🧩 We deliberately skipped WordPress's new native AI connector — here's why

When WordPress 7 shipped its native AI Connectors API, a lot of plugin makers rushed to integrate. We didn't. 🐢

Here's the honest reasoning behind that call, as makers of Fabio Chatbot (an AI chatbot plugin for WordPress):

The trade-off nobody talks about ⚖️ Right now, our users set their own API keys directly inside Fabio Chatbot. We control exactly how those credentials are stored and handled — no middle layer, no surprises. Switching to the native connector means outsourcing that trust to a brand-new WordPress core system. Convenient? Sure. But it's new, unproven at scale, and touching user API keys is not where we want to be an early adopter. 🔐

So we made the unsexy choice: wait and watch, rather than ship a shiny integration that could put our users' credentials at risk. We'll move when the security story is solid, not when it's trendy.

What we shipped instead: v3.6.9.2 🚀 Instead of chasing the new connector, we doubled down on something our users actually asked for — better response tones.

Fabio Chatbot has always let site owners pick how their chatbot "speaks":

• 🟦 Professional — confident, sales-driven

• 🟨 Friendly — warm, casual, approachable

• 🟥 Serious — strictly factual, zero fluff

This release sharpens the prompt engineering behind all three, so responses stay consistently on-brand instead of occasionally drifting into generic-AI-speak.

The takeaway 💡 Sometimes the best move as an indie plugin maker isn't shipping the flashy new integration — it's saying "not yet" and putting that time into polishing what already works. Security debt is way more expensive to pay off later than a missed trend cycle now.

Curious what other makers here think — would you have made the same call, or moved fast on the native connector? 👇