PHPverse 2026

Welcome to PHPverse 2026 – where everything feels a bit bigger, louder, and more alive. In this opening session, you'll get a sense of the journey ahead, from where PHP stands today to where it's moving next.

Get a glimpse of the bigger picture of PHP together with the newly appointed Executive Director of the PHP Foundation. You'll explore where the ecosystem is growing, what's changing, and why now is such an exciting moment to be part of it.

​​That asterisk is doing a lot of work – and it's where Ashley finds the most interesting details. After months of tuning and benchmarking his setup, his AI agents now write PHP he's always happy to ship: code that matches his style, follows conventions, writes great tests, QAs itself, designs well, and keeps docs up to date.

In this talk, he'll show you his real day-to-day setup live, explain what he's learned on this journey, and give you a checklist you can use to get your own projects writing PHP you don't have to fight.

Many developers often recycle the same criticisms of WordPress from a decade ago, but the platform has been evolving faster than its reputation. From block-based development and a move to modern PHP standards, to improved performance and tooling, this talk challenges the outdated narratives and makes the case that WordPress deserves a fresh evaluation from the developer community.

Take a look behind the scenes of the infrastructure that keeps the PHP ecosystem moving. You'll gain a new appreciation for the scale, complexity, and engineering behind it.

Just when you think you've seen it all, the PHPverse opens up something new. Expect exclusive drops, interactive moments, and a few surprises designed to pull you even deeper into the experience.

Running a large open-source project for 20 years is as much a human challenge as a technical one. Success comes down to three things: the right guardrails to keep everyone aligned, the right tools to automate as much as possible, and the patience to play the long game, guided by a consistent vision. But staying relevant means never standing still. And AI is now rewriting the rules.

Get inside the process that shapes the future of the language. You'll understand how ideas become features – and how the community influences what comes next.

Step beyond PHP and look at the bigger shift in software development. You'll explore how AI is transforming the role of developers – and what it means for you.

As we wrap up, you'll leave with a clearer sense of where PHP is going and your place within it. The PHPverse doesn't end here – it keeps expanding, and you're part of it.