPress project – here. I’m emphasizing the word “official” because the publication location is quite strategic, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

Long story short, while the report is packed with some legitimately interesting CMS industry info, let’s be real: it’s mostly just a piece of enterprise PR designed to get big-company execs comfortable dropping seven figures on WordPress projects. 🤑

The report comes from Human Made, an enterprise WordPress agency, and they think (…checks notes…) that WordPress is pretty great! Okay, hardly a surprise. (Don’t get me wrong, though, I also think WordPress is great – perhaps with a bit different motives.)

But before we get too snarky, there’s some interesting data and trends worth unpacking here:

Show me the (CMS) money!

The CMS sector funding data tells a wild story, according to Human Made. I didn’t look up the hard numbers myself, but from what I can see in the chart:

• 2020: <$100M (pre-hype)
• 2021: $1.5B (peak hype)
• 2022: ~$300M (reality check)
• 2023: next to nothing
• 2024: ~$300M

What’s the story here? This funding rollercoaster perfectly captures the “headless CMS gold rush” of 2021. VCs seemed to be throwing money at anyone promising to revolutionize content management with a “modern, API-first approach.”

Fast forward to 2024, and that narrative has aged about as well as your company’s metaverse strategy. The report (kinda gleefully) points out that many of these next-gen platforms are now scrambling to add basic content editing features that WordPress has had for years.

The AI angle (because of course)

No enterprise report in 2025 would be complete without AI predictions, and this one doesn’t disappoint.

The report envisions WordPress becoming an “intelligent content operating system” with “multi-agent and LLM-agnostic ecosystem” – direct quotes. If that sounds like AI buzzword bingo, well…

But here’s where it gets interesting: While proprietary CMS vendors are rushing to add ChatGPT-style features, the report argues that WordPress’ open-source nature could enable deeper AI integration. Think less “AI writes your blog posts” and more “AI orchestrates your entire content workflow.”

This is classic enterprise positioning – taking WordPress’ slower, community-driven development approach and spinning it as a feature, not a bug. The platform’s “legacy” reputation – long considered a weakness – is also being reframed as battle-tested reliability.

The great headless #drama

Perhaps the spiciest part of the report – and I kind of like it, I have to admit – is its takedown of headless CMS companies.

“Pure headless approach simply never took off for large complex sites.”

Plus there were points about Contentful’s reduced ad spend and negative Glassdoor reviews (savage).

And, my favorite, claims headless vendors are “working backwards” to add features WordPress already has.

The report’s solution? Surprise! A “hybrid approach” that WordPress just happens to be good at. I feel that this document criticizes competitors too heavily while presenting WordPress as the solution to everything all throughout.

The report name-drops some impressive recent WordPress adoptions. You’ve probably seen some of them before: NASA, Disney, CNN, The New York Post, Harvard, Amnesty International.

Of course, there’s no knowing how far on the spectrum of “vanilla WordPress → 100% custom build with WordPress just providing the core features” those sites are. Plus, the document claims broad enterprise adoption but only lists those handful of high-profile examples.

The big picture

While traditional WordPress users and devs might roll their eyes at another “enterprise WordPress” pitch, this report wasn’t written for them.

It’s aimed squarely at:

• C-suite execs who need reassurance about WordPress
• IT directors worried about their next platform choice
• Digital transformation leaders looking to cut costs

The document even ends with the author’s contact information and a pitch for their services.

So why am I even telling you about it?

Looping back to the start, I’m writing about this report mainly because it was published on the official website of the WordPress project. I was surprised to see such heavily commercialized content and sales pitches inside. This should be labeled as an ad or some form of “partner content.”

Here’s my biggest head-scratcher: 🤔

For a report titled “WordPress in 2025” published on WordPress’ official website, it’s surprisingly selective about what “WordPress” means.

You won’t find any mention of:

• The state of the WordPress community
• The future of WordCamps and events
• THE ongoing lawsuit trademark dispute
• The somewhat murky situation around who actually controls wordpress.org – I mean, we know, but to what extent?
• The broader project governance issues – with this, even a simple, “Hey guys, we actually got this under control behind the curtains” would have been enough – for me at least.

So why the omissions?

Well, simple…

Enterprise customers don’t like controversy or uncertainty. It’s much easier to sell WordPress as a cutting-edge enterprise solution when you focus solely on “what’s going well” while ignoring the sometimes messy reality of a massive open-source project.

This should have been titled “WordPress in the Enterprise Sector in 2025” and published on Human Made’s own website. That would have been perfectly fine. We all know enterprise marketing when we see it. But positioning it as a comprehensive look at “WordPress in 2025” feels a bit like calling your company’s holiday party the “State of the Universe.”

I guess I even have a takeaway lesson here – although I haven’t planned for it:

When reading industry reports, always ask yourself what’s not being said. Sometimes the omissions tell a more interesting story than what made it onto the page.

Things to watch for

Let’s see if Human Made can wish these into existence:

• Will enterprise WordPress adoption actually accelerate in 2025?
• Can the open-source community deliver on these AI ecosystem promises?
• Will proprietary CMS vendors just roll over and not respond?

While it’s easy (and fun) to be skeptical of the enterprise PR angle, the report does highlight some real trends in the CMS space. Open-source platforms appear to be gaining ground as companies tighten their belts. Plus, WordPress’ massive ecosystem and new features make it a more credible enterprise player than ever (I guess).

Just maybe don’t bet your career on those “100x AI play” predictions quite yet. 🤷‍♂️

What do you think?

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