I’ve been thinking about where my Visual HTML Editor could go next.
Right now, the plugin solves a simple problem:
AI is incredibly good at generating HTML, but HTML isn’t particularly friendly for most WordPress users to edit.
The plugin sits in the middle. AI creates the layout, and users can safely edit text, images, links, and buttons without touching the code.
But what if that’s only phase one?
HTML as the creative layer
One of the challenges with AI-generated HTML is that WordPress plugins don’t really understand it.
To WordPress, this:
<h1>My Product</h1>
<p>Best coffee mug ever.</p>is just HTML.
There’s no meaning behind it.
But what if we added a layer of structure?
<h1 data-field="product-title">My Product</h1>
<p data-field="product-description">Best coffee mug ever.</p>Now WordPress knows what those pieces of content actually are.
And that opens up some interesting possibilities.
WooCommerce without WooCommerce templates
Imagine asking ChatGPT to design a beautiful product page.
The AI creates the layout in HTML.
Then the plugin detects fields such as:
<div data-product-title></div>
<div data-product-price></div>
<div data-add-to-cart></div>WooCommerce automatically injects the live product data.
The user gets complete design freedom, while WooCommerce still handles pricing, inventory, carts, and checkout.
Instead of designing inside WooCommerce, you design with AI and connect the page to WooCommerce afterwards.
Jetpack Forms on any AI-generated design
Today, AI can generate attractive form layouts.
The problem is they’re usually just static HTML.
What if the plugin recognised something like:
<form data-jetpack-form>and automatically connected it to Jetpack Forms?
The user creates the design with AI.
Jetpack handles submissions, notifications, spam protection, and storage.
The form looks exactly how the user wants because the design came from AI, not a predefined block.
Making HTML understandable to plugins
This idea isn’t limited to WooCommerce or forms.
Imagine plugins being able to register their own fields:
- Events plugins could inject event data
- Membership plugins could inject member content
- Newsletter plugins could inject signup forms
- SEO plugins could understand page structure
- Translation plugins could target specific content regions
The plugin becomes a bridge between AI-generated HTML and the wider WordPress ecosystem.
A structured layer behind the scenes
The really interesting part may be creating a structured representation of the page.
Something like:
{
"hero": {
"headline": "Build better websites",
"description": "Create pages with AI and edit them visually."
}
}The HTML becomes the presentation layer.
The structured data becomes the content layer.
Plugins interact with the content layer.
Users interact with the visual editor.
AI can work with both.
WordPress doesn’t need to generate the HTML
For years we’ve expected WordPress to generate the page.
AI changes that.
What if WordPress simply became the engine behind the page?
AI creates the design.
The Visual HTML Editor makes it editable.
WordPress plugins provide functionality.
The user gets the best of all three worlds.
The next phase
I don’t think the future is HTML replacing WordPress.
I think the future might be:
AI creates the HTML.
WordPress understands the structure.
Plugins provide the functionality.
The Visual HTML Editor already solves the first part.
The next challenge is teaching WordPress what the HTML actually means.
That’s where things start to get interesting.
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