Automattic Inc., the company that runs WordPress.com and contributes to the open-source WordPress content management software, today released a new artificial intelligence-powered tool that can help users write and edit blog posts.

The new tool is called the Jetpack AI Assistant and it is immediately available on WordPress.com and lives directly in the editor interface where users can engage with it to generate content directly. The AI assistant can also be integrated into any other WordPress installation using Jetpack, an all-in-one plugin for WordPress with features that boost marketing, security, anti-spam efforts and more.

Using the tool a user can prompt it with “Write me a blog post about growing and harvesting strawberries in Arizona,” ask for a bulleted list of the necessary items needed to build a raised garden or a table of the costs of each item at stores. All of this would be customized and displayed in the blog post.

Once a post has been written, the AI is capable of editing text to tailor it to specific tones and styles, allowing writers to adjust their writing to fit their audiences better. For example, they can ask the AI to change the writing to be more empathetic, conversational, formal or other styles. Writers will also be able to provide AI-generated summaries for their posts as well as have it produce titles.

Of course, the AI assistant will also correct spelling and grammar mistakes in already written content like an editor to make certain that anything that was missed doesn’t get left behind. It could complement grammar-checking tools such as Grammarly.

The assistant launched with the capability to translate content between 12 different languages including Spanish, French, Chinese and Hindi. This makes WordPress.com and WordPress installations capable of reaching global audiences, and if the person writing isn’t an English speaker, it will enable them to translate from their native language into English.

The assistant appears to be generative AI technology, similar to OpenAI LP’s ChatGPT chatbot, which is a large language model capable of understanding and generating humanlike speech. Although the company did not reveal the details of what powers it under the hood, it has all the hallmarks.

This addition by Automattic is a fitting move for the company given the trend of companies adopting generative AI-powered assistants for business automation and content creation. In a very short time, OpenAI’s AI models have been adopted by Grammarly Inc.’s. GrammarlyGo  and Microsoft Corp.’s Office365 products such as Word. With the power of AI, users can use it to compose text, rewrite drafts and brainstorm ideas right in their editors.

Although this trend is most likely to allow users to increase productivity, it is also highly likely to produce a boom in low-quality, AI-generated content. According to usage statistics from W3Techs.com, WordPress is used by 63% of all the websites surveyed by the site, making up 43% of all known websites. With that reach, WordPress is the most common content management system used to create spam content websites.

Users can begin trying the new AI assistant for free and receive a quota of 20 requests, after which it will cost $10 per month.

Image: Automattic