Hi,
I recently came across news that WordPress.com has introduced a native AI Assistant directly inside the editor (Introducing the WordPress AI Assistant — Now Built Into WordPress.com) . It seems that the tool can understand site structure and let users adjust layouts, rewrite or translate text, and generate or edit images, all through natural-language prompts, without leaving the editing environment.
Given that Pressbooks is built on WordPress, I’m curious about the roadmap:
Are there any plans for Pressbooks to integrate similar native AI editing capabilities?
How is the Pressbooks team thinking about AI-assisted authoring in general?
I’d be very interested to hear from others in the community (and from the Pressbooks team, if possible).
Thanks in advance for any insights,
Marie-Hélène Vézina
Université de Montréal
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Bonjour Marie-Hélène, thanks for bringing this up. It’s a great question and one we’ve been sitting with ourselves.
The short answer is: we’re thinking about it, but deliberately. We haven’t wanted to add AI features just because they’re everywhere right now. Our approach has been to first understand what problems our communities are actually trying to solve, and whether AI is genuinely the right tool for those problems.
So while AI-assisted authoring isn’t something you’ll see from us in the near term, it’s not off the table either. We’re paying close attention to what’s emerging, including what WordPress.com is doing, and we’re asking ourselves what meaningful, purposeful AI integration could look like in the context of how people actually use Pressbooks.
If others in the community have thoughts on what would be most useful to them, we’d love to hear it. That kind of input genuinely shapes how we think.
Best,
Başak Büyükçelen
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At HfH, we are currently piloting an AI plugin for WP that works also with PB, with a focus on integrating RAG-powered chatbots directly into our books. The plugin we’re using has exceeded our expectations in both functionality and quality. It is called AI Engine: The AI Plugin for WordPress . While it offers advanced content creation features, these are available through the Gutenberg editor rather than Pressbooks’ classic editor. The developers have also provided comprehensive documentation, which has been a valuable resource.
The chatbots perform exceptionally well, leveraging knowledge extracted from our books. Importing book chapters into a vector database for RAG is straightforward, and the plugin supports multiple chatbots within a single book. It allows us to set usage limits, generate reports, and choose from a variety of AI and vector database providers—giving us a lot of flexibility and freedom. Currently, we use Mistral AI and Qdrant, though OAI is also supported.
The plugin’s versatility is impressive: chatbots can be deployed book-wide, embedded in specific chapters via shortcodes, or even accessed through a custom frontend using the AI Engine API. We’ve been particularly pleased with both the plugin’s quality and the responsive support from the development team.
One of our pilot use cases is a chatbot in a book about counseling competencies for special education staff. Prospective users can simulate meetings, such as discussions with parents about their child’s challenges, and then evaluate the session. Other applications include streamlining content access, where the chatbot guides readers to the most relevant sections based on their queries.
This plugin enables us to build even more interactivity into our books, going beyond what is currently possible with H5P and embedded videos.
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