Managed AI Capabilities Setup Guide

WP Engine managed AI is a suite of products for intelligent automation and AI agent coworking, to perform tasks in the WP Engine User Portal and your connected WordPress^® sites.¹

You can chat with our Coworker agent to perform tasks, or you can create your own automated tasks. You can use AI models from multiple different providers, aggregated into one connection that consumes WP Engine AI credits. This can simplify your token use for WP Engine and WordPress tasks into a single billing source, instead of connecting accounts from multiple providers.

Follow the connection steps below to use the AI Coworker, or to use an AI Chatbot for your website visitors:

1. Go to the AI menu for an environment. Go to the overview page for an environment and select AI from the environment’s sidebar menu.
   
2. Click the Install WP Engine AI button. This will install the plugin in WordPress. There is also a download link here if you want to install the plugin manually instead.
   
3. After it installs, click the Connect in WP Admin button. This will bring you into your WordPress Admin dashboard.
   
4. Click the WP Engine AI menu in the WordPress sidebar.
5. Click the Connect to WP Engine button. This will prompt you to log into and connect your WP Engine account.
   
6. After logging in, you’ll see a screen to select an account. Select the account associated with the environment you’re connecting, and then click Authorize to connect the account.
   
7. On the next screen, click the Install buttons next to the tools you want to use. There are install buttons for the back end Coworker AI, and for the front end AI Chatbot for your visitors. After your selected tools are installed, click the Continue button.
   
8. After continuing, you’ll be back on the main WP Engine AI page. You’ll see two new menu items under WP Engine AI in the WordPress sidebar of Coworker and Chatbot. You’ll also see options to Open each from the main overview page.
   
   1. Open Coworker to start chatting with the AI agent and have it help you with tasks in your WordPress dashboard.
      Read more about Coworker below.
   2. Open the Chatbot to start configuring the look and personality of your front end visitor chatbot before you activate it.
      Read more about your customer Chatbot below.

The AI Coworker agent can help you with tasks in your WordPress dashboard, and tasks in your WP Engine User Portal. You can chat with it in both dashboards.

To open Coworker in the User Portal you can go directly to my.wpengine.com/coworker, or you can follow the instructions below to find the link:

1. In the Portal (my.wpengine.com), select AI in the left sidebar.
2. Select AI Coworker in the secondary sidebar menu.
3. Click the Open Coworker button.
   

To open Coworker in your WordPress dashboard:

1. Make sure you’ve connected your WordPress site by following the directions in the Connect Coworker and Chatbot section above.
2. In your WordPress dashboard, go WP Engine AI > Coworker, in the WordPress sidebar.
   

To get an idea of the tasks you can do with Coworker in the User Portal, the easiest way is to ask Coworker what it can do. Since capabilities can change, this is a good way to get a current list.

Some example tasks Coworker can perform for you include:

• Create, edit, search, and delete posts and pages.
• Find and replace text across site content.
• Edit blocks live in the block editor.
• Manage categories, tags, and other taxonomies.
• Register custom post types, taxonomies, and ACF field groups.
• Search the Media Library, upload images, and find free images on Openverse.
• Moderate comments.
• Check site health, site info.
• List and activate plugins.
• Answer questions from the site’s knowledge base.
• Create, restore, and download backups.
• Add domains, check DNS and SSL status.
• Purge caches and manage cache exclusions.
• Create, copy, and delete environments.
• Manage account users and SSH keys.
• View usage and site performance reports.
• Work across multiple sites and WP Engine accounts at once.

The AI Chatbot lets your website visitors ask questions about your content and products.

To start customizing your Chatbot before you enable it:

1. Go to WP Engine AI > Chatbot, in the WordPress sidebar.
   You’ll see three tabs here:
   1. Appearance
   2. Personality
   3. Settings
2. In the first tab labeled Appearance, customize the look of your chat window with options like colors, icon, and typography.
   
3. Select the Personality tab, and set your choices for personality, tone, greetings, and conversation starters.
   
4. Select the Settings tab, and adjust your Chatbot settings. You can choose from options like:
   1. Toggle the Chatbot on or off.
   2. Write instructions for your Chatbot’s AI agent to describe its role and guidelines for interacting with your website visitors.
   3. Connect your site’s content to the available knowledge base of the AI agent. When connected and your content is indexed, the Chatbot will be able to answer your visitor’s questions about your content.
   4. Set the visibility of the Chatbot based on user type or selected pages.
   5. Set proactive messages based on page interaction triggers.
   6. Select the AI model used for the AI agent.
5. Click Save in the top right once you’ve made your selections.

WP Engine’s MCP (Model Context Protocol) service lets you connect 3rd-party AI tools (e.g. Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT), to your WP Engine account and WordPress sites, to perform tasks similar to the WP Engine Coworker agent.

Follow the instructions in our developer docs to make the MCP connection. After providing the commands to your 3rd-party AI tool, you’ll be prompted to make an OAuth connection by logging into WP Engine to complete the connection.

• https://developers.wpengine.com/docs/ai/api/mcp

The AI API is WP Engine managed AI’s developer API, for using AI features from your own code. You can perform tasks with LLM models from code outside of your WordPress site, or for tasks within your WordPress site that the AI Connector doesn’t offer.

Follow the instructions in our developer docs to connect and use the AI API:

• https://developers.wpengine.com/docs/ai/api/

Some example types of tasks that you can perform with the AI API are: