We’re done building WordPress websites at TJ Digital. I’ve been building them for 17 years. About half our clients still run on one, and I don’t expect us to build another.
The reason is that WordPress isn’t AI native. That’s the thing that now decides how fast a website can be built, changed, and maintained.
WordPress still powers 41.5% of all websites. It will be around for a long time. The question worth asking is what your next website should be built on.
Why Isn’t WordPress AI-Native?
WordPress was built around FTP, PHP, themes, and plugins. Your content gets stored as blocks of HTML inside a database. An AI model reading that sees a blob of markup with no clear structure to work with.
You can connect AI to WordPress. There are MCP servers for it, and we’ve used them. We even published a page that Claude wrote and shipped into our WordPress site from a single prompt.
That’s still a different thing from being AI native. Claude can’t build you a WordPress website the way it can build you an HTML website. Connect AI to WordPress and it fights you every step of the way.
What We Switched To Instead
We spent about six months looking at AI-native CMS options. I was hopeful for EmDash. We tried Payload.
Our web development lead, Hana, built her own CMS to see how close she could get. It was clear our WordPress days were numbered. We just didn’t know what we’d move to.
Fable is what settled it. It’s good enough at software engineering that we’ve been able to build a lot of our own software. One of those builds is our dream CMS.
Hana spun the whole thing up in a weekend. Here’s what it does:
- Every feature we actually cared about from WordPress, including a drag-and-drop page builder
- Pages built in HTML with Next.js
- Direct integration with the knowledge base we keep for each client on GitHub
- A migration path for existing sites, handled in-house
- Hosting on Vercel, so clients still own their website and we get access to it
Because the site is HTML and JavaScript files, moving to another CMS later would be simple. I don’t think we’ll need to. AI has gotten good enough at software development that maintaining our own platform makes sense now.
We have a small team of AI-native developers doing exactly that.
What Actually Changes When You Switch Platforms
The change shows up in how the work gets done. Your visitors see the same website.
| WordPress | The CMS we built | |
| Pages built with | PHP themes and plugins | HTML and Next.js |
| Content stored as | HTML inside a database | Structured files in the repo |
| AI editing the site | Possible through adapters, slow and brittle | Native, the AI reads the actual site |
| Adding functionality | Find and configure a plugin | Ask AI to build it |
| Hosting | Any PHP host | Vercel |
| Moving to another platform later | Export, convert, rebuild | Copy the files |
WordPress is still a good platform. I’ve argued for years that WordPress beats Webflow for most small business websites, and the plugin ecosystem is why. What changed is the cost of building custom software, which fell off a cliff.
Who Should Wait Before Switching?
E-commerce businesses should wait a bit longer. WooCommerce and Shopify handle product data, carts, checkout, payments, and PCI compliance inside one system. Rebuilding all of that on a headless stack is months of engineering work with real money moving through it.
If you sell physical products with live inventory and tax rules, keep your commerce engine where it is for now. You can still replace the storefront around it. Everything outside of checkout is fair game.
Does Migrating Off WordPress Hurt Your SEO?
Only if you change your URLs. To Google, the URL is the page. Change it and Google treats the old page as removed and the new one as brand new, which throws away the trust that page had built.
Preserve your slug structure through the migration. Where a URL has to change, set up a 301 redirect so most of the authority carries over. Handled that way, a migration is neutral for rankings and usually a win for page speed.
How to Choose the Platform Your Next Website Runs On
Ask three questions before you commit to anything:
- Can an AI model read and edit the actual site, or only reach it through an adapter?
- Do you own the files, and could you take them somewhere else next year?
- Does adding a feature mean finding a plugin, or asking for the feature to be built?
Those are the same questions behind getting a website ready for AI agents. Your platform decides how much friction sits between you and every change you want to make.
Is Switching Platforms Worth It for a Small Business?
Is WordPress going away?
No. WordPress still runs a huge share of the web and has a plugin for nearly everything. For most business owners the live question is what to build next, and existing sites will keep working fine.
Do I still own my website if it’s hosted on Vercel?
Yes. The site is a set of HTML and JavaScript files in a repository you own. Your agency gets access to work on it and the ownership stays with you.
Can AI edit my WordPress site right now?
It can, through MCP adapters. We’ve done it, including publishing a full page from a single prompt. The work runs slower and less reliably than editing a codebase directly.
How long should a small business wait before switching?
If your current site works and you’re not planning a rebuild, wait until you are. Migration makes sense when you already need new pages, a redesign, or a faster site. Over the next six months I expect we’ll recommend the switch to a lot of our clients as those rebuilds come up.
Where to Start If You’re Rebuilding Your Site
We build websites for small and medium-sized businesses to perform in both traditional search and AI search, on whichever platform fits the business. Contact TJ Digital to talk through what your next build should run on.